Acton-Boxborough School Committee Meeting - October 19th, 2023

001just giving everybody a one minute warning before our Social Hour needs to end and our business meeting needs to begin okay noting the hour in the presence of a quorum I call the acting boxboro Regional school committee to order members of the public who wish wish to watch the meeting online may do so on acting TV's YouTube channel found at the top of our agenda as a reminder this meeting is being recorded and will be be posted on actant TV's website at actant tv.org bless you and good evening um so welcome to our October 19th meeting uh we are going to get right into our business tonight we've got some really exciting updates so first I'd like to invite some of our high school student Representatives forward to the mic um please uh whoever is

002presenting please come up introduce yourself since there are some new committee members here as well um and uh please share your perspective on what's Happening uh from a student perspective and as a reminder this is par policy jib student involvement in decision- making hi Molly hi I'm Molly I'm a junior and I am going to have a few things to talk about today and I know there's a f minute limit so I'm going to try and speed them all up um first um I have a friend who is disabled in school and she uses a walker and I've recently went walking around school with with her dist sring our freeze and stuff we've realized that we have a lack of ramps in our school so um if you know anything about the layout of the

003high school there's kind of like a lower level on the first floor there's an upper level on the first floor and then there's the top floor so going from the lower level to the upper level of the first floor um there's like only a ramp in East Wing So if you want to get from the lower level of the first floor to the upper level of the first floor in the West Wing you have to go all the way around to the east wing and then make your way back because there's no elevator or there's no ramp on that side of the building so I do think I know a construction project is definitely big and it's not something that can really happen during the school year but I did think that was something I

004should mention um also I have another disabled friend who has been having a lot of trouble with Administration getting a disabled parking pass um she's had a lot of trouble with the Massachusetts state government um getting one so she's been trying to work with her assistant principal and her counselor is getting one but she's had a lot of trouble with that so I just wanted to make you guys aware of that um I was going to say something else what was my one other thing oh yeah yeah okay and one other thing um my friend wanted me to bring up a woman's studies class she thinks that that's something we should have in our school because we do have we have the critical race Theory class now I forgot what it's called understanding race there

005we go um we do have a lot of classes that are like starting to build up over the years so we she thinks that's something that should exist thank you thanks Molly anybody else from the high school all right hi guys um my name is Julia I am now a sophomore um just a couple things I think dixa just came in so I'll leave the homecoming to her um I just had a quick thing that I've noticed in my grade that has been a bit of a concern so we've noticed that sometimes there's a lack of transparency between the students and the teachers with regards to kind of what materials taught in class are considered to be crucial to this course um and are like taught throughout all of the teachers of that one course

006whereas some other materials are more supplemental um and are kind of just like I said supplement to the actual course load so I think um while the specific issue was nicely resolved with the teacher which is great to see um I just like to see more transparency between students and teachers um especially when multiple teachers are teaching the same class and yeah just something to be aware of thank you thanks Julia dixa hello I'm dixa I'm a sophomore this year and um I just wanted to talk about Homecoming this year um student council is organizing it and the theme is Hollywood night and so that is something to look forward to another is the Masquerade concert that the orchestra is organizing between the RJ gray Orchestra and the high school orchestra so that's a lovely

007opportunity for um the middle schoolers to see what the high school orchestra is like and something else that I want to bring up is kind of um how at the end of the term there's a lot of assessments and so this is just a reason that causes stress to a lot of students hence the pajamas and the Math Finder but um so just something that I want to um bring attention to thank you thank you very much I will say that I was stressed out on parents night at the high school trying to get from Southeast to Northwest in the five minutes passing time that I had and I can only imagine what it's like if you have to find a single stall restroom or a ramp on your way so definitely feel that pain

008all right uh moving on to public participation so per our school committee policy BH members of the public are invited to speak for up to 3 minutes we will dedicate a maximum of 20 minutes to public participation uh speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking as a reminder the committee does not typically respond to comments during public participation and also this will be the only time uh the public will be invited to address the committee so please do come forward with items that are both on and off the agenda any members of the public wish to speak do you recognize me from a mile away John good evening John Peterson 6 Jackson Drive I attended the ALG meeting this Monday and these early budget discussions make clear that this will be a painful

009budget year the ALG spreadsheet states that the active Levy limit will be 100.3 million for fy2 approximately 4% of the act in property tax revenues will be consumed by the $3.9 million Minute Man assessment consisting of $3.45 million for operations and 0.45 million for Debt Service the minimum budget for the current fiscal year FY 24 of $30 million which is 30% of the District budget will serve a projected enrollment of 734 students which is 14% of the district enrollment I suggest that the school committee take three approaches to reducing the minute manif to Acton first as is the casa as in the case of special education services generally the school committee should Lobby for additional funding for minute man from The Commonwealth the case for higher levels of State support for these significant per pupil

010expenses which were $333,000 a year in 2021 is clear the minute man per pupil expense is nearly double our district per pupil expense second the school committee should include minute man in a future school committee budget agenda and invite Pam Norris acon represent resentative to Minute Man and the minute man Administration to participate in the discussion of the importance of reducing Minute Man's per pupil cost or at a minimum limiting its rate of growth finally the school committee and administration should continue to work to make the regular education program at abhs as attractive as possible to our student base to reduce the number of students selecting educational programs outside the district thank you John any other members of the public wish to comment okay on to our superintendent update Peter all right so good evening

011everyone um just start by saying it was absolutely wonderful and uplifting to see so many people come out uh this past Sunday for the walk against hate um I want to you know just thank Congregation Beth Elohim for taking the lead in organizing that uh there were well over 400 members of the community uh we had students partic participate staff faculty administrators school committee um but just a really great positive uplifting event and we're so thankful that that took place um want to also just thank you know some members of the school committee you had an opportunity to visit um McCarthy Town Elementary School Miriam Elementary School the junior high and the high school um last couple of weeks uh that was really a personal highlight for me of the last two weeks uh being

012able to get into teachers classrooms see what they were doing show off all the great work that our educators are doing on behalf of kids across the district um hopefully that gave you some really nice perspective on what's happening in schools um for kids every day because it was awesome to see um I'm going to later present a little bit of an update on the migrant shelter um that is um coming to Acton um that we actually just received an email today that we're actually now anticipating that being around about November 20th so the nice thing is it's giving us um a lot more time to plan to welcome students and families than many other communities have had uh we also have a great provider making opportunities count mock um who has a lot of

013experience in this area I think you know the the piece that I keep coming back to I know a lot of communities have struggled um to figure out how to welcome students and families in a thoughtful way but the piece to me that I think we're at an advantage is our community has been welcoming people from all over the world for you know the better part of three decades uh we know how to do this um we know that there's going to be some challenges in terms of students experience arriving to us um and experiences that they've had that we're going to have to be thoughtful about but the overall premise of how we're going to work with kids is very well thought out and our educators are in a good place to do that

014uh we'll talk later about some additional resources that we're going to need to do it as well as funding sources uh but I just wanted to also put that in the superintendent update um you know holidays and traditions we will send out some information um you know I think you know a lot of families around the district have seen schools start to move away from traditional Halloween costume parades and things like that and we just want to send out a little you know clarification to create a shared understanding of why we don't do the traditional parades anymore um and it's really about trying to honor fam's individual wishes about how they go about celebrating different holidays um we certainly teach about all of the holidays that our kids experience um and that's going to continue

015to be important um including Halloween including you know all the different holidays that we now have on the school calendar um I think the difference is we don't want to actively have kids dress up to celebrate a holiday because it's putting students and sometimes families in a challenging position about how they interact and access um schools particularly for younger kids where it's really not the children necessarily making the full Choice um and it's hard in school cultures so we'll just send out a little clarification about that um so that families have it um principal Spotlight we have been spotlighting all of our principles on social media October is National principal month um so we have been highlighting just you know some facts about each of our principles um some personal anecdotes things like that just

016as a way of celebrating all of the hard work that our principles do so please look out for that uh feel free to like it um as well and give a little shout out to our principles they always like that um we are also sending out to families a really cool uh Boston Globe article that uh was a recent Edition uh where one of our students uh actually was interviewed as part of the article to teach uh parents what they should know about different social media platforms so we're thrilled to be able to do that um we have a cartwheel care webinar coming up the next cartwheel care webinar is November 1st um that is Raising healthy kids in a digital world I'm sure a topic that's going to be of interest to a lot

017of our families across the district so we're sending out that uh registration link we're sending out um the state asked us to just do a little bit of promotion around the new 911 um processes so that people with disabilities can better access 911 so we'll send that out and then just more information on the next coffee with the superintendent so thank you and happy to answer any questions but not on the shelter because we're going to talk about that later thanks Peter any questions from the committee I actually do have a question go for it Liz um how is cartwheel care still doing are we still uh you know increasing the number of requests and being able to meet the demands we um I don't have the most recent data to be honest we overall

018has it been successful it was very very successful last year um and I don't I wish I had the numbers in front of me uh but we basically used up our entire allotment of hours over the course of next year that we had projected so that was great um we had a lot of families participate what was really nice to see is that the response rate from families cartwheel does an exit survey with every family who's used their services and it was extraordinarily well received by families and very highly rated by students as well in terms of you know them feeling like they had quick access and that it was effective um as well cartwheel also what's been nice we were the first ever District um to partner with them I actually think they've now

019expanded within a year to I think it's over 40 districts um in New England so clearly a service that's been well received we were the first ever District to sign on with them so what's been nice is we have a little bit of an in with the the senior Executives in the company and so whenever we express a different need they're very responsive to kind of understanding our community's needs and finding new things that they can do excellent great to hear thank thanks any other questions for Peter wonderful thank you Peter all right we are moving on to our guest in presentation section of the meeting I would like to invite principal Dean forward with her Cadre of support to talk about the high school course leveling update turn this on okay can you hear

