001good evening everybody noting the hour and the presence of a quorum I call the act and boxboro Regional school committee to order uh members of the public who wish to watch our meeting May do so online at acent TV's YouTube channel it's found at the top of our agenda um and this meeting is being recorded and will be posted on act and TV's website at actant tv.org um a couple quick notes before we move into recognition so tonight we have our budget hearing um so we're going to do some stuff mostly recognize some amazing people in our district and then we're going to call to order a budget hearing where I'm going to say a lot of the same things all over again we're going to talk about budget we'll have some opportunity for public
002input and participation as part of the budget and then we'll adjourn the budget hearing and return back to our regular school committee meeting um and I'm going to say this just a couple of times for people in the room but so everybody understands the budget hearing is the time where if you're here to provide some public comment on topics related to the budget please do so during the public participation or the public comment period inside the hearing we're not going to take public comment regarding the budget once we return to regular session and then have our standard public participation opportunities I will say all this again when we get there and remind everybody um just wanted to give everybody a heads up on that one other thing that I want to just sort of recognize
003here at the beginning of the meeting there's a woman who's extremely important to our Lives who keeps everything running very very smoothly she's probably watching at home right now and I want to wish a very happy birthday to Julie lumier so thank you Julie for everything that you do for us the tables are always set perfectly everything is set the right uh name plates are in the right spot every time um and Peter always has cough drops and water hidden in a little table back here because of Julie's amazing work so thank you Julie and happy birthday all right with that we've got some recognition Peter we have slides that go with the recognition we slides wow all right so um first recognition of the evening I'd like to ask Lauren Gould um to please
004come on up or Lauren G Donahue sorry old habits die hard um and maybe the administration from uh Douglas would like to join so um chairperson Klein and I are joined by our Douglas administrators um and we just want to congratulate Lauren Gul Donahue as the 2025 maea which Julie didn't spell for me but that is the mass art educator Association uh Elementary art educator of the Year award uh Lauren is an art teacher uh at the CT Douglas Elementary School in Acton Massachusetts for grades K through six she advocates for student directed learning and teaching for artistic behav Behavior which is one of the real curriculum models that Acton has been and boxbar has been known for over recent years um and really highlighted in the art educator World um in the Douglas Studio
005she creates a inclusive environment where students explore their identity as artists so you know Lauren I don't know if you want to say a few words about um what you do and you know tell the school committee and Community a little bit about all the great work that you do um and highlight some of the artwork awesome thanks um first I just want to thank you for recognizing this tonight I really appreciate it um those that know me well know I spend a little bit too much time working and I'm really passionate about choice-based student driven artwork also known as tab which already explained thank you um so the reward was really validating um I also want to recognize our incredible K through6 art Department led by for the last few years by Celia Knight
006um we consistently collaborate and share lessons and ideas on so much of how I teach I learned and I get from them as well um for an overview of the award um it recognizes participation and presenting at both the state and National Art Ed conferences and those activities um they looked at leadership in the field and Publications um I've LED professional development on the studio habits and our curriculum I'm on the tab Inc board as the secretary and we work with art teachers around the world um and I've had two tab advocacy pieces published um and I did read that an out of state National arted associate um the affiliate for that chooses the recipients and they also look at our teaching philosophies and images of student and personal artwork I just wanted to share
007that I find so much joy learning alongside my students and experiencing the flow and the magic that happens when they're creating um artwork that's coming from their ideas and they're exploring new materials and I really feel so lucky to do what I do um in the past few weeks I've been overwhelmed by the generous words and the celebrations of staff and students a fourth grade class wrote me a song we almost cried um it was incredible so I just I'm really grateful to work with such amazing colleagues and kids thanks so Lauren we have a small certificate for you congratulations thank you for all you do and for representing AB the entire art Department uh throughout the district and all of our schools in community just so well uh you are an amazing asset to
008the district your students are so lucky to have you and congratulations we're going to just do a quick photo op now um so come on over [Music] okay next I would like to uh welcome up two of our high school Educators uh Lori Burns and Eliza green and then I would uh also like to bring up three of our high school students who were really here to highlight tonight um so if you would please welcome Ashley goo keny Watson and Nathaniel Kim come on up you don't have to be shy you're you're the ones everyone wants to see so it's okay um so you know I'm going to turn this over I believe to Eliza right um to say a few words about our students here um and we're recognizing them for having received multiple
009Scholastic art Awards awards in painting mixed media sculpture Ceramics and glass so um Eliza I'll turn it over to you and you can say a little bit more about our students thank you for having us I'm Eliza green and this is Lori Burns we teach Visual Arts at the high school and we are here to join and congratulating some of our amazing student artists Ashley goo Nathaniel Kim and Kenzie Watson the Scholastic art Awards recognizes teen artists for their achievement through a competitive jured process these dedicated student artists created submitted and received recognition for artwork that exemplifies the core Awards core value originality skill and the emergence of a personal Voice or Vision in viewing these three artist Works their risk-taking in the pursuit of original compositions is a particularly impressive Common Thread it is
010with great pride that we recognize the accomplishments of these student artists who received Scholastic art Awards this year for artwork created in their Studio Art and Ceramics classes at abhs Kenzie Watson silver key sculpture Nate Kim honorable mention Ceramics and glass Ashley goo gold key painting gold key painting honorable mention mixed media and if you would like to see a little bit more of the students artwork um as they become seniors and this year in the senior show for Ashley goo um along with graduating students across Visual Arts disciplines they their work will be on display at the upcoming senior art show at the Village Works Gallery in West Acton so stay [Music] tuned congratulations to all three of you and we'll do a little photo up families if you want to come up you
011can actually come right up here and get a photo too if you'd like and you want the good [Music] angle say it's embarrassing but they really like it I have a 17-year-old daughter and I'm sure she appreciates it every time look at your parents all right okay congratulations everyone thank you [Music] okay congratulations one more time Now's the Time if you don't want to stick around feel free to sneak out um I am now going to call to order because I've noted that the president of aqu Quorum um the oh gosh noting the Pres I call the FY 26 annual budget hearing to order again members who wish to watch online may do so at acting TV's website and we are still being recorded um so we have some detailed budget material already provided in
012our packet um there is a separate packet and separate agenda for our budget overview uh in a second I'm going to turn it over to superintendent light who's going to give us an update on where we are on the budget including his presentation on the recommended budget following uh the presentation on the budget we'll take public input and public comment um regarding all topics related to the budget and budget only um and then once uh we receive the feedback from the public we will adjourn the hearing and we'll return to regular session where then the school committee will deliberate and ask the superintendent questions on the budget like I said I'll just keep reminding us of what the plan is as we go along so at this point I'll hand it over to Peter for
013an update on the FY 26 recommended budget all right thank you Adam um I'm not going to go through you know all you know 140 slides you've probably already looked at um so what I want to do tonight is just give you an overview of some previous slides just to remind you of some key points as well as give some updates of how the budget has shifted from the preliminary to the recommended budget um that we are presenting to you tonight uh before we have an opportunity for public comment um you know it goes without saying and I think everyone here feels this this has been an extremely disappointing and frustrating um budget to develop um where I think we feel as though we are not providing our Educators in schools with the tools and
014resources they need to be able to be there best for our students I want to say um that you know with with a real level of sincerity that that is probably the most frustrating thing to have happen as a superintendent of schools um as well as all of our team of leaders across the district District um when you just don't have the resources you need to do what you want to for kids um and so this has been a series of challenging choices um I'll talk about some of those tonight as well along with some of the updates so overall in our schedule um we are progressing toward the final budget vote um and so we have our budget hearing that's required by law tonight where there's an opportunity for public to make comments on