020us all right great okay thank you for having us tonight um we're going to give you a quick update on course leveling I'm going to give a overview and then turn it over to the real um teachers who are working on this initiative within the classrooms first I really want to thank um the entire staff at the high school for working on our course leveling initiatives to really revamp our curriculum in a very student- centered way doing this work during this time while teaching amidst everything else has been challenging and exciting but it takes a lot of work and the leadership from the department leaders the administrators and the entire staff and their efforts have have been truly incredible so I want to express my gratitude all right our goals I want to reiterate our

021goals of our course leveling work so they are and these are our priorities to increase opportunities for advanced level course work for more students and secondly to provide broader learning and social environments for our students so those are our priorities in this work all right second last time I was here to talk about leveling there's a very long presentation with a lot of slides about our entire plan and it went late into the evening that was in April of 2023 so I want to recap quickly what we have done since then with your feedback with student and teacher feedback and Community feedback so throughout the summer and in the beginning of this school year our teachers have been working to collaborate Co peer coach um engage in professional learning to work how to um figure

022out ways to better prepare themselves and teach their classes in more heterogeneously grouped environments the administration um department leaders have tried to provide structures for teachers through our scheduling providing time for collaboration providing professional learning and providing structures within our school schedule and um day to be able to offer students support such as academic um support centers which are places where students can go to get extra help in subjects like math social studies science um and so we've engaged in that work we looked at the input and feedback from students teachers and community members I'll say overall in general the positive feedback from students teachers and the community is around the opportunities that this provides and students have recognized that and noted that especially with the work in nth grade environmental English and our language

023classes last year most concerns center around being able to provide appropriate supports for our students especially those who may have been typically in our cp1 classes and opportunity for our students who would have t typically been enrolled in our AE level and that is certainly something that we want to watch as we're collecting data to inform our plan and as it evolves I will say then lastly that we have put together our course leveling website where you can find lots and lots of information um down to the smallest minute detail and I encourage you to look at that website um today we have three teachers from three departments who are going to share their perspectives of this work I'll say that these teachers are representing our math social studies and science departments our language and

024English departments have also been deeply embedded in this work and in fact they've been doing it for many years even up to eight years and so they're a little bit further ahead and they have reported great successes and we look to them often as the rest of the school is moving in that direction so I'm going to turn this over to the teachers who know exactly what's going on and they can share um the successes and even the opportunities ahead you'll hear from them some of the needs that we need in order to make sure that this work is appropriately supported in terms of resources appropriate class sizes supports that we need for our teachers and our students in order to make this work successful in the future so the first teacher is from the

025math department Amanda Bromberg hello oops hi um I'm very impressed I don't think you looked it down at your paper once like I the agenda I I I don't I can't do that um but yes I'm Amanda Bromberg I'm from the math department um we really um are just starting this work as as in having the algebra one um new course this year but so I wanted to talk more about what led up to where we are right now um so we're piloting a new Algebra 1 course that establishes the more diverse learning environment um with the goal of incorporating more students who historically would have enrolled in our algebra one part one and part two over two years and have them in our Alder one full year course and have more students have access

026to more curriculum in that way um so over the last I'd say year and a half we've had four teachers myself three other Math teachers who quickly realized that if we were going to put this work in we were the ones who wanted to teach the course um and then we also have a course level leader um Su roopak and Jessica car our department leader so the six of us are really the ones have talked a lot of done all this work um so so over the year and a half we had several alternate um assignment days um that we would get substitutes for and we would spend the whole day um first diving into the state standards and making sure that Al our Algebra 1 curriculum was aligned with the state standards and and

027how how you know how we wanted them to um we were sharing ideas about student to student collaboration and that's one of the main topics of the work um and also new ways of demonstrating how the students know the material and what what they understand and How Deeply they might understand it we all went and actually the most of the math department not just the four of us or six of us um went to other school districts I personally went to conquer Carlile where they have a lot of math Support classes in place already and we learned a lot from them and um I'll talk about our math academic support center that came out of that um you know we didn't exactly what they're doing because it didn't align but we got a lot of

028information from from them and some other schools uh we used all of our all of the early release days that we possibly could to collaborate with each other um because last year we did not have a common prep period together so was very hard to get together during the day um this year um the purposely in the schedule we all have a common prep period which is fantastic because we really we I don't know what we would do without that right now um and we also did Summer R&D days two of them this Summer um to really just um make sure we are ready for this new um Algebra 1 course and um figure out how we were going to make the students collaborate and and make this exess as successful as we could um

029so the math ASC was is a very brand new this year um students that would have been recommended for our part algebra one part one from their eighth grade recommendation um we're given the option of being in alra one with a supported class there was a as I understand it there was a family conversation with Jessica cariss and the family and the e8th grade teacher and they agreed um to be in this math supported class which is in their schedule every other day and it is taught by two um Educators one is a co- teer special LED um she actually co- tees a math one of the algebra one classes with me and the other ones is um one of our math department in our math department so they kind of collaborate with each other

030um and our long-term goal there is so that maybe other students can drop into that Math course um but right now we're not we're definitely not ready for that um we also um vamped up our Mentor program I never had a mentor before and now in the I have two alra one classes and every algebra one class has a student Mentor they're fantastic um usually I think it's Juniors and or seniors um that do that um and they love it and the kids love it and um so that has been great um and then we also have an emphasis on different like instructional strategies um we were approved more whiteboard spaces those were installed first in the algebra one classes and I believe they're still getting installed in some other other classes um but it

031just allows us to get the the students out of the desks um up and around I really like I one of my favorite things to do is have the students at the board with partners and then give them problems switch switch switch switch so they're constantly switching partners and they're constantly collaborating with new people different people um and then lastly U I just want to kind of land where we're at now and um some of the struggles we're facing um expected and unexpected um some like we I I'm not sure how many sections we actually have but we have four teachers with several sections each and um some classes have more support than others like some are caught some are not some have two mentors some have one some have a mentor actually I know

032that one has a teacher an aid and two mentors so you know there's there's discrepancy in that for support of the students um definitely we want and need more time some time to collaborate with the junior high teachers because this is not going to work well without um a smoother transition from the junior high to the high school and we really haven't spoken to them at all and so we would really like to get that going um we also have students whether they were slated for part one and eligible one or not um that are struggling and should we be pushing them to struggle and keep that and and work with them or is there a place for them to land like keeping the alra part one available to them but um some students now

033are locked into a schedule that can't be changed for other reasons so it's hard and um lastly the math ASC the academic support um some of the findings is that there's um you know seven I'm not sure the cap of the kids that are there but they all have different needs and they have now there's one teacher that has um a a variety of different supports whether it be the basics of math their organization skills their study habits they helping them with their homework all at the same time so um we're definitely struggling but it is only October so we're hoping to get more results you know by the end so thank you hi everyone I'm Karen drown I'm in the social studies Department um so a lot of the same preparations that Amanda just

034spoke about in math were also happening in social studies so um even last year we were doing a lot of early release time um and the world's history teachers um a lot of us have been teaching together for over 20 years so we really know each other well and I have to say from a personal perspective it's just been incredible working so closely creating curriculum together scaffolding curriculum together um so that's been really good we've been we've been working for over a year on um unleveling these courses and creating these heterogeneous groups um also similar we've been using again early release time professional development time we worked met over the summer as well um and then we um were able to get an academic support program for social studies um and it's nice because it

035kind of works on a rotating schedule we have two teachers that run it and when students don't come they actually are able to come into our classrooms and help out which has been wonderful to have some sort of surprise assistant that comes in and assists with activities tests reviews all sorts of things so that's been really wonderful um in terms of what's happening in the class I think the thing I'd want you to know is that when I look at the groups that I have and I teach three of these classes one is a co- talk class with a special educator um I have a hard time telling who was supposed to be in one level or another um which is a great thing to think about that I don't know who would have been

036in say CP or AE um that these students are in a lot of ways the same in terms of their capabilities and intelligence um it's more rather an issue of skills really if I want to be honest um I think a lot of the things that we're going to be doing in these with these scaffolded lessons is is hopefully really teaching students how to be good students um teaching them the types of skills they need to be successful um I can see a lot of them that struggle know it they know what they probably need to do but don't really know how to go um and I think the nice thing about this class is we're making access points for students to enter the environment this high level of learning environment and really engage with

037it um in ways that I think can be unbelievably successful um and I think that's probably the thing I'm enjoying the most about this unleveled class um I'm thinking also about the fact that um having taught uh three of the four levels in world history for almost 20 years um the curriculum is identical and I think for a long time students really Mark themselves on what level I'm in when they sort of forget that what's being taught is actually the same thing that the history is the same the difference is things like how much we scaffold the curriculum um the pace that we use the types of readings that we do the activities that we're engaging in and those are the things that create those access points and so the nice thing about being in

038this cohort we've all taught different levels honors all the way down to cp1 and we're sort of collecting all that and really fusing it together to create a curriculum that has as many those access points as possible um and I think that's been um the greatest thing and kids are rising to that challenge my students are doing really well and I was very concerned for a long time that this assessment they're going to have this project and I'm I'm in the process literally this afternoon grading these projects I'm thinking these are really good and these tests are really good and this was a hard test and I was worried that they were going to do well but again we're working on creating these access points so students can be involved the thing I worry about

039is of course the students that struggle the ones that are sort of on the fringes of this class um and that's something I think we're going to have to really watch carefully and really make sure that we have some either some sort of a safety net or we have a plan I know the few students that I worry about I've I've been trying to be really diligent emailing their other teachers emailing special Educators connecting with counselors creating sort of like a team of people that are working with these students to make sure that we can provide as many supports as possible so you know having as Amanda talked about mentors in the classroom having other students that are already good students and then they can model that great Behavior with students that's going to be

040really important having um co- teers special Educators other teachers pushing into classrooms um there's a for examp example a speech language pathologist who's been offering to come in and push into my classes not necessarily as a speech language pathologist but as another person another adult another teacher um and I think those are going to be the ways that we're going to be successful with this is really engaging everybody to be part of that that classroom environment thanks hi um my name is Carrie chartier and I teach science and I think this is my 24th year at AB um but I may have lost count um I'm going to talk a little bit differently more about my own experiences um as a teacher who's been teaching unleveled classes now for a little bit longer um I

041teach biology um and anatomy and physiology and I decided to unlevel anatomy and physiology about six years ago five or six years ago um we used to have a human body that was sort of cp1 level and then everything else you know um and I noticed that my human body class um and then I also taught cp1 biology and I noticed the same thing with this that the kids didn't really have like a high opinion of themselves as Learners or Achievers and despite my best efforts to tell them that they are bright and capable and they're 15 or 16 or 17 years old and your big brains aren't there yet and you're still going to grow and learn and you're going to get to college and you're going to get chemistry and and they didn't

042believe me and that was really like I took that to heart because I do really believe that every kid can learn and it's up to us to create environments for them that they can access that curriculum so I just kind of decided to do it and I just put everybody together in in my Academy first and you know cp1 to AP Kem and it was remarkable the first year some of those kids that I knew were maybe would have been in the human body class integrating friends with developing relationships with being in groups with and I was like oh my God they don't think that they're in the dumb class anymore their words it was remarkable and I was like I'm on to something here and then I just sort of tried to figure out

043how am I going to create environment for each of these students to be able to learn and grow and then this sort of I could talk about this forever I promise I won't but I get so excited about it because I've seen it happen over and over and over again um I collapsed levels with cp1 and CP bio three years ago I don't even know if anyone really knew about that I just told my department chair I don't want to teach cp1 I just bring them in bring them in I got them right and so we did and I started to just develop like figure out where are they how am I going to meet the needs of every single kid in my class and it starts with basically building relationships like students like to

044be known and heard so you sit down with them you're like what's your favorite hobby what do you do like you learn about them and once they trust you and then you say here's the bar and I know you can get there and I'm going to give you this support and then this support and then this support and before you know it there they are and it's been really exciting to be able to watch students say to me I'm not good at science and I'm like hold up you're 15 you don't even know how good you are or how good you can be and then as they trust you they believe it and then all of a sudden they're doing the work um so that's been something that I feel like I've been able to

045really like hone that craft over these few years um because I had the luxury of time that other people don't have because they're being asked to do it so fast I was able to really be so thoughtful about where are those access points that we were talking about like how can I have this highlevel experience for all kids but then make sure that every student has access to that so like for example I might give an article on something that we're doing like an actual Journal article with all the science drgon in there and that's really hard to decode for some kids but if I Summarize each paragraph in like regular words and then now they have that paragraph one here's the main point paragraph two here's the main point now they can converse with

046other kids that maybe didn't need that graphic organizer they can just read the science and they can be challenged with that so like every kid is challenged but then there's access and scaffolds for those who need it where they need it um I think another thing for me like with the relationship building is just being super flexible around assessments assignments um due dates especially early on because a lot of those kids will shut down and go I can't do it and I'm like what do you mean you can't do it you haven't even tried right so how can I get you to try trust and so they get lots and lots of opportunities to try and learn and it might even be sitting with a kid who's struggling on a test and go I'm just

047going to retach this concept to you right now now in the moment you're going to get a better grade you're going to learn it you're motivated to learn it and isn't that our goal that we learn so I think we can be really really creative about how we um ask kids to learn and those high expectations that we set for them and help create a growth mindset for them so that they actually start to really like the learning and there's a lot of kids that already know how to do school so I'm mostly talking about um you know how we can create lots of access for all students to get there so the students that are there to begin with those are kind of the easier students to teach because they're so motivated anyway you

048can really push their thinking you can get them to think this higher order or higher level thinking but to bring everybody up to that level that's my goal so what do I need to do this um I think it's really important that we have class sizes and class composition that really support that type of heterogeneity in a classroom um to reiterate you know having the classroom supports the assistance co-teachers mentors um and um basically like time time to create new um scaffolding new graphic organizers every year kids change they come in with different knowledge and different skills so we have to be ready to to constantly move like there's almost nothing that I'm still teaching that I taught the beginning the way that I taught there's one lab in anatomy it's called Bones in the

049bag and that that's really fun anyway but other than that it's it's really like it's um creating opportunities to stay where the kids are continue to meet them where they are and build those relationships so thank you for letting me talk ready for questions okay so before before we go to questions I just want to set the stage a bit here for the committee and the public um we're getting an update tonight and in a month's time so not next meeting but the following meeting we'll receive recommendations from the superintendent and the administration that'll be sort of our first view first read of the the recommendations for course leveling and then two meetings after that so in another month um we will be voting those recommendations so we're still collecting input we're still hearing what

050what the both the teachers the students and the public have to say we've got a a pretty nice timeline to to meet the timeline for the high school to be able to put out their course of study for next year um but but this is definitely not the the end of the conversation but it's definitely a great update so thank you for that with that I will go around the room for questions Ben thank you um last year when you came in met uh a number of students came up and approached uh the school committee and in particular asking about how could having two levels or more create more separation in a greater divide within the community now with um this new program being implemented have you seen any segregation of students who may not

051be able to get into the AP courses as they were once in the AE courses and then being relegated to the college prep courses instead I can answer that um yes thank you and that's important to note that after feedback from the school committee last April we then did make it a focus of ours especially at the beginning of the school year to gather student feedback through student Forum student groups going to different clubs student council and so we've we've gotten a lot of student feedback um I think students are concerned that it might create more separation I'll say to your first point about students not being able to get into APS we have not seen that our AP numbers are are larger and I think we want to offer more opportunities not have a

052tradeoff for anyone or say that there's only a certain number of AP courses I think if you look at our AP courses you'll see the enrollments and the numbers have increased from last year to this year um when you talk to students who had that worry and I just had a conversation um a couple weeks ago with students in our abset group around the worries of Greater SE separation or segregation and also kind of limiting opportunities that the AE provided when you talk to them about the courses that they were in last year that did this work especially the nth grade environmental course nth grade English last year and our language courses and you'll notice that our plan is um not all at once um that we're moving slowly so that we can do this

053certain courses and departments are at different places at a time so that we can be thoughtful and watch it you will hear what I heard the students say is oh yeah that class that I was in it was so great to have other types of students that I'm not used to having in my class because it really expanded the thinking in the entire class and I will say that these were typically AE students and they were talking about the course that was not at the honors level but say environmental 9 UM or English nine and so that was really great to hear they felt like the class was appropriately challenging them and when we survey our students which we've been doing mostly quarterly along with the teachers of the classes that are more heterogeneous they

054report the same thing that the students feel appropriately challenged even the students who would have been in AE before and now we're in that more signature level course um we also have seen that in just that short time that we've been doing this that there is access for students to move into the AP course um and so we though I will say is really too early to tell about the overall Mobility because we haven't done it that long and so that is something that we we want to watch but I would say overall it is worry and when we drill down into the specifics of when we've been doing it and asking the students and looking at the data we've been um we've seen positive results and feedback and we want to continue to watch

055that Yin and then Rebecca okay jeez thank you for thank you for the update um I just have one question so from the sounds of it that the Educators and theaters have done a lot of work during your school in addition to your school work your teaching right um my question is that when you look at the course leveling the changes and all the scaffoldings that needs to be provided to the students in order for the students to be successful do you feel you have the number of Staff you have right now is it adequate inadequate or if it's inadequate what do you think um I guess you do you need extra staff or do you think you can do it with the existing number of Staff it's long sorry Adam who wants to answer

056that question I also want to say something hi thank you for your question I mean I think that every educator would say we always need more of everything right um so yeah I mean if you're offering it up we'll take more stuff um I think that you know it probably for for me I don't know everyone has a different opinion but um like for me the the hardest part was the first was sort of saying okay now I know what I want to do and then doing that um that those first few years when you're sort of really developing those supports that takes an a lot of extra time um I don't know that for the development of the curriculum you need extra people because that's kind of the collaboration so it's really more time

057but then the supports in the classroom having extra co- teer like having co-taught classes I think we've all that have experienced them have felt like that is a real benefit especially if the co- teer knows the content and knows how to teach so that I think not not to say that there aren't co- teers that are aren't doing doing well but they they come with different skill sets too and so if you might have a special educator who's a co- teer that doesn't you know for me like doesn't know the biology and doesn't really do the day-to-day curriculum development it's not truly a co-teacher really it's more of I would say it can be more of a like an aid um so I think having people like giving opportunities to have co- teers trained in

058their content um areas that they're going to be co- teing in um and oh yeah right is there anything sorry that was long Becca hi thanks for coming um I'm very excited about this whole process and I could speak at length about my own experience at AB um but I will spare us the time um I had a couple of questions one um I have the unfortunate duty to be the um budget chair uh so I'd like to know for class sizes is there a number that you could provide that is a really appropriate number of students per class that ensures you can reach everybody um and then my other question is uh what sort of incentives are you able to provide to draw in those uh student mentors thank you I didn't quite hear