015the budget I know we've been hearing High engagement um along the way and I'll talk about that in a little bit um and then uh we move to our final budget vote which is scheduled for next Thursday um and it really needs to be next Thursday because that has to be 45 days before the first town meeting um we have to be able to send our budget to the Two Towns uh to prepare the warrant articles so again budget hearing we're headed to the final budget vote when we do get to the final budget vote it is really noteworthy that the language in the regional agreement um for the budget vote it is 2third of weighted votes votes of the full school committee um an absent member is equivalent of a no vote on the
016budget and that's really important to understand that in order to pass the budget it has to be two-thirds of to all the members all 11 um have to be voting on that and it has to pass with that weighted weighted majority so I just want to make sure we highlight that because that had come up a few years ago um on us and it was kind of a surprise that that we hadn't anticipated um key takeaways you've seen this before obviously some of the context is we've had to declining enrollment over you know since regionalization and we are expected to decline slowly in terms of student enrollment over the next 8 years and the number of classroom teachers and the the teachers serving students most in our classrooms and this includes art music PE all
017of those unified Arts um that has declined in proportion to the number of students we've had in the district overall so um lower enrollment lower number of classroom facing teachers at the same time uh we have higher number of support teachers than we've ever had before because that has mirrored the increase in the percentage of our students who now are classified as having high needs so you know we need to think about we have been Staffing our schools in uh response to student enrollment and the needs of our students um and you know just the last bullet we continue to say is our ability to have developed and funded programs for students with disabilities in our schools um is an opportunity for our students to be successful and to stay in their community and learn
018with their peers and it also has saved our district money um in avoided cost of out of District tuitions which have escalated well beyond what school budgets can afford four major strategies I'm not going to go into the details of each one um but we really looked hard at class sizes across the district to make sure that we were programming all of our courses within school committee guidelines for this budget and if something was under budget guidelines we made the decision that that would have to be a reduction in this budget um that impacted mostly our secondary schools we implemented a recommendation of the elementary budget task force uh that we had around reductions in the general education assistance um we talked a lot about the value that they provide and recognized that it was
019a hard decision that had to be made in this budget uh we are going to closely need to examine our scheduling practices as we go into the next school year around our multilingual students and students with IEPs to make sure that we're able to provide the services um that we're required to we wish that in this budget we were increasing the number of multilingual teachers that we have in our schools we don't have the funding to be able to do that and so we're going to have to be really strategic about how we schedule students um I think you know I actually had an opportunity to meet with a group of Educators yesterday um and at the elementary level one of the things they talked about that is hard for classroom teachers is the loss
020of some of the autonomy over being able to schedule their own schedules over the course of a day um and having to follow a much more prescribed schedule at the grade level and at the school level um because they lose some of that freedom to be able to think about the responsiveness to their students but as we think about how we allocate our staff around special education and multilingual education if we don't control the schedules for that we end up burning out our our staff um who are providing all of those services that kids need uh because they have to be able to pull groups of students out in an efficient manner um so that's just an example of how that real focus on efficiency um impacts teachers in a classroom um and that feeling
021that they have around being able to have some autonomy um group two and tier uh intervention sizes we're also going to have to look at group sizes for those um as you know we are proposing reductions in some of our tier 2 and three supports in the district we have not been able to restore them I'll talk about that in a little bit but we will be looking at group size as well as we go into next year um overall budget history so what we are proposing um for the coming year is a 2.11% budget increase um just as a reminder that includes the retirement of debt so the ACT which is also you know the assessment from that debt that goes to the taxpayers is also a revenue Source from the town that disappears
022and so even though it's a 2.11% increase that's actually over a 3% budget increase that that you know goes to the two towns in terms of the actual impact on the assessments um we over the last couple of years we have dissolved the act in health insurance trust to move to a more stable uh larger health insurance group uh we were able to save some money by doing that and so that's a positive that has helped us a little bit in this year's budget uh we also um took a position coming into this year that we would limit the use of reserves obviously we had to pause on that because of needs to pay off uh liabilities from the health insurance trust um however in the next year's budget we continue to not use any
023excess and deficiency um and so the goal of that is to really begin to rebuild the reserve accounts that we have which is necessary for kind of long-term Financial uh health of the district I already talked about reductions in the general education assistance and I already talked a little bit about scheduling at the elementary level that we're going to have to think efficiently about significant Finance changes that went into this I already talked about the retirement of debt um from the Junior and senior high school building projects and how that would impact the budget health insurance overall was up 3% or three just over 3% however I want to note that the actual health insurance rate increase was 14.84% um we were very fortunate to have implemented an opt out last year that saved about
024$660,000 on the budget and so you know that is helping us uh mitigate some of the impact of that almost 15% health insurance rate increase we had some attrition um that we were able to have some savings on the budget as well that does mean we are budgeting for a lower uh step in lane on like teacher experience for next year um as we hire Educators um we are not going to be able to hire Educators with the same level of experience that we might have in previous years it's not a significant change but it's significant enough to help save us some money on the the coming Year's budget um and then we had the vacancy Factor I've talked about that a lot it was just a liability line sitting in the budget that we've
025been working to reduce how is the budget changed um preliminary budget that was presented to you was 116 13580 um so about $116 million school committee increased that to almost one about $116.8 million I want to just talk about how we got there to make sure we're all clear about that about 218,000 of that was from anticipated increases in chapter 78 that were included in the governor's budget that we felt was a safe budget proposal uh 287,000 or almost 288,000 was anticipated increase is in Regional Transportation Aid and Charter School reimbursement uh when the governor's budget was released and then the school committee put an additional $150,000 budget increase in um that is going to be assessed to the two towns in the budget however you also did that with the caveat which is asterisk
026here that if the state increases chapter 78 over the governor's budget the amount that the town Lo um are assessed additional to what was originally proposed in the preliminary budget would be reduced back to that original level um through some of that additional chapter 78 anything beyond that the school committee would obviously be able to retain but we you did make a commitment that we would return anything over kind of that preliminary assessment back to the towns if we receive additional Aid um we were hopeful I think on February 8th that the addition of some of these monies might result in us being being able to bring um some staff positions back uh I certainly left that meeting feeling positive about that as did many members of our team um and I think probably many
027of you did as well um however um we have had a a good number of employees now returned to our health insurance who had previously opted out um there are changes across the state in health insurance markets and you know we think that what some of our staff are feeling as their spouse's health insurance comes up is that our health insurance is actually more favorable than what they're now seeing in the private market so um we are seeing some people return um we also um had to account for that change from what Maya had originally thought of a 12% budget increase on health insurance to the 14.84% original budget proposal in January um Sherry you I talked about that along with our staff we did not want to make additional budget reductions so Sherry has
028gone through just a variety of lines in the budget and actually decreased um some other lines in the budget to account for the offset that we needed to find in order to not have to reduce more staff um so that's where we sit today um is you know we're kind of holding firm at the original proposal that we had we did not have the flexibility to to add positions back um want to just talk through because I do think it's significant what we have reduced and make sure we're all clear about that um we've heard significant feedback um from our Educators community members um throughout this process saying they don't have the resources that they think they need to have um I take that very seriously as I know all of you do um and