059the second question okay do do okay so in terms of in terms of class size I mean that's an excellent question and I think we would all say that smaller class sizes are really helpful and I think that just class size can sometimes be misleading because often we have to look at the students who are in front of us and what supports they need and so sometimes a class of of 14 can be similar to a class of 24 right and last year we went through exercises and Analysis around class size in in the high school I would say we very much want to keep them as low as possible and I would wouldn't want to personally ask the teachers to go any larger than what we're at right now and I think you know

060as we talk about our multilingual Learners especially new ones who we may have the fortune of you know welcoming into our district and um just all the supports that our students need just in what they're dealing with in life and then the supports that they need for their um IEPs 504s just general assistance that really matters when you're talking about class size so the class supports that Carrie's talking about are important um in order to actually give you that number I would say um we want them to be as low as we possibly can get them mentors yeah I mentors okay well not like five yeah um I did mention this was my first year having a mentor and I was sort of a little resistant to it before and i' I think we've all

061been here for 20 plus years but um we um I to both classes I mean I want more now that I've had my one I want more and I actually think it would be hugely beneficial to have two in the room because I have another colleague that has two and I think they feed off each other and they support each other and I have one kind of like a you know a Shai and I have to kind of help her be the mentor to be the you know and come and which is great you know but but at the same time I'm supporting her because it's again early and it's her first time doing it I do think they get credit for the class five credits um but I also would love the the mentoring

062um program to have more training for the mentors like I would really like them to come in and know what to do right away I think they meet for the first time like the first day of school and then they're in our classrooms the second day of school so I I think that training for them would be great I'll just add quickly so I've had I almost always have a mentor and this is the first year I don't have a mentor because I think I forgot the sign up and it's it's horrible to not have a mentor truly um and they do get volunteers and they get credits but I think the other thing that I found for years and I would often ask my former students to be mentors and they like found that

063to be I think they were really proud of themselves that they were asked because what that told them is I was really smart and I did good in your class and you think I'm that good that I can actually help other kids even though they're younger uh and there was a I think a great source of Pride like oh well you know so ando's done this project because he was in this class three years ago uh and they look up to that student I know they almost every year really nice relationships that get made with older students particularly students that maybe don't have a lot of friends and don't have a lot of connections um and I think it's it just I think for them personally maybe they'll go into it for credits and for

064volunteer hours I think in the end they get out a lot more than they bargain for and I think obviously we do too so I concur I mean the more we can have the better but I what Amanda says is right I think it would be really nice too to do more training really about how to to talk to students and how to approach them because sometimes students will be really reluctant to get help especially from a peer from teachers you know that that's the teacher's job but to have a peer come up sometimes it can be a little bit awkward um and there are some teachers in the high school that really just have incredible programs for their mentors in their classes that really work so I think we also need to be tapping

065into some of those teachers and asking them like how do you use your mentors and I've been doing that with another teacher in the social department and there there's a lot we can learn about how we can and I say the word use and that sounds terrible but how we can really like um this is an untapped resource and I think literally everybody wins we win as teachers the students win and the mentors win as well so do you want to say something no okay Tori thank you so much for coming I love hearing the teachers voices in this and your stories are I'm just sitting here grinning cuz it makes me feel good um I'm also really appreciating the discussion about the mentors um having both a student who was a peer mentor and

066observed that in being a mentor she learned almost as much from the students that she worked with and so she felt that that was very much a balanced situation I know that's something sometimes that comes up with mentorship but I think it goes a lot towards building our community and also having a student who benefits greatly from having peer mentors thank you please more peer mentors I concur train them yes my question for you is it feels like sometimes there are a lot of assumptions out there about this process and what it's going to be and what it's going to be like what question do you wish people would ask you about the course leveling um I would want you to ask me what's what's going right because there's a lot of things that are

067going right I think I agree with what you said that there's I think a great misconception that this is going to be really awful and hard and we're going to regret what we've done and I think that that's that's a not really the right attitude to have about this first of all but also I think it really undermines like the goals that we have for this which is like to get every student to a point where they can reach their Highest Potential and I think Carrie talked about that and saying that there's a lot of students who just it's not something that the teacher has or hasn't done is that historic they just don't feel valued as a student and that that means a lot to students like and they might not say it or

068acknowledge that really but like to know that someone values your inherent potential because everyone sort of you know they have that like light that goes off it doesn't go off at the same time for every student some kids it goes up in seventh grade other kids it's like junior year some kids it's sophomore in college and and being aware that that light's going to come on at a different time you making fun of me no I said that was me sophomore um like that I think I think there's a lot of empowerment about making students feel um empowered and if we can create a situation where a student and and all the three the three of us can tell you that for a really long time at the high school there's this huge break between

069like the CP student and the a student honor student and it's as a teacher of primarily CP classes it was really demoralizing to sort of feel like like my students aren't worth it like they're not good students like they are good students you don't even you're not even in this class you don't even know what you're talking about and the idea that we're in a class now where we can really have you know maybe some really top tier students and maybe some students who struggle but we're all in the same boat together and I'm not teaching a whole lot differently not really I mean again like I said earlier The curriculum's Identical but um I wish that people would know that that there's a lot of great things that can be gained again and the

070focus is on the student about helping them find their inherit worth and really valuing the student and then helping them find the place where they can jump in and be part of that experience experience that everyone's enjoying so I love that question hi Tori thank you um I think a question that I would like to be asked is how am I going to challenge each student and I actually talked to one of my mentors today and asked him if it would be okay if I shared a story that um that involved him at school committee tonight so here I am I'm going to share my story um this is a very bright student that is taking AP classes he's a senior um I had him last year in my unleveled you know heterogeneous anatomy class

071and one day um let me back up so I also wrote his letter of recommendation for college and I do a little form and one of the questions was what is the one thing you remember about my class and he wrote the day that I brought that you handed something back to me and I didn't get the grade I thought I would get and I came up to you and said why didn't I get a better grade and I said I don't remember this but he he did and he said that I said um that I know the work that you're capable of and this isn't it and I want you to do what you're capable of and that apparently lit a fire under this kid and then for the rest of the semester everything

072was like reaching reaching reaching and I read that and I was like I did that right and and it was so cool and I've been thinking about that a lot in this course leveling conversations that we're having because that kid like he he just needed to be told he could do more and this is a kid who's already high achieving so I think a lot of parents worry or kids worry that if they're in a in a unleveled or more heterogeneous class that they're going to be bored and it's our job to make sure that they're not and there's so many ways that you can make um opport opportunities for students it's not more work it's higher order thinking it's okay you can do a little bit better with your science literacy skills you can

073do more meanwhile still scaffolding for all those other kids so um I just wanted to share that because that was something that I felt like was really kind of cool um like I said for math it's you know a little bit different we're like working really hard and I guess I I don't know what question you would ask me but I would like you to understand that it's going to take us some years and it's right now the daunting task I teach Algebra 1 I teach geometry so we're being asked to to fix not fix that's not the right word to to um work on the geometry for next year we are we have a prep period in place to work on the algebra 1 curriculum this year and now at the same time the

074same teachers have to you know are are having to do it for next year so maybe a question like what do you need for time what how long do you think this roll out is going to take for for you as teachers who are doing this work Andrew thanks and thank you again for for being here actually the question I had is similar to some of the answers you had just now but I'm curious have these adjustments allow you to shift the depth the classes are students are able to get to into the subjects from where they were before because you have more time or less time I'm just curious how that this is adjusted their ability to get deeper in or less deep in um well I I think the the collaboration with students

075and the Whiteboard work definitely I see the the impact on that that students have that they can work together and they do have a deeper understanding of problems that doing together so I think that is successful um I think for me one of the things that I've found through this process over the last few years that what it allows me to do is not so much about the content but more about how kids think how we get them to problem solve how I how I can encourage them to um work on science skills uh skills that really are transferable um like I have this super cool Human Performance lab that I was able to build with a grant that I got from Toshiba and it's like University grade like we can do like blood lactate

076testing and like all kinds of like really cool stuff in there and I just basically set them free and and say design learn the equipment design experiments do the experiments and like we can do that I think because we're scaffolded like I wouldn't be able to let them play with my really expensive equipment without that you know so I think it's allowed me to give them opportunities to Think and Grow and like really get excited about science I love that question I'll I'll be quick um I think one of the things about working in the cohort with these other world particular world history teachers um and we all know the curriculum really well is we're we've been asked now to think deeply about like what is the really important stuff that we want students to

077know like really like if we're looking at an entire unit or the whole year curriculum like what is sort of the essential information and then really thinking about like how we can do that a with these supports and access points but also really thinking deeply about like how we can take that that content or that concept or something and really go somewhere with it because now we have sort of like I want to see we've eliminated the Superfluous stuff but we've we've sort of boiled it down to like its essence of what we really want to do and we're able to think s just maybe even focus a little bit more directly on the topics that we want to explore that we feel like again after 20 years of teaching this is the stuff that

078I want these kids to walk away from like yes those dates and names are great but this particular concept about say change this is what's important and and I think in a lot of ways because we've done that and created scaffolds we've almost sort of like in some way almost exploded the class which has been really nice um again it's the first year we're really doing it um and so it time will tell but what's is that I feel like there's that investment in in really having that focused opportunity to really go deeply on things that we we collectively have agreed are really valuable last question for Leela and then we're gonna move on hello um thank you for coming and chatting with us um it was really helpful to hear some of the stories

079about how it's actually been going um and I also was a mentor and I found one of the things I didn't expect was how helpful it was when I went to go TA in college because I already had some of those Dynamics down um I had one question so I really appreciated kind of hearing tangibly um about how some students are kind of blossoming and like seeing themselves as capable of doing school um and I was wondering you would also mention that some students are still kind of struggling a little bit despite the attempts to scaffold um and was wondering what you may need to meet the need um given that kind of the other end of that is like a year of really struggling can really hurt a student and they're confident so what

080kind of supports would you need to be able to meet those students um where they're at currently I need to think about that for a minute so I'm in this situation right now um I think the thing that's been really useful for me is really connecting with special Educators other teachers who teach that same student um and that time to be able to really look at um work that they've completed or haven't completed um and just getting a sense of like who this person is because the person that I have in front of me in my classroom that's not the whole person right like the students come into our classrooms with all kinds of Life Experiences baggage that we know nothing about and I think sometimes just being aware of that can be really helpful

081in figuring out what I need to be doing in order to help the student um what I can connect so as an example I have a student that I had a hard time connecting with and then I saw him at an event that my own child was doing and uh I later mentioned it to him I hey I saw you at that that basketball tournament this weekend and all of a sudden now he's walking by my class and saying hi so like I I needed to know that like I needed to know a little bit more and then I learned more about that the connection of that student with that particular Sport and and and that seems like a really sort of small thing detail but I don't think it's that small to him and

082I think um we've been able to figure out by talking to again special Educators School psychologists other teachers what are the kinds of things that are going to be motivating for him who he connects with really well who he might not connect with well the types of assignments that go well for him the things that are difficult um so I think if I'm thinking about what I need I think what I need and I I know I feel like this is the word we've said all day which is sort of time to be able but also that like collaboration opportunity to be able to sit and really meet with other teachers to know the whole student and not just the one that sits in my class for 55 minutes a day because that's not really

083the whole person right there's so much more to that person than that so um just having a chance to know that student and then know them really well quickly like at the beginning of the year not waiting till January to make those types of connections but really jumping on that immediately it can be hard to meet special Educators and other teachers teachers so being able to do that quickly I think is really important hi me again um so I think that that's such a great question and I think for me that my answer is sort of like twofold like to kind of piggyback off um what Karen was saying like every day is an opportunity for a kid to learn and I think that we as Educators have to remember it's not about us it's

084about them and so if you have a student that like we might say oh that student is struggling what does struggling mean to that kid like are we projecting that onto them or is that actually what their experience is and so I've really learned to like when I meet a kid where they are all I want is to be able to progress that child forward compared to themselves not compared to anyone else and so there may be you know so I teach the sophomore body bio so I might not get that student very far my year but if I've created a safe supportive environment where they can come and be and be themselves then maybe next year that teacher picks them up and they move them a little bit forward and a lot of times

085it's just growth and development they're bright and capable they're just not ready and if we shut them down and say well you're struggling you're not getting a good great or you're doing this or you're running around the room or whatever like then we're just giving them more reasons to not want to be in school I had a student one year that I every day I was like maybe today is the day he'll talk to me maybe today is the day he'll learn and it wasn't until the beginning of fourth quarter that he started doing work and I was like okay we're in let's do it and like didn't he pass the mcast like and I mean and then junior year he I checked in and he was doing great like he just needed time so

086so I think that's one piece is right like that but then you have some kids that for whatever reason no matter what we do or how we scaffold or any number of times we try to connect with them that it just not going to be the right fit and I feel like we need more alternative programs that provide students that we cannot figure out a way to get them to feel safe and comfortable and I know that that's something that we've really talked about at the high school we've had some in the past with some success we really don't have a lot of alternative programs right now that are you know offsite where kids can do something very very different not like an in school thing where they're just doing regular school but just in

087a one room like really thoughtful creative alternative programs I think could really be helpful they just cost a lot of money let's put Rebecca didn't hear that um okay so I started off saying that our goal was to get more kids through Algebra 1 in one year and I just we worry as a department that it that's not right for all students and I think we need places for those students to land like maybe an alternative program but maybe an algebra one part one is what they need and that's where they need to be and so we're like if we have some of these students that aren't going to make it they're going to have to repeat Algebra 1 and then they're going to land in the same place that if they did alter one

088part one and part two successfully they would end up you know in the same place their senior year as if as if you know and we'll we're doing everything we possibly can to support and and this that and the other thing but you know a small cohort of students may not make it and now they've got poor grades on their transcript and repeating courses so we really so far we really feel like we still need like a part one part two still on on the um you know in the on the books so that they have a place that you know that that they can land and that again this is the first time and it's October and we're doing the best we can but like we really worry about some of a some of

089the students that we're pushing to to do this excellent Amanda Karen krie thank you guys very much for coming and speaking with us I I just want to close this out by saying I think that where we've gotten to over the the the sort of inter intering months from our first presentation is is significant I think it's really great to be here sort of hearing about the the stories from the ground about how it's going and it's wonderful to hear the progress that's been made um I I think for the committee we're going to we're going to see presentations continuing along that sort of uh that support our committee goals and the district goals but we're also going to get presentations along the way that are going to say we're going to have really difficult

090budget times um and so I think for me the the the closing part that I want to say is as as you come back to us with recommendations those are going to come after we hear a little bit more about what our budget situation is for next year and I'd love to see additional Pathways or considerations for the budget constraints um that are responsive to both what you've learned and what we've learned in the intervening month um because I'm afraid that if we're sort of stuck on this track and in this process and we fully support that we're going to do that at the detriment for other services or we're going to have to support other services at the detriment of this so I think that for me that's the next sort of step is

091how do we how do we blend the great work that we're doing now and the track that we're on with what we know is going to be our budget reality this coming year thank you all very much thank you thank you thank you thank you okay uh next presentation Peter I think you have a brief update for the committee on uh the planning for Acton's designation as an emergency migrant shelter yeah so you'll notice there were two different versions of memos uh one was the day after we learned uh that we would you know be fortunate enough to welcome a group of new students um and the other was after we had four or five days to wrap our heads around it and start to learn some more information um so just to give you

092a really brief overview um last week we learned from the state that Acton would be the site host for a 33 uh room shelter um it's at the Minuteman Inn which is located right on route two um it is formerly the concordian um Inn but a new owner has bought that renovated it um and so the shelter portion of the minim is going to be the back set of buildings which has 33 rooms the front set of buildings is some longer term rentals um that are in there uh so we're working on the plan uh to launch this so you know we are fortunate that we've been assigned a provider uh we know we've heard some really challenging stories from other communities where you know they had you know a call on a day that

093said there was a hotel in town that had you know 300 individuals now living in it and they need to enroll in school um and you know it was after the you know families had moved into the shelter and just really poor communication that is not our situation at all we have a lot of lead time a lot being a month in in this world right um but but that is an ample you know amount of lead time to try and get this done um you know we don't know the number of students that are actually going to enroll in school until families arrive in the shelter uh but the provider has a process in place to notify us we're working through procedures to get families registered to go on site um to welcome families

094and really just help them feel part of the ab Community quickly um you know we do understand at least at this time that the majority of families will speak Haitian Creole uh we believe that the largest migration right now coming to this area our families from Haiti um so we're preparing for that we also know that there's probably going to be some um students ages three to five who are going to qualify for services through the prek and we're going to have to work through that assessment process and we're making plans around that area as well we got to a point where we decided looking at kind of the capacity of our multilingual Learners classroom space um looking at space within schools and trying to think about keeping students who are already experiencing a lot

095of disruption helping to create a cohort where they can see some peers that might be with them at the shelter and also in schools and classrooms really developing that cohort model we didn't want to spread kids around the district so we looked at Miriam elementary school as well as the junior high and high school um we also have told the gates staff and we're involving gates in the planning process that if we reach an elementary enrollment that we just can't manage in one elementary school then we look at Gates as well again that was just looking at the capacity of all of our schools and making some decisions about what we thought was going to be the best fit for students um every grade level is going to have some unique opportunities and challenges I

096think one of the things we're you know really thinking about at the high school level is you know that we might end up having some students as we we've already gained over the last two years who are qualified as s which is kind of uh they have interrupted educational periods or limited educational periods um you know and we're we're we're seeing already some students moving into the district who maybe haven't had education in a traditional sense in two years they've had a lot of life experience that gives them great maturity but yet the actual formal education might be interrupted by a couple years or they're entering at a a different grade level of Education than what their age might be in Massachusetts and so you know one of the challenges and you heard this a

097little bit about thinking about high school programming for kids is always something that we have to consider consider um and because we are still relatively low incidents of this kind of SLI designation it's hard to create programs that have an efficiency to them so that's something we're certainly thinking about um as we do this one of the things in addition to probably the I'm guessing 15 to 20 students that will welcome into our schools when students um have already been in the United States um in Massachusetts in particular they may already have been enrolled in another school district as part of their experience um if that's the case they qualify under the mckin vento act as homeless and that means that they have a choice to either enroll at act and boxboro schools or continue

098to attend their school of origin in that case Acton boxboro because they live and reside here is responsible for PRI providing the transportation to whatever school they're already enrolled in um that's something that you know we have a process already in place for it's certainly going to be a budget implication for us as we think about how we're managing funds over the course of the year um but we're we're working through that what we heard from the shelter providers is they're seeing roughly a 60 40% split where about 60% of the families um are coming new into Massachusetts and they so they might enroll right in schools and about 40% of families might have already been in another Community shelter somewhere so that's certainly something we we'll be planning for as well um I just

099provided an overview of you know the two kind of planning teams that we have going simultaneously one in terms of operations one in terms of teaching and learning with a sense of the different topics that you know we we're working on over the next couple of weeks as we welcome families um Personnel wise I think this is where you know personnel and money are the two areas that school committee obviously has influence over from a Personnel standpoint we do not have the multilingual educator capacity to serve additional students we didn't plan for that um so we have posted for an additional multilingual teacher um and that posting went up I believe yesterday additionally um as we talked to other communities that have welcomed students one of the most critical elements was having a family coordinator