029have a lot of respect for our Educators in the district and the work that they do every day um we have heard feedback certainly um around you know our general education classroom assistance that we have in our elementary schools um and you know Educators need to have that type of support we've heard feedback around tier 2 uh interventions and tier three interventions and the reduction of those um we have heard feedback and significant feedback around the elementary special education coordinator position over at McCarthy toown Elementary School um I think we heard really important and significant feedback about that and our leadership team has had multiple conversations since that original discussion um and ultimately we have not changed the original proposal however I want to just explain a little bit of the rationale why um we
030are in you know a a challenging and unique position again where we are having to hire a special education director for the district we have had multiple special education directors since I've been here coming and going from the district it is an extraordinarily challenging job um and the two candidates that were our finalists were both highly highly skilled individuals um with absolutely fantastic references from a broad range of stakeholders um however neither of them have any experience in our schools um and at particularly at the district level and looking at programs across the district too as we thought about that it's really important that in order to help that person be successful we need to provide that support at the district level in the form of continuity of that assistant director position also by keeping
031the assistant director it allows us to have a resource at the district level that we can then use flexibly across all of the schools as we might evaluate different needs that come up through the school year as we make this change and we feel like we need to be able to be responsive to that we also had made the decision um that we committed to making sure that you know as we've talked about each School having a halftime coordinator the Parker Damon building will have a 1.0 coordinator located in it in the building so that that individual has flexibility to be able to manage time across the two schools as they need to and be able to be responsive to needs um of different programs as they arise so you know it is not the
032solution that's going to satisfy many individuals um and I just want to recognize that I I feel badly that we don't have a solution for that um however that is currently kind of the rationale at least so you understand it of why we're continuing to maintain that um we continue to reduce um another central office support position we have a variety of stiens that we've already highlighted for you and some reductions in athletic coaching positions um that were positions that some sports had that maybe other sports did not have so we really just looked at making sure there were equitable distribution of coaching resources across Sports um at the elementary level um I already talked about general education assistance we talked about tier uh two supports in the form of reading assistance and the math
033specialist we um were reducing through attrition a certified librarian and replacing that with a library media assistant um and we are just simply not funding a new case section even though we're anticipating a slight increase in kindergarten enrollment based on NASDAQ reports um as a way of managing class size at the Junior High um we had already reduced an English teacher on one of our teams um this reduces three other positions on one of our teams which means that we will have one team at the junior high school fully split of seventh and eighth grade students on the same team just as a reminder the seventh and eighth grade students are not in class together that's that's not part of how this works um but the teachers will now be teaching multiple grade levels um
034across the two teams so just want to highlight how that works and the impact of that and at the high school um primarily this really looked hard at class sizes um introduces two social studies position positions a math teaching position and two English teachers though one of those English teachers um was funded in the fy2 budget but we chose not to hire it because we anticipated the current budget challenges that we would have ahead so it it's not actually a person um but it's a position that would have been budgeted um we are also reducing about two of our campus monitor positions um and a 19-hour assistant in our star program I wanted to give you a slide that you would not be able to read easily um you know as a way of summarizing
035um I will just you know kind of highlight if you can see the bottom line um what this you're looking at is the net change in Staffing between FY 23 and FY 26 um and if you look at total staff positions all highlighted in the pink um you're going to see that in FY 23 we had the equivalent of 9 46.6 staff and uh next year we are budgeting for 7 staff um that's a significant reduction over time I will also make a significant caveat that in fy2 we switched how we've reported FTE to make sure we were consistent that all staff members were reported on a 40-hour equivalent um so that as we move forward it's easier for the community to understand how we account for things in a way that makes more sense
036to the public um so that does account for some of the incre the the decrease in staff I want to note um just a few notes on Beyond 26 because this is going to be a significant topic of conversation as we progress to the second part of the meeting um overall we're going to continue to see some declines in enrollment over the next three years um I think the junior high will probably see the largest decline in enrollment while the other two levels will remain relatively stable for three years if NASDAQ Trends continue to hold um we do anticipate we'll continue to see higher student needs across all of our levels um you know expenses um and this is something we want to be really clear about with the community early um I think we're
037all seeing the impact of these reductions but we are not seeing a change in the market um in terms of negotiations around contracts um and we do have contracts up next year that we're going to be negotiating um but the market continues to correct for you know kind of less than optimal level of of educator and other School employee increases over a long period of time and that's been check Ching um so I know that's hard for a lot of districts right now the market is not changing and that's something we'll be working on next year um health insurance early indicators from Maya are to carry 15 or more percent on health insurance rates next year we will not have a large savings from opt outs next year that's a one-time savings so we anticipate
038that we're going to have to bear the full brunt of that impact um we also um don't know what utilities will look like um and if current utility increases are going to hold for another year or another not um and also needing to think long-term budgeting for Capital needs um the long-term thing that we're really all thinking about from a capital perspective are the High School rooftop units and that is almost a $4 million project that needs to be done um so we are thinking now about how we're going to work toward that end uh but those High School rooftop units when I say that our HVAC person in the summer actually runs a garden hos in a sprinkler up to the roof of the high school to keep the rooftop units running that's actually
039not a joke so those will need to be done in the next couple of years and it's expensive so want to be thinking about that what we're projecting now um based on our multi-year model that we maintain is it's probably in order to maintain services from one year to next after this year is going to be probably north of a 5% budget increase um between 5 and a quarter 5 and a half somewhere in that range we don't know what it is but we want it to be transparent and really upfront about what that looks like we're also dealing with a lot of uncertainty um you know at the from federal support we the funding for it and as we learned this week the future of it um we just don't know what that will
040look like um State funding um we don't know what chapter 78 might do Regional Transportation circuit breaker you know one of the things that I quite honestly worry most about is you know we receive only about a million 7 in aid from the federal government but I think more Healey just said they're receiving about 16 billion a year um in federal aid and if for some reason that's impacted I don't know how the state would make up for all of the other services outside of Education that wouldn't also impact us so I think it's just something to be thinking about and tracking um as another area of volatility and uncertainty that we we don't know about yet so um with that Rosy report um you know I will turn it over back to the chair
041for comment thanks Peter all right so I am happy to welcome any budget feedback and public participation at this time on anything related to the budget so if anybody has any comments they wish to make regarding the budget Now's the Time um if we don't have anything now we will um adjourn and have the school committee to discuss the budget and then when we return to public participation it'll be anything that's not regarding the budget so we'll only have public participation for things not regarding the budget anybody in the audience have any public comments regarding our budget for our budget hearing seeing none I would gladly entertain a motion to adjourn our annual budget here in sove second uh so that's going to be vickram and Tori all those in favor I any opposed extensions
042that is unanimous so we are now adjourned I can close that Tab and I will return us to our uh regular school committee meeting uh and now we're going to have a discussion on the budget for the school committee members um after that then we will have uh student rep up but I don't think I see any student reps here um so then we'll move into Public public participation then so any questions or comments for Peter on the budget that he just presented I actually do have one and I realize that this is nitpicky but I just um what I did review like all of the line items that were provided um most of them made perfect sense to me I did wonder there's one line number um it's 35 other admin supplies that has