100um that works for the district but actually spends a substantial amount of every day on site at the shelter I think one of the things that um we learned from the provider of the shelter was that we should not assume that families will have any type of cell phone or internet access um to be able to easily communic at back and forth we also know that um you know sometimes families arriving from Haiti while the spoken language is often Haitian Creo sometimes you know formal education in Haiti sometimes ends at sixth grade so there really needs to be a lot of verbal communication back and forth that's in a native language uh written communication is not going to be the preferred method for some of our families and we have to think that through um

101and so having that family support person in place to be able to really just on a daily basis connect with each family update them on what's going on in the schools for their child make sure they understand what's happening that they're engaged in the schools in appropriate ways and feeling welcomed is a really critical element so we've also posted for that we have you know um a preference on that that we do want someone whose language is Haitian Creole um and is obviously bilingual um so that they can really help us communicate with families and feel welcome um and then we also heard from some of the other districts that have welcomed families that um because some of the students will have followed uh paths that for some can be very traumatic along the way

102uh before they arrive in Massachusetts and in in our community there can be a real level of disregulation among some of the kids which is compounded by the fact that they've experienced trauma and they also are now in an environment where they don't speak the language um and they're coming in learning English for the first time and that can be a really challenging EXP experience for students so having some um staff in the schools who can speak the language and interact with kids is really important to some of the communities so we've also posted for some classroom assistant um positions that are native speakers as well that we can use to help support students and families so that's something we're we're thinking about as well um from a funding standpoint there is funding that comes

103to the district uh the standard funding for uh the the shelter program is that for every student that is enrolled in our schools there's a reimbursement to the district of $104 per student per day that they're enrolled that equates to about $188,000 per year is the maximum allotment per student that is pretty much what actum box BR spends to educate our students we're right at that $188,000 range um so if we you know have 10 students enroll that means we'll have about $180,000 you know based on the the days of enrollment um but about $180,000 we can count on similarly if we get 20 students we would double that amount so there is some money for the staffing that we're going to need and if we get on the high end of the number of

104students we predict we might have to add some more staff but we want to be flexible and we don't want to overcommit early we want to be prepared but not overcommit ourselves um in terms of reimbursement process it's as I said it's up to $118,000 a year and it's based on the the daily attendance that is reimbursed quarterly so there's a cash flow process to that um that will help us and and gives me confidence that we'll be in a good place with that the piece that you know I do worry a little bit about um is the transportation um under mckin vento we're already projecting that we're about $200,000 over uh what we budgeted for the year um we have several students and that are are going long distances in order to attend our

105schools here that we're transporting from other places in Massachusetts um because they want to be in school here and we want them here um so you know that reimbursement however is the following fiscal year and so you know we should not count there will be no mckin vento funds coming in for transportation services in this year that will come in next year I don't I think that's actually a February reimbursement typically uh for mckin vento however there's a pilot program going at the state now but they only have 22 districts already enrolled in it where they're going to reimburse in November instead of February so it's basically a pre-audit reimbursement um and then they true up the the difference in the audit later so you know that that will be the financial challenge for us

106as managing Transportation costs as we go through the year um I also want to point out it's not a challenge that we don't already do on a daily basis right we have had students who are homeless for many many years and we've been providing Transportation under mckin vento for that period of time as well so it's something that's just ongoing and it's something that just requires a lot of thought and planning and you know sometimes quite honestly good luck um you know they Dave verino always used to say you know it's better to be lucky than good um you know but when you when it comes to Transportation costs sometimes that that's what you're dealing with [Music] um Community assist assistance and donations um as soon as I sent out an email to our staff

107we had people immediately emailing me saying what can I donate you know how can we help can our kids get involved can families get involved um yes is the answer and not yet is also the answer uh the shelter they've done this many times one of the first things they'll do is they want they provide all the Necessities toiletries clothing shoes whatever families need immediately is going to be provided by the shelter because that's part of what they do in their mission then they do A needs assessment within the first few days that a family is in the shelter and then they have an exact um inventory of what families need before we start going out and getting donations because they just don't have capacity to have a lot of donations that will never be

108used and so we just want to say thank you to families who are already reaching out and want to do something to help and we will get in touch with you probably about two weeks after our families move in so we're just asking people to be on hold uh we will on our end be coordinating all of our volunteerism and donations through the resource center um we actually are in a way are very lucky that we chose to proceed with the resource center this year because it situat situates us very well to welcome new families into the community we we now have a process and we have a Resource Network in place um I guess you know I'll just reiterate what I said before in closing that you know as a community we've been welcoming

109people into our community for decades this is not new um and we are good at it we're welcoming Community we just want to reiterate our core values that we are here for our students and we are here for our families we don't care how long our students and families have been living in our community they are all our students and families and we're going to just really remain steadfastly committed to those principles and you know in in a way we're really excited to have this opportunity to welcome some kids that are going to give all of our other students you know some really cool experiences and friendships and just like all all of the other families in our district so happy to answer some questions but that's kind of what we know as of today

110and tomorrow we'll know more thanks Peter questions from the committee andin and then Leela I just have a question on the family coordinator um Can the town provide a social worker instead of having the district hire an additional staff or are you coordinating with the town of Acton for so the the shelter actually provides services we actually have um town of Acton staff on our planning team as well and they'll also provide Social Services the reason that you want a school liaison is school is probably the most complicated environment a lot of the families are going to have to navigate um one of the frustrating things uh I think for families coming in is that one of their primary goals is to get employment and gain independence um so that they can get permanent living

111however the process to get work status takes you know many many months for a lot of these families and but yet the kids go right into school and you need someone who knows the schools talks can go in talk to teachers about what's going on with a kid go talk to the family um and that's a pretty School specialized piece it's also one one of the reasons why they do give the school districts additional funding to to be able to do this thanks for sending out the memo was really helpful to outline all of that um my one question is have you heard anything about unaccompanied miners coming and living here no I think the shelter process might require that it they have an adult living with them Tori yeah thank you for the memo

112and thank you for uh spelling out that there's also some funding sources tied into that that um gave me a finance committee moment of okay there's some um one thing that caught my attention though you mentioned that a lot of the families may not have cell phones or um access to Internet are we worried as we're issuing students Chromebooks that we are putting them in a really difficult situation to actually be able to get their homework done once they've left the school grounds Yeah we actually already keep a stock of Wi-Fi hotspots um and have the accounts for them so we give those out anyway to students who might need internet access um you know we also will work with the shelter and and one of the things the provider knows is that they create

113kind of a homework space at the shelter as well that's provision so that I I think we'll be okay in that regard I think it's more maybe thinking through what types of supports might kids need to be able to complete homework as opposed to just the technology any other questions excellent thank you thank you for the update Peter um all right we're going to go a little out of order here we're going to move the school committee communication goal update to after the subcommittee and member reports and the first subcommittee report we're going to have is on the health insurance trust so I know we've got some members from the trust here to present while they're coming up Andrew do you want to give us a quick sort of intro we have with us Stephen

114noon who is the master of all things health insurance trust I defer to him in All Things things he's put together presentation as well as our representative from Galler and I'll let them introduce themselves hi folks welcome to it excellent thank you welcome Steve good evening um yes I'm Steve noon um I am the current chair of the health insurance trust and I um and the member of the act and finance committee and with me I have Anthony Lively who's the vice president of Gallagher Benefit Services uh um and I brought him to back me up he's only been on the job since July 1st so you can't blame him for anything I'm going to tell you okay I know John Peterson lectured you guys on health insurance trust a couple years ago but since

115you're some of you are new I'll give you the one slide uh um primer um health insurance trust serves both the town of Acton and the Acton boxor Regional School District uh and it is self-insured um we contract with Blue Cross pirate Pilgrim used to be toughs uh to administer our programs like ppos hmos hsas and Medicare supplements the trust sets the rates collects the contributions from the town and the district and pays the claims we don't Des design your plans we don't do co-pays we don't do deductibles we don't do any of that so to protect ourselves from very large claims we um engage in reinsurance or stoploss insurance so that any individual claim reaches $175,000 um then the reinsurance kicks in and they pay the amount over $175,000 and we have an independent

116Treasurer a consultant uh who advise on rates and programs we have an annual audit conducted by a independent CPA so this is the trust financial performance um since uh fiscal 12 um the red line is our expenses the Blue Line's our Revenue until about two fy18 we were staying ahead of the game um the kind of orange goldish line is our ending fund balance or our essentially reserves um and um The Gray Line is our profit and loss so since fy18 things have been going downhill now part of that was by Design um at that point in time our reserves um were getting up close to $8 million a little less than 50% of our expenses um so we decided to um burn off some reserves by having guess below performance rates we had a

117zero rate increased year one year we had a four uh and boy did we effectively burn off our reserves as soon as we were done with that Co hit um I'm not responsible for the timing of that event I'll take I'm the only trustee left from the decision to burn off the reserves though um so um where we're at is um you want to know where the 8 million went yeah um maybe 2 million was just planned um Reserve burning um we have one claim um which is outside our reinsurance of $730,000 a year so we paid $730,000 a year on that one since around 2015 so that that accounts for almost three and a half million of our Reserve loss uh it's an ongoing claim uh the way Orcs is if the reinsurance the

118reinsurance people won't pay for it or if they will they'll just add it to your premium uh so they'll win one way or the other uh so current status is our reserves uh have pretty much Fallen to zero um that despite the fact that our rate increases been 10% um last year this year we have the equivalent uh 10% um last year's claims were up 9 99.4% versus the year before they were down 5% we had a loss on reinsurance of a million dollar uh premium is about 1 million3 uh and we recovered U around 300,000 year before um it was less than that so we're dealing with a rapid increase in the level of claims uh for the last three months claims were running 50% higher than the same period in either of the

119last two years deficits for the first two months of this year of total 1.5 million now $500,000 of that we think is coming back on reinsurance but it hasn't happened yet um we still have some carryover from the Harvard Pilgrim data breach which occurred in March or April last year so we're still seeing claims coming in now that should have been processed last year we don't want we don't know when that's going to stop uh I had hoped it would be um done by now and we do have a new rebate program with Blue Cross Blue Shield but that'll save us maybe $400,000 a year and it won't kick in until the second quarter of this year so not enough to stem the tide so this is what our trust deficits look like uh for

120the last couple years um as I said we went along pretty much um going from um month to month hovering around the break even line not always breaking even uh but starting um in really June uh this past June um things went downhill fast um there was a $700,000 loss in June and about the equal amount in the first two months of this year you know we're up to 1.5 loss for the year already so what would be needed well to reestablish reserves to a minimally acceptable level we'd need to raise about 2.2 million to restore the trust back to a break even basis we'd need about 1.7 million without a cost reduction the combined impact would almost be 20% and 2.9 Million of that uh would come from the town the schools um employees

121would see an increase of almost 20% so individuals would see about $50 or more a month families 118 a month but based on the last three months even that may not be enough like I said claims to the last three months uh just have nothing like nothing we've ever seen before um it's long been set on the trust never look at three months worth of data it tells you nothing it's the one exception to that so what do we know and what don't we know um we know that the claims are increasing at a pretty much alarming rates um we know we won't lose as much on stop loss as last year because we've just about already recovered more than we did last year um we know the rates that we charge are not too

122low um our rates are comparable to the states program the the group insurance commission and the West Suburban Health Group um that's Welsley do poist rentham do Sherborn whan um we've compared comparable plans to those rights and and we're 5% either way uh on those um we know most of our problem is coming from our HMO plans we have um I think five different offerings um the HMO plans account for like 90% of the losses uh We've occurred in these two months uh the ironic thing is those two plans were probably the best performing plans we had last year um we know that there's not a a significant change in the um sub subscribership of those two plans same number of individuals and family subscribers in both hasn't it just hasn't changed much um what

123so what we don't know is if this is just a large number of individual claims that are going to eventually be reimbursed uh from our insurance or whether we're dealing with um a significant increase in utilization by all our subscribers um be nice to have another month of data but that probably won't happen till next week um you know our Consultants say they're not seeing this in other places so um what can I tell you um the situation is is baffling to me at this point um but um I'm here because we can't ignore it um we're going to run out of money um so um we haven't been exactly idle we we back in December we voted an 8% increase and like I said the revised price pricing model so we'd have effectively another

12410% we held our stop- loss insurance premium level we cut our administ strative fees both with Harvard Pilgrim and some of our own and we hired a new consultant to look at all the options um October this year just last week we adopted a new retire coverage model that'll save the the trust 233,000 in an equal amount for the retirees uh and we've developed a bunch of cost-saving options so here are their options they are not additive it's a pict can choose thing uh yes we can raise rates and we may have to um but the cost savings um well plan design and cost share are not within the authority of the trust to effect uh plan design could possibly save us a million four a year cost share which is simply changing the split

125from 7525 to 7030 could maybe save 900,000 Medicare migration could possibly say was 500,000 this we have some employees who are not eligible for Medicare um one of which we know is a um major claim um you can basically pay their penalties for not signing up and get them covered by Medicare in which case we'd pay some fines or not fines but uh late fees and shift that liability over to Medicare Pharmacy Benefit Management could save us a million dollars and this basically separates your prescription coverage from your medical coverage um you're probably you you're probably seeing it now um and you just don't know what the name is um if you're dealing with CVS car Mark or Express Scripts or people like that uh that's a pharmacy Benefit Management right now the benefits there

126go to our partners our Pilgrim and um Blue Cross Blue Shield um there's more savings to be had uh but we'd have to take that uh away from them um to do it and there is a possibility of going to um third party uh administrators so the situation is serious um we we don't know how it's very serious it could get more uh yeah there's a Rosy scenario that says this is all um major claims and in six months we'll be having huge reinsurance uh paybacks and and and we'll all be happy um I'm not an optimist I'm in finance um but what we don't do in these cost saving options will need to be made made up by rate increases um and like I said um the trust is doing they're pursuing every one

127of these options now actually Pharmacy Benefit Management we've been looking at for over a year um plan design and cost here though are um historically been collectively bargained um last time it was done it was done uh I think seven years ago it was done in a coalition bargaining um set up where um the town and the schools unions uh met with uh representatives of town and um the school U management and and and essentially agreed on um actually the change the split percent and a bunch of um plan design changes uh which saved us a lot of money like I said it hasn't been done seven years um it's not fun none of these things are going to be easy or quick to implement um but um I did want to at least come

128before you in I guess sound the warning I know I'm familiar enough with finances to know that you don't need this um and um but I felt it um I couldn't wait for clarity uh I needed to get it out there questions thanks Steve um I'm going to start with a bunch of questions hopefully it'll address some of the ones that the committee has and then I'll go around to the rest of the committee so the first one I think that as a the committee me the Committees probably don't know about because I don't know about it um can you give us very quickly some background on the the data breach um particularly what does that mean did I understand that it that we're getting false claims based on a data breach and then who's

129responsible for those claims do we get reimbursed can you give us a little bit of background on that I don't think it's was a question of false claims basically um Harvard pilgrims claims processing shut down for couple of months uh and they've been um basically catching up okay um a backlog of claims so that the data breach has nothing to do with false claims it's just that it's it's caused a backlog of claims and so we're seeing a peak possibly because caused a backlog and caused our ability to analyze our information um to basically not be not have anything useful until August okay um I think that's clear the the next question I had talked a little bit about the reinsurance reimbursement um What's the timing on that and does it help with cash flow

130or is it I mean obviously it's not helping with cash flow because it's not going to fast enough but what is the typical timing on the re the the reimbursement most of it usually comes later in the year um and uh what we're seeing early may be just exactly what we were just talking about delayed claims um coming through now um over the years we've um I think there was one year we made a lot of money on reinsurance and every other year we've lost some um this past year you know never saw anything like it um so um I would I hate to say reinsurance is like a trip to the casino but it it's a gamble but it's a gamble we have to take because we can't absorb the risk sure of the

131large claims um I've never known an insurance company that went bankrupt um they usually get the the better of the get the bar maret um so the options that you've shared here um do any of them help us with the current situation or are they more sort of longterm for next next plan year certainly plan design and Kare is something that can't be done quickly um Medicare migration maybe we can get some Advantage out of that this year Pharmacy Benefit Management would probably be a next year issue also um so yeah the big can't really be done quickly um believe me if we thought of anything that we've done quickly we'd have done it by now so so then my my bottomline question the one I think that's on everybody's mind is what happens if

132we run out of money how do we pay our claims where does the money come from to close that Gap well we're kind of a child of the two organizations so if we run out of money then they're going to have to give us some uh we could have an interim rate increase I don't think it's ever been done before but we could do it um and the health insurance trust will meet on Thursday morning and we'll be discussing that um I um at the moment I wouldn't know how much to ask for I would like to see another month data um but yeah uh um the only option other than the ones I've mentioned for um uh cost savings that the um trust has is raising rates um so and yeah if we have

133to we'll do it or if there's another solution I'm open to it but okay questions from the committee we're getting close to our our witching hour here where we all just sort of melt into puddles of exhaustion so I'm glad you let me go ahead then any any remaining questions Andrew Anthony thank you for coming here today and I know that you've been um instrumental in helping us fix some of these rights he's been here since July he saved us half a million dollars what other thoughts have you had about ways that we can help to solve this problem or help to mitigate our own concerns with the health of the trust I mean I think Steve did a really good job laying out some different things that you know the the trust has already

134done and um is working on so you know I think we've done that I think the change um to the Medicare program was you know uh a wise one because um uh I think that that program specifically you know saved uh quite a bit of money um without you know a lot of takeaways for members and I think just proactively looking at all these um and having an open mind that the trust has had to look at any and all options and um quite frankly there there's more than likely going to there's going to be some changes that are made whether it's through plan design increase or um you know all the different options mentioned I just think folks need to have an open mind around that so that um hopefully that can be solved

135in a combination of different um things that will make uh those uh much more palatable for folks so you know if we went all rate increase I think it's a little bit difficult for both the district the town and the the employees to to handle but if we are diligent look at all options and and try a combination of approaches uh I'm pretty confident that we can find you know a way to the other side but I think it's going to take some some time and some compromise and uh a lot of open-mindedness there are some levers the trust can pull to make some changes Medicare is an example of it but I know Stevie mentioned plan design and cost share can you tell us some of the impediments we would have to making changes

136in those those and what other types of things need to be done where we to go into that route a absolutely so if you look at plan design and cost share um those are pretty difficult levers to pull so when we talk about different Financial levers um there's a process to go through that um there's you know you can look at both uh collective bargaining um as part of it and impact bargaining or you can utilize um Health uh Municipal Healthcare reform you know that started back in 2011 where there's a process in place to kind of mandate some plan design down a GIC level um so that is you know one way you could go but it's it's a little challenging and then if you look at Cost share splits um I think you