043increase of about $200,000 this year or for FY 26 and I just wondered why it was such a big jump and if that might be something that we could put off and I'm sorry that I didn't send that in an email ahead of time that's okay and $200,000 is not nitpicky yeah that could be the contracted services do you have the I'm bring it up right now all right while Sherry looks that up we let's see if there are any other questions and then Sher just give me a high sign if you once you found that any other comments or questions on what was presented Tori so I appreciated seeing the number of what it's going to take to maintain Services um I feel like we're coming in with this budget that is that feels
044low like everybody's excited about this year because it feels like we're doing what we said we were going to do we're we're going to stay within 3% and I think we've realized that we can't moving forward because the growth of expenses is so steep that 3% doesn't get us close what we're getting from Chapter 70 doesn't get us close like nothing does um and so I think it's really going to be important that we communicate along with what we're doing with this budget and all of the cuts that we can't keep going at 3% like this is it so I appreciate you putting that number out there Peter Jenny just to follow up on that um to all of our Educators and parents and you know the community as a whole um who you know
045I think everybody agrees that our school district is the basis of our property values and in addition to being you know an amazing thing for a lot of other reasons and um we just do not have the revenue um or the resources that we need to maintain the excellent School District um that that we have had and that many of our children have benefited from and um you know this is this is an issue with regard to putting the the federal disaster aside um with regard to State funding so I would urge everybody to contact our state delegation to let them know how upsetting this is how hard this is and um that um you know it's way past time to to uh for the legislature to get it together and reform Chapter 70 funding
046because it's um it's been recognized that it is out of date and not working since the foundation budget review commission that I think came out with its report in maybe 2015 um and you know the student Opportunity Act did not remedy those deficiencies so um it's very very painful position for us to be in um for the administration to be in but especially for our teachers and our kids and our families so I would um you know we appreciate all the feedback that we got from so many people but really that needs to be directed at Beacon Hill um at at this point and going forward so I would just urge everybody to to um to do that if you have concerns thank you thanks Jenny Jenny it's a good opportunity um I want to
047thank Sherry because you don't have you can keep working Sherry you're adding numbers um but I want to thank Sher because um you know we heard from at least one or two families that they would like to be able to write to legislators and advocate for this um so Sher actually has drafted a letter a template that families can use so uh we'll be posting that and being able to share it with different groups and individuals who would like to write to the legislature and really advocate for better funding for for schools so I'll take this time since it seems opportune to just highlight that the Joint Committee Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to meet on their FY 26 budget hearing focused on local Aid on Monday March 24th starting at 11:00 a.m. at
048UMass Amherst um there is a large contingent of school committee and school members and the mass Massachusetts Association of school superintendents uh masc our organization Mars the Regional School um uh Association are all going there to testify to really push our um the the joint committee and to push our legislators to understand the challenges that we're having so um I will send a note out to everybody um with some of the information um which will include some of the advocacy letter both that sher's work on um and that Mars has sent out as well I it's an open invitation anyone can go I believe it's first come first seated there um and I will be also sending this out to our both towns um select boards Finance committees Town managers Town um uh administrators so
049that um we have a a big showing there to to Really begin to do some of that advocating yenin yeah and then we'll go to Sher she's got the answer um just just a quick update on the legislative advocacy so uh one of first day rep uh Simon catado he has actually has office hour tomorrow at noon at Acton Memorial Library so please drop by if you can thank you Sherry uh the majority of it is the contracted service for the RFP that's already on the agenda for tonight we had to increase unemployment a lot of it because it says admin their central office expenses so we have our contracted services for the software that has gone up like our munus system our financial system we had some separation costs of people that we know
050that are going to be leaving within the next school year that if we have to buy out their um sick time per contract the unemployment the uh dues and fees that have also gone up and that probably is about 180 right there there's different line items if you want to complete breakdown I can send it to you separately yeah but it's not like oh we we bought too many paper we're planning to buy more paper CS that we could just like cut cool thank you excellent thank you any other comments questions on the budget um I I'd like to highlight one thing Peter could you go back to that slide with the totals the numbers on them um you know this was a this was a an illustration that I asked Peter to present to
051us because I think we all left budget Saturday um thinking positively about our situation that we had at least squired away an extra 150,000 um with a you know the hopes that the the state would would backfill that for us that we might be able to bring something back yeah that's the one thank you um and so I think it's really important just to to reiterate to everybody that we started on that Saturday with a preliminary budget of 116 million um and we ended the day by saying hey the governor's budget which feels pretty good is going to give us an extra um almost 500,000 and then we put an extra 150k in there and every penny of that and then sum to the total of $30,900 has gotten consumed with additional expenses between budget
052Saturday and now so that Headroom that we thought we had in the budget Headroom is is not a fair representation of what really what we thought we had but that additional funding that we had accounted for at the end of budget Saturday it's gone it's already gone and then some um so I think it's just really important that um we recognize that and I and I want to thank the administration for finding $3,955 elsewhere in the budget so that we didn't have to cut another half a FTE um and that we could keep at least the level of services that we have today um so that's that's the first thing and then I want to Echo the comments that Tori made um you know Peter showed that to maintain the the services that we have
053now it's a 5 and a quarter to 5 and a half% operating budget increase an operating budget does not translate to what the assessment will increase to both towns and I know that over the past few weeks we've been very clear with both towns to say that will be in the realm of 6 to 6 and a half% for the town of Acton and somewhere in the realm of 10 to 12% assessment increase for the town of boxboro um there is nothing left to cut I think we've been through that a couple times now so um I would say that as we continue to do our advocacy work is we continue to talk to both our legislators but also the folks in our towns we have to get them prepared for this this is not
054a surprise this has been coming and I think we just need to be very clear that the school budget cannot be cut anymore we need 5 and a quarter to 5 and a half% increase in our operating budget next year to maintain the level the relatively meager level of services that we have now and that there is nothing left to cut so I would encourage every school Committee Member to begin to socialize that through your networks through the legislative Outreach that you do through any of that that you know it's been four years of austerity there's nothing left to cut and we've tried we know that there's a problem at the at the state level but the communities need to be prepared to to see that number come uh and and we'll have to deal
055with that obviously as we after we get through this budget we'll have to start doing some of the Outreach that's what our our reorganization task is around as well but hasn't even started yet so there's no guarantee that that's going to save us 5 a half% next year all right any last questions comments on the budget all right so as a reminder we'll be taking a vote uh next week as a double reminder we're meeting next week for those of us who are used to that every other week schedule we're back here next week um and uh do please fill out the um school committee attendance calendar so that I know that if you're not available um I can figure out my vote calculation uh spreadsheet then it's it's very technical let me tell you
056all right um if there's no other comments on the budget we'll move on to I don't see any student reps in the room um public participation so again any members of the public who wish to uh uh speak are invited to do so for up to three minutes uh public par participation will only take place during this time of the meeting and since we already had an opportunity to speak on the budget we won't be hearing any comments on the budget uh is there anybody in the room who would like to make a public comment excellent we'll move on to the superintendent's update back to you Peter all right thanks Adam in other exciting topics mcass season is upon us um the state obviously voted to um end the requirement of mcass as a graduation
057requirement for the competency determination however there is no other change to how schools are required to administer mcass um so we will be sending out some information for families just to kind of make sure that our families understand that the change impacting the competency determination does not impact any other aspect of mcass um you know we know that sometimes families have questions about is mcast required for students to participate there actually isn't a state process to opt out and school districts are actually held accountable for participation rates um and so we have had some situations um where even some you know of our highest performing schools have ended up in a scenario where um they are classified as a school requiring assistance because they have low particip ation rates um so schools continue to have