137know to be at Benchmark I think you know pushing that lever would help but if you just looked at that I think it's challenging on the pocketbook of of members to just consider that alone um so it does raise quite a bit of funds but it it does just shift the cost cost over to the member so if we look at programs like uh Medicare migration where essentially the memb is not really losing anything um the town's going to save um I think that really helps so again you know you're you're essentially um I don't want to call it a silver bullet U but it it's a way to do it but again retirees need to have some open-mindedness around it I think um you know there's some data that we're going to need from

138all parties involved and there's going to be some cooperation with that so basically members move over to Medicare they get on a Medicare Supplement Plan when historically they were on the active plan and that uh again would generate you know about a half million dollars in savings um on the pharmacy side again um you know there might be a different process it's not going to be included as it is now with the health insurer but um with that specific program I feel like there's not as much impact to the member there might be some there might be some changes uh to formul and things like that but I think that's a lever that um we can push without it really hitting the pocketbook so much of of all the or organizations and employees involved and

139then when you look at Administration and you know um moving to a third party maybe there's less overhead uh and you know how you have a slightly different process for claims and things like that but again um it's not just hitting the pocketbooks of folks it's uh it's it's more of a um kind of behind the scenes change so when possible we like to go those routes um but again it's undeniable that you know uh co-pay changes and deductibles and and and cost share changes can certainly help and help rather quickly any other questions okay Liz and then Peter um forgive my ignorance on this but if we were to go to third party Administration is that going to cause a loss of jobs within like this community or I'm not sure who does our

140Administration now uh I again I don't think so I think we're you know we're looking on the active plans you know again it's something that is being considered and and bids are being considered from you know all different parties my understanding is those would be all local insurers I I I I don't believe um as far as that goes you know there there would be anything like that that would be displace folks but again um it's possible but likely you know it's not like we're moveing uh to a company that's overseas or something like that it's going to be a local okay um insure most likely mine's a comment for the committee more than a question for health insurance trust but you know the the status of the trust is one of the health Insurance

141challenges we're going to have to contend with in the next fiscal year and possibly this fiscal year the other one quite honestly is that we've had 28 additional people take our insurance beyond what was budgeted for the current year the challenge that we have is the Open Enrollment periods run through in May but our budget is done in the spring um and so as people either retire you know particularly retire they get to stay on health insurance but then you're hiring employees behind you have to you know be able to offer them the option for health insurance um it could also be that more people are kicking into family plans from single plans um but you know the the cost and and Sher or Andrew you know I think the cost is about $20,000 a

142person to the district that goes on health insurance correct yeah so when we're talking about 28 people on the health insurance that were unanticipated that's another big number that we contending with and that's this year one of our budgeting challenges where we really have to think about how we manage the budget this year but it's also now has to go into the base plus whatever increases we have on health insurance next year we have to make sure we carry forward so you know that's you know not to be the bearer of bad news but I'd rather you know all the bad news rather than surprises I think you're foreshadowing what we're going to have at some future meetings as a presentation all right gentlemen thank you so much for for coming and staying for with

143us this late hour um we are going to move on to uh the rest of the subcommittee member updates uh so Rebecca I'm going to turn it to you for an update on school resource officer sub and budget sub you get to choose which one you want to do first I'm going to start with the SRO subcommittee update uh the SRO sub metet on Tuesday October 10th at 6 p.m. we discussed the results of the survey sent out last spring to famili staff and students and evaluated the perception of the SRO program by the respondents uh recognizing the overall positive perception of the program we must take seriously the response from historically marginalized communities which was not in line with those of the broader population we also discussed possibilities regarding the future of the program

144recognizing that we are in a difficult budget cycle this year and are conscious of the difficulties in uh accessing needed resources and supports for the Administration staff uh we plan to meet again on November 7th at 6 p.m. in the admin building when we'll work on finalizing our recommendations for the larger school committee anyone interested in our work can visit the absd website to see all the information gathered uh and then the budget subcommittee update uh the budget sub met on Monday October 16th and discussed the budget shortfalls facing the district driven in part by increased costs and the evolving needs of the student body as stated previously we are facing a difficult budget cycle I want to say that the winnowing of the school budget affects every everyone and stifles the Very Spirit of

145our community this should raise alarm bells for all the goal is to solve both the short-term budget issues and look at the long-term plan to ensure we have ample room for growth and change as needed though we want to be aspirational in our work this year we are unfortunately in crisis mode working closely with ALG as well as boxb leadership we will get through this together the next meeting will be on October 30th at 3:30 pm on Zoom thank you thank you and I'll just add that following the budget subcommittee meeting um we did sort of decide to switch around some of our agenda topics so the memo that I sent previously where we were going to be discussing um sort of at length uh enrollment and enrollment history we've actually scratched that for the

146next meeting and instead we're going to do sort of a number of topics on budget so we'll have a a first preview of what the next year's budgets look like what the drivers are um we'll have some presentations from the finance committees in terms of what the town side looks like and then we'll also have the opportunity for our first read and and sort of group discussion on budget guidelines which will be an important document for this year so our November 2nd meeting is really going to be focused pretty early I think historically on on budget topics can I please you know I'll just you know thank you know Sher and Andrew but all of their staff as well because we have never tried to roll up the budget this early in the the school

147year um but they have now rolled up pretty much every employee we have into the next fiscal year projecting salaries expenses health insurance insurance and we've gone almost line by line through the entire budget just to figure out what would it cost next year to provide the same services this year and then also looking at realistic um perspective on state aid that we might count on what we use in terms of our own reserves knowing that they're in Decline um as well as you know limits of the Town assessments um and how those are going to impact it so that we could get a realistic number for what the challenge is ahead of us so we can make some decisions about how we're going to approach that but knowing that you know it's at least

148from what we're projecting now it's significantly more than anything we've seen to date and we've had two really challenging years already um we we thought we had to get this discussion going as early in the school year as possible to just be out in front of it and be thoughtful and planful but you know what what's clear and I I said this at ALG is the the revenue that we have coming into the district through all of our sources is nowhere close to paying for the the cost of providing the education that we have um and that's going to be the fundamental challenge that we're going to have to figure out thanks uh all right Capital subcommittee update Ben the capital subcommittee met on October 11th at 7:30 a.m. Brendan Hearn provided a review of

149the Bureau of V uh the bureau Veritas report focusing on the scoring system based on the useful life and estimated value we discussed assessing assets with individual School principles setting priorities discussed uh the discussion included the admin buildings roof and solar projects and specifically how they were reviewing uh the scoring system fur the discussion on various building uh projects included the roofing siding and evaluated uh cost estimates were provided we also discussed specific um school facilities projects including uh projects at Blanchard Conan uh Parker Damon the junior high the high and the uh lower Fields area not the concession stands if I recall correctly um there were a few questions about the Blanchard and Conan roofs with the Conan uh with Conan considering Renovations for Energy Efficiency uh keeping in mind though the school is

150over 50 years old the discussion also touched upon the modular units and potential engineering studies for the athletic facilities including Fields courts turfs fields and all costs involved the CIP committee or excuse me strike that subcommittee authorized $20,000 to hire a financial advisor our advisory company to help the district with the processes uh to obtain the maximum amount of financial aid grants and tax rebates for uh the building work we are penally going to do the work on assessing the district's uh tenis SS have uh are underway and there will be no more battery storage units installed on any AB campus next meeting is scheduled for October 25th thank you Liz all right uh policy sub met on October 17th at 7:30 a.m. via zoom and we started on sort of the first topic that

151we are going to be tackling uh for this year which is the policy on uh technology specifically looking at sort of smartphones and um cell phones and smart watches uh we are specifically trying to stay within our school committee goal of increased communication so we're going about this very thoughtfully and our at our next meeting on the 26th of October we look forward to hearing some input from the um administrators of the actual schools who would be implementing the processes based on the policy excellent thank you um I am going to skip over the school Community communication goal update um because I think you probably all of you participated in something over the past few weeks and I would love to hear it um but it's pretty late and so we're going to skip over

152that until our next meeting so keep that fresh in your head um we are then now going to move on to the consent agenda so items as you recall on the consent agenda don't usually require discussion approved with one vote unless any member would like an item held for discussion and a separate vote I'll read each item by name and if a member would like it held please say hold members do not have to have attended a meeting to vote on the minutes item number one approval of the absc meeting minutes of 10523 and item number two approval of ABR ptso budget 2324 given that no items were held is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moves second wow so we'll go with Ben and then Rebecca on that thank

153you uh so we have a motion in a second all those in favor I any opposed any extensions none that is unanimous thank you uh Liz you're going to read the warrants for us thank you yep I got you uh I move that the school committee vote to approve the listed warrant the following listed warrants totaling 6 m289 2893 AP vendor warrants as follows 24 D- z00a dated September 28th 2023 in the amount of 1,726 47248 24- z00b dated October 5th 20 2023 in the amount of $1,237 32 payroll vendor warrants as follows 24-7 PR dated October 5th 2023 in the amount of 591 thou, $342 and payroll warrant p2407 dated October 5th 2023 in the amount of 2,971 26497 second I'm going to make a friendly amendment to that motion because someone did this

154to me once you missed uh 24- z7b you missed the seven in your warrant name so I'm going to make a friendly amendment to make that 24- z7b okay do you accept my friendly amendment I accept it just you know it was in the subtitles it was just sounded fast oh okay and then Ben do you second all right so great that's been moved and seconded all those in favor I any opposed exensions none thank you very much there's nothing in the FYI I think other than our monthly student enrollment um which we're going to get a presentation on any last updates from you Peter I'll entertain a motion to to a journ second it those were very clear that was Tori and Ben all those in favor I that is unanimous thank you all