058to Advocate um we have argued with desie about that in the past it is I will say you know which is somewhat you know humorous at this time it's actually a federal requirement that desie also holds schools accountable for that participation rate um so there's just not a lot of flexibility for schools to be able to say yes we have an opt out um so we'll send out some information about that um so families know what that is um and you know keep moving in that direction regarding spring mcast Administration um leadership updates um we have been engaged in the search for um a new director of special education um you know I am pleased to let you know that we have narrowed that uh we had two finalists um who each spent a couple
059days in the district over the last two days um good participation and good feedback I had an opportunity to review that feedback I'm not yet announcing the finalist publicly uh because I want that individual to be able to speak with um their school administration however um I do have a candidate that I will be recommending forward to you at your meeting next week um so that will go in the packet tomorrow um the candidate knows that and at that point that will be public that that's our candidate we're moving forward um and you know I think we were really fortunate that we had two really highly qualified individuals this year um who applied for the director of special education position who each brought some really really skilled and unique experience to this um I have
060to tell you references for both candidates were impeccable um very very strong I want to thank Amanda Bailey for having reached out to cpacs in both communities who actually wrote really extensive recommendations for both candidates who are both equally positive um about families perspectives on our candidates so it really was a difficult Choice um and ultimately we were able to narrow down based on some of what we perceived as our current needs so um we will be uh putting that in the packet tomorrow and you will see um the director of special education finalist for your appointment um at the next school committee meeting so we're looking forward to that um this week was World cultures week at the high school that is one of the coolest weeks um that our high school does it's
061really a tradition in the school um it's an opportunity for students and staff to just showcase the remarkable diversity that we have around our school share cultures with each other um and just a real celebration of the culture of our community and school schools so congratulations to the high school um we also had Elementary literacy weeks going on this week I will tell you personally I had a chance to be a guest reader in Miss Chrysler's class um at Blanchard it was actually uh last week um and it's just such an awesome experience to be able to go in spend some time with our second graders um and just really you know be able to talk about literature and read stories so um thank you so much to miss chrysle for inviting me in um
062vision of a graduate we are continuing now again to make some more progress on vigant of a graduate um we had to delay our community Forum because we just weren't getting people signing up to participate um and this is a really important um process for us we will be using the vision of a graduate we develop as a foundational element for the reorganization work that we will be undertaking next year I want to say that again the vision of a graduate we're developing is our vision of what we want our students experiencing over the course of their career here we're spending time on that this year we've already sought significant Community feedback in the form of um surveys that people were able to engage in multiple times uh we've had 2 200 participants who have
063participated all of our high school students had an opportunity to participate as well and give us their feedback um our steering committee for that is going to be calling all of that survey data together um and pulling that together in a way that we can host some efficient Community forums um so on April 15th we're actually going to have two different Community forums um one at 43030 4:30 to 6 and the other from 6:30 to 8: uh we're actually going to have a little reception in between with just some light Refreshments so people can mingle uh make it a little bit of a social event um we really want our community's participation in this Educators participation families community members at large we're also bringing in um some members of the business Community um who are
064you know tied into Statewide networks around the most relevant current skills employers are working for looking for um to provide a little educational opportunity for all of us too so that we can look at our vision through that lens um in addition to all of our community lenses um and we're excited to be kind of back on track with that and want to bring that to fruition by the end of this school year so that that can be that foundational document that helps us organize what we're doing in our schools um also um I think we talked about this earlier because we recognized one of our high school students Aran who is uh working with the act in 250 committee um he has developed a scavenger hunt um and so we did a kickoff earlier
065of this year when he actually was able to go into a lot of our fifth grade classes but we will be sending out because um that scavenger hunt is now kicking off starting on Sunday March 16th so we'll be sending that out too um with some additional information for families so um some really good stuff going on across the district and you know certainly thank you to everyone for all the great opportuni we are providing for our students thank you Peter anybody have questions on the update all right we are off now to guests and presentations Dr Abrams is going to speak about her entry plan findings hi Gabby welcome everyone so good to see you thanks for having me back back from you know at the center table versus the side table back from
066the from the from the side you it's very exciting when we allow her to come to the front and not have to talk to the back of people's heads it's good to see you let me just make sure the technology Works excellent so thank you so much I would share that um this is probably more of an update than maybe what um might sound like findings I'm really excited to be able to um give you just a look back at the last seven months that I've really enjoyed in terms of leading and learning in this community and just share some very um high level updates with you I did just as as a little bit of a caveat I recorded um for the faculty and staff um a video message for them to walk them
067through the entry plan prior to this evening and um I did start at 40 minutes and I did end up at 17 is that what I said after three takes so I'm I know I'm hoping that I can be concise no pressure um but I'm really glad to be here so as you know we always anchor ourselves in our mission vision and values and um these have become an appendage for me as well I'm so happy to be able to um add them to my repertoire of values as well and um the district strategy which anchors all of us and all that we do and you'll note that this District strategy um is a 21-26 district strategy and as superintendent light mentioned we um are really excited to launch into the next phase of strategic
068planning in our community just a reminder about the purpose of the entry plan which I shared with you back in September the why behind um this has been the the primary function of my work over the last um six to seven months though there's been much work to continue while I've also been um studying listening and asking so many questions um lots of caveats here uh so I want to highlight what um a little bit about what this is and what this isn't um what this is is a a high Lev sharing of learnings rather than findings um I feel like the word findings um is very fixed and it doesn't leave a lot of room for the fact that this process is not fixed and some of the learnings that I've um gained insight
069about May shift because as I learn more um I say to Peter oftentimes I'm like I feel like there's more that I don't know still and and that's a true statement actually because 6 months is not 6 years and six years is not 16 years and there's so much that I'm learning every day I've highlighted um I've provided highlights that are um captured in Broad Strokes um but if this is a nonexhaustive share I I would be here all night if I shared all the things that I learned um I also want to highlight the fact that I recognize the complexity of schools as organizations and they deserve incredible respect so these learnings may feel oversimplified at times or overgeneralized and that's not my intent and I just want to share um that I I
070completely understand the complexity of organizations and um have deep respect for the work that happens inside our schools there will continue to be new learnings as I've said they cross over Lots different categories so I'm going to be talking about curriculum professional learning and Leadership and there's there's intersectionality that exists between and among those uh buckets of teaching and learning categories um I'm not presenting to you an action plan or even um a timeline for these actions but you will be seeing a lot of the questions that I ask appearing in future strategic plans and you'll say oh that's that's what that's what I heard about um on March 13th um and then lastly what I wanted to make sure to emphasize to all the faculty and staff and to all of you and to
071our community who allowed me into their worlds just deep gratitude and appreciation for the cander the opportunities and the relationships that I've been graciously granted over this time so thank you so much so the agenda for tonight is broken down here I'm going to first talk about um methodology so you'll see I used lots of different methods to engage in my entry process observations conversations we um facilitated a thought exchange with our faculty staff and our families data and document analysis I also didn't visit every single classroom and I didn't speak with every single faculty and staff member and every single Community member but what I did was um gather a great deal a large stock of uh of data and I tried to find where the themes had Crossovers and what seems to rise
072to the top for um four themes to share with you this evening the thought exchange that we facilitated way back in the fall um sought to sought to answer the question um what should we stop start and continue to do as it relates to curriculum and instructional practices um I think similar to what we've experienced with the vision of a graduate engagement and focusability we've not yet found a sweet spot in terms of Engagement in these kinds of experiences so the participation rate was quite low um 259 participants in a faculty staff and Community survey was quite low and what I want to highlight is that um the greatest finding that came out of this was echoed in a great deal of other um data sources so we are in a time in education where
073there's a real um thought exchange positions these as side a and side B which feels like it's one against the other but it really is just two sides of of the same coin um where in this field right now we are um there's a real sense of a desire not to lose teacher autonomy from so many of our Educators and so many of our colleagues throughout the field at the same time there's a real aspir spiration as well for standardization and consistency and what is really comforting that we can see here is that the common ground is that they're all student centered um there's everyone has the same why um but there's a real um a difference on the how that we accomplish those things and I think this is something that we're going to
074need to navigate with care and Grace as we continue to grow as a system and continue to um work with students with um lots of diverse learning needs and I'll speak more about that in a moment so the first thing I want to do is celebrate um I have Six Bullets I probably could have had 60 but in terms of the um the assets that I saw most prevalent in the conversations that I had with folks in the community there is such a deep sense of Pride there is such a commitment to social emotional learning integrated as part of the whole student learning experience diversity is seen as such a strength in this community um depth of educator content knowledge and passion for teaching is ever present the centering of work on students and then
075aspirational leadership we keep asking everyone on this leadership team is like what is next what can we do for kids that's even better and those are um real points of Pride that I think you should all feel very very um happy about and feel like that's going to fuel us forward it's really important to um Center our students and I thought it would be interesting to look back at the same slide that Peter shared with you all about our enrollment but I wanted to share it with a little a little bit of a different spin so one of the um challenges that we've seen financially is that we've had um declining enrollment um we've since in the last 10 years since regionalization we've declined about 725 students and as you can see the projections pacing
076out over the next eight years we're going to continue to decline slightly in enrollment what makes it um really interesting is that we have also seen a continued enriching student diversity a rise in student diversity and needs so while we're declining the students who are in front of us are showing us that they have a different level of needs than what we've seen PRI previously and just you know one example is the the high needs category which we've talked about before that's any kiddo for whom um low socioeconomic status former El or or English learner or a student identified as having exceptional needs they fit into a category of high needs that category has increased by 10% in the last 10 years so while our overall enrollment is declining our our student needs and our
077um enriching diversity is rising and I do think that there's there's an opportunity there to really have very meaningful conversations and a lot of my questions about next steps are kind of focused on those two areas I wanted to provide um one snapshot about student achievement that kind of Echoes a little bit of what I just talked about and this doesn't have um nuanced numbers intentionally but if I tried to find the highest level data point that I possibly could across um our system to talk about us as a whole system versus specific grade levels so I looked at um student Proficiency in grades 3 through eight and 10 as an aggregate so all of our mcast assessments together um and in English mathematics and science uh Technology and Engineering and then I did something
078that I haven't done before which is I looked at just non-high need students usually I look at all students to be to be honest with you which includes High students and and and non-high need students but I looked at just non-high need students and I said wow we have a history of incredible success and I knew this with meeting we have high success in this area with all content areas with kiddos with non- high needs 89th percentile 80th percentile 85th percentile 89th percentile just an incredible level of success and then on the on the other side on the right hand side I wanted to look at just the high needs students and those numbers the same assessment the same grade levels were about 34 to 40% um and the visual is very powerful for me
079to see the left and the right and so we've maintained a relatively stable achievement gap between those two non-high need students and high need students but there for me lies the work because our efforts are really intended to close that Gap not to lower the achievement of those who are achieving so beautifully high and so successfully but to really close the the achievement gap between High needs and non-high needs students and again that just kind of Echoes a little bit more what I talked about in the first the two slides prior around declining enrollment and our enriching diversity that continues to grow I thought it also important just to show um what does desie expect us to do um so these are the standards and indicators that I am held accountable for we as a
080district are held accountable for when we go through District reviews these are the categories that the department of Elementary and secondary education wants to know about they want to see artifacts and evidence that we're moving in these um were progressing in this in this work these are um updated since um just as of August 2024 I was um interested in kind of asterisk the areas that um teaching and learning touches and guess what it's all of them so we spread across all of all of these areas um and so just to kind of anchor Us in what is it that we're expected to do how are we evaluated as a district um these are the areas the standards and indicators so in the in the most of the rest of the um learnings that I'm
081going to be Shar with you are anchored in four different categories uh curriculum and program alignment equity and access which is a very big bucket uh professional learning and educator support student centered evidence informed culture or assessment um and organizational or leadership and Leadership capacity so those the areas that I'm going to share with you um both strengths what were the strengths that surfaced in the data review the conversations the the observations that I engaged in um when I offer strengths I also um think about them as a moment in time and also on a continuous Improvement trajectory so even the strengths are noted as we're in a like this is a real strength for our community and what's next for these areas to continue to help um them grow because they're going to be
082um pivotal for the other areas and then instead of framing um opportunities or challenges or something that um might feel um more negative um I really decided to frame next steps as questions things that I've been thinking about connected with the areas that I think are going to be next for us I think it's important to frame them as next steps because that also acknowledges the fact that change is um developmentally Progressive and that it's on a Continuum and you have to start from some level of strength or some level of development in order to get to that next level of development and so I thought next steps felt um to be the most appropriate so these four categories I'll be talking about through the lens of both strengths and next steps so curriculum in
083program alignment equity and access and keep in mind this is non-exhaustive and I tried to keep the um the numbers reasonable so that they all stood out so I want to highlight for for you um the areas that stood out as um really great strengths and opportunities for us to Anchor oursel and continued good work we've talked a lot about the adoption of um El and illustrative math in our K through 8 and K through six environments um you all supported with financial backing um the adoption of a k to2 social emotional learning explicit instruction program we're dabbling this year in some high quality instructional materials in uh fifth and sixth grade social studies called investigating history you haven't heard too much about that but that's something that we're exploring and the teachers are actually
084like really loving which is really rewarding we've talked a lot about multi-tiered system of support Flex blocks K to6 advisory 7- 12 the reduction in levels at the high school is really um a strength and a courageous move and it's developmentally on a trajectory and of course the vision of a graduate process in terms of next steps I'm not going to read through all of um but what I would say is they for for me they encapsulate processes that we need to consider in order to enhance our ability to provide the greatest level of access and equity for our students so curriculum mapping unit inter internalization protocols curriculum review Cycles um are all processes that are evidence and research based and so wondering how we can start to explore some of those processes to to
085integrate um really paying close attention to the way in which professional learning time is allocated we have an exceptional amount of professional learning and collaboration time in this community it's a real value to honor our professionals with professional learning time there is never going to be enough um but I've really never been part of a community that has as much professional collaboration and professional learning time um and what I want to highlight is really focusing that professional learning time on tier one instruction and inclusive practices these are really key elements for me in in the findings of um the work that I have engaged in as part of this process really really working and the teachers have said that to me not in those words but they've said that those are the needs that they
086have working um to intensify their own understanding of how to work with diverse multilingual Learners students who are newcomers to our to our uh Community um to our country um really leveraging that students with um more intense um diverse learning needs that is an incredible Focus that needs to be um moving forward the second and the last bullets um are worthy of mentioning um because of financial um challenges in the last few years we've had to make some really tough decisions about our library media science program as well as our digital literacy and computer science program we've reduced library media specialists at the elementary school we went from um four to three just this year um so really trying to figure out how that fits within the trajectory of a student learning experience because it's
087it's just it's not the same experience without um someone who has that depth of knowledge training and background and additionally we um had to sacrifice some positions in terms of digital literacy and computer science and that's something that we really need to continue to think about especially in this technologically advancing world and then lastly and I know Peter mentioned it earlier about um if we if we could we would be increasing Staffing in our multilingual learner program um and so we have a lot to work on regarding um those staffing needs and how we can creatively um leverage schedules to address student learning needs without additional staff the next category is professional learning and educator support and here here are some strengths that I highlighted um in my video recording today I really celebrated the
088leadership team that I was able to join um I talked a little bit about when I went to principal school and I went to principal school because I wanted to have a broader impact instructionally teaching and learning was always my jam um it was really exciting to be able to enter into that space as a as a graduate student into an educational leadership program and I'm so thrilled to talk educational leadership with all of our colleagues across our schools um they are all instructional leaders it's really a incredible asset to this community um thinking about the the the the number of structures we have I already mentioned our professional learning options um you have remained committed to teacher leadership positions which is an Incredible strength in this community um our instructional coaches our Junior High
089Department coordinators and our 9 through 12 department leaders are are a gift to teachers um job embedded professional development is is the best way to learn and so we have those positions to do that um and the adoption of a online um on demand professional learning platform specifically targeted to support us to meet um multilingual needs is a is a great asset next steps um I have a lot of questions and hopes for increasing and optimizing those teacher leader roles for tier one instructional support um really pushing that even further to to better support teachers um looking at how we can better leverage our school schedules and the allocation of our collaboration time specifically with our special education and multilingual Educators they are incredible assets and experts in the field and um I have lots
090of wonderings about how we can better pair our classroom teach with intention with our special Educators and multilingual Educators um again to hearken back to that inclusive practices so that we're keeping our kiddos in the classroom with their classroom teachers as much as possible and lastly um the another learning was that um I'm hearing a lot from Educators about wanting voice and choice in their professional learning how can we give some um autonomy as opposed to that standardization when educators are saying I know where I am on this trajectory and this is what's next for me and so that's an area that I really want to challenge our thinking on student centered evidence informed data culture um lots of great work that's happening and I'd say k to6 is leading the way in this work
091um through the adoption of Forefront which is a data visualization tool I want to bre excited to like bring that forward to our 7 through 12 we have um solid Universal screening tools academic and social emotional learning tools k to8 um and and K to 12 for social emotional learning learning um we've started to talk about Equitable grading practices through some research 7 through 12 and the launch of Power School grading portal access also goes really hand inhand with that Equitable grading conversation at the secondary level and so that's really exciting to to launch us and can we take that even further so um how can we continue those conversations 7 through 12 and also we've been having pretty deep conversations about a consistent reporting tool k to6 so we currently have um six different
092ways in which we communicate with families about their academic the academic progress of their students as well as social emotional development of their competencies so we're um moving towards having conversations about a reporting tool which I know is a school committee U policy so we'll be in touch with you about that and I think it's always important for us to ask questions about what additional assessments and curriculum resources can be leveraged to gain a clearer sense of student need there the the elementary Educators have adopted core resources that are allowing them time and space um back not having to curate and create but to focus on what are the prerequisite skills that students need to access these curriculum resources and so I've been asking those questions throughout the district would looking at some other resources
093be helpful um that's those are hard questions to answer because it's very different than what we have ever done before and maybe the time um might be now to to really consider that and then um again leveraging FR Frontline success um our first implementation year to see if we can expand that um K to 12 and our last category was organizational leadership capacity you'll see that prioritization of teacher leaders appear here again because it it fits um also the positions that are that are Central centrally located um in terms of social emotional learning multilingual uh coordinator Elementary coordinator Visual and Performing Arts diversity equity and inclusion and special education um this team of central office leaders has really been um an incredible um group of thought Partners to to join and while there can be
094um there can be a silo effect sometime with those roles the culture that's been created in this District around how those positions are are are intended to to intersect and support one another is is really clear and in addition to that that the team at central office and the way in which the the School principles interact is is very um there's a high level of trust and collaboration that exists that um is also an area of Pride so next steps in these um in these areas um is to continue to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the teacher leaders so that we can enhance the support of Educators I keep going back to tier one it's probably um a familiar drum beat to you right now because I know that you know that the the
095biggest piece of that mtss triangle is tier one it's what happens in the classroom and so we have to keep thinking about how do we keep putting support into tier one because you do that really really well and with a great deal of strength you will not need the same level of tier 2 and tier three support um continue to deepen the leadership capacity of those positions so that we're bringing um leadership understanding around change management I think some of the challenges that I often hear from teacher leaders is is familiar because it's they're the challenges that that I deal with around you know change it's it's actually not content specific it's worldly specific um and then addressing the gaps in oversight and as I mentioned the library media and digital literacy I have not
096mentioned yet comprehensive wellness and I think it's important to mention that few years ago we reduced a Health and Wellness Health and PE director positioned um and that has that has been hard especially during a time when we have new Comprehensive Health and physical education Frameworks I don't necessarily think that a health and physical education director position is um the question I'm asking because I I think more about a comprehensive Wellness model and I really would like to explore that in the district there are models recommended by desie um CDC ascd called the um whole school whole Community whole child framework which actually has 10 tenants to it and that leadership role actually oversees a lot ofal um nursing school physical education and health and PE um all of those things and so I really
097you know think that you need to think about a comprehensive Wellness model moving forward recognizing that um fiscal impact is is is real I'm almost done um so here's the big uh the big thinking um we have so much strength that has brought us to this point and I think we need to use it to fuel ourselves into the future but I think we need to potentially think in different ways um our kids are telling us that the society is telling us that our fiscal climate is telling us that we still have the same I think we have the same goals that we've always had for kids we want to we want our Educational Systems to prepare kids for critical thinking skills to to innovate to address Global challenges to promote equality to be adaptable
098and to serve as ethical leaders we want that we've you know probably always wanted that and we have all of these challenges that exist Financial instability and declining enrollment increasingly complex student needs rapidly changing technological um advancements I think we're going to have to challenge the thoughts that are inside of us that that that sometimes come out that say well we've not done it that way before or I haven't thought about the work in that way before and maybe we need to think about doing it a different way um because we're serving a different a different population so I will end with um one of my favorite podcasters and authors um Adam Grant this is this is kind of how I think about this work intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and
099learn but in a rapidly changing world the ability to rethink and unlearn matters even more and so that's the challenge that I think is before us how can we rethink and unlearn some of the things that we might know and be open to um Opening space up for doing things a little bit differently because of the world in which we live the conditions that are on the ground and the society that our students are entering into um that as we've always said there are jobs that they're going to enter into that even been created yet right and with a lot of gratitude I offer um opportunity for any questions thank you so much Gabby I I lost track of time thanks uh it wasn't 40 minutes right it was not 40 minutes I guarantee that
100any questions or comments from the committee ition hi Gabby hi I have two questions number one is um slide 16 where you did a compar comparison between not comparison you show the data for nonin students performance and hes I think that's brilliant my question is that do you know what's the high needs student percentage of all students the high needs percentage of all students at in 2024 25 is um was on the next slide 33% okay uh my second question is that than for that I must have missed it um my second question is that I know life happens especially this winter/spring everybody got sick um my question is that in like across the schools there are going to be teachers absence and I'm just wondering like so when students miss an instruction day how
101do we have any plans to make up for that because again like you know if my son misses a math day he'll come home we'll work with him but there are many students who don't have that option M so the missing instruction time how they going to be able to make up yeah I think it's a really good question I don't I think that the recent conversations over chronic absenteeism have really inspired a lot of different thinking in that area there hasn't been specific action I mean Educators have all been incredibly creative about putting together packets making sure that they um some record their um record something for students to to look at I just I had a conversation with a high school teacher recently about that but you know Gathering materials but you can
102the most powerful experience that a student has is within the classroom within the 45 50 to 67 minutes and so you can never replace that um but I do think that's one of the areas that we're going to need to really be thoughtful about as we move forward um we've always probably had to be thoughtful about it we've just never created another system about it um I think there's there's a uh program that I was a part of during Co called the modern classroom project and actually Peter recently shared a a research project that they're doing right now the the modality of the modern classroom project that one of our um I think retired math teacher in actin boxboro was deeply ingrained in was like a blended learning model where um Educators kind of flip
103the classroom have you heard that term before a flipped classroom so sometimes students will do some work ahead of time and they'll come into the classroom and it won't be the direct instruction that we're typically familiar with this is just one example there would be an opportunity for students to do some prep work and come in with some background knowledge and then the classroom is is intended to be designed for activity based deepening learning challenging assumptions um extending opportunities so that's that's one way of um one way of doing it the modern classroom project does it through videos where Educators um record videos they do um explicit teaching through videos and students kind of self-pac through activities and the teacher becomes the facilitator of small group instruction throughout the class period so so there are
104ideas out there in the field for how to address that we've not adopted anything widespread but I do think it's a really important question for us to explore thank you Becca and then Lai hi hi um I really appreciate seeing you know this all laid out and sort of explained um both you know current you know strengths and you know what points you'd like to see moving forward I think that that was you know a great way to structure it I do want to nitpick a little bit on language where I think that it's really hard for a Layman who's not sort of um well-versed in school lingo or even you know like sort of corporate lingo um what any of that meant so you know while I think this sort of venue is um
105speaking to people like us that do know a lot I think there's probably a lot of people listening who maybe don't know what a lot of that sort of meant and then I also sort of wanted to point out um CU I do I think the the idea of like a a whole school Community Wellness sort of framework is a really interesting and great idea um I guess my initial gut reaction is that could also be really bad if um it sort of turns into taking away Choice um I think it's great if we focus on education and providing supports just looking at it um sort of what's out there right now it just leaps out to to me that there isn't sort of language right off the bat about accessibility being important um cultural
106sensitivity that sort of thing just right off the bat I don't see Googling it um a lot of that kind of language baked in and I think that there's two ways this could go I don't want to sort of bring everybody down but we do remember the Eugenics movement so I think that there's great ways that this sort of thing could be used and also negative ways thank you and if there's specific feedback things this is really intended for you and for our faculty and staff and I appreciate I'm always sensitive to Ed you speak and sometimes don't even catch myself so if there's anything specific that um I can alter um I'm happy to do that as well thanks thanks gab sure so I'm looking at the again go back to the slide 16
107where you showed the um Gap the the achievement Gap me meeting EXP exceed meeting or exceeding between the two groups mhm between 30 plus change right so I'm just wondering or curious if is there a case study or anything that you have come across where that Gap is much narrower and if so what what is it that they they do did differently or is it just the makeup of those groups that is different what is it inherently so different that we are doing we can improve on yeah I think it's such a thoughtful question so I didn't break these down into subgroups because we had talked about that in the fall we had looked at all the different subgroups um in the fall and all the different and you and and you recall potentially that
108the subgroups that um the greatest Gap are students with um special education needs multilingual Learners and Hispanic Latino um identifying students so those were the groups of students who had the the greatest needs I will say that this is this is not an uncommon challenge this is the challenge in our field in education is meeting the diverse learning needs and diverse cultural needs of students and specifically those three groups of students there are specific strategies that are you know recommended in the field for trying to mitigate those practices and some of them are being employed right now in pockets in throughout the district so high quality instructional materials or the adoption of illustrative math and El is one example so having access equal access to standards aligned vetted evaluated criteria based curriculum and instructional materials
109again so that teachers can be um lifted from the burden of the extra curating and creating is a research and evidence-based practice that works for um those students a lot of the research speaks to the fact that sometimes what the one of the reasons why the Gap exists is because students aren't often exposed to grade level material and high levels of expectation and that's why one of the um strengths that I noted was the reduction in leveling at the high school that is an incredible strategy to aim to increase opportunity and access for all students to be able to really achieve at high levels so there's lots of research about different strategies and some of them are in Pockets throughout the district and I think all districts are really challenged by by this area I
110hope that helps Tori so I could listen to you for 40 minutes easily I would totally listen to this um if this was the highlevel version It's amazing to think of the depth of knowledge and experience that you've been able to tap into and the thinking you've been able to do so I really appreciate this thank you um a couple of things you said that uh give me great comfort as we're looking at um you know we'll get to talking competency determination later but as we look to moving towards coursework being that key standard um and so your thoughts about tier one instruction and strength strengthening that I know that has been you know a challenge for some kiddos in the past to be able to access that is that we're just not we don't
111know what to do with them yet um so that felt really good to hear and another thing that um I really appreciated was noticing the challenges that scheduling provides and I think we've heard that Echo tonight right um you know anytime you've got something that takes kids out of a classroom and whether that is you know chronic absenteeism or whether that is we've got too many things stacked on top of each other and they just can't all occur simultaneously um recognizing that and being really deliberate in it so I appreciate that those are some of the things that bubbled up and it gives me great confidence that you see those as things in the way ahead and mhm appreciate all your work thank you great thank you VI I just want to say I think
112it was absolutely amazing and impressive presentation in a high level it's such a large amount of data to convey in a simple manner but you structure it in such a way that really everything is really there very succinctly um and I think it's highly comprehensive and and to Echo what Tori is saying I mean to see what the actual the depth of all this is it's just it's highly impressive and I think I think you hit all the high notes thank you thanks so uh I'll I'll come in and then and I'll go to to Leela um a couple things that I think you've actually heard a couple times already um first around um inclusive practices and building the practice up at at tier one instruction um I think that's a a really great observation
113and I think you'll even see some recommendations coming from the CPAC shortly around um inclusion and so I think it'd be really great to be able to take some of that feedback from CPAC and include that as well so inclusivity can mean many many things obviously but putting that at tier one putting that at the core of our instruction I think is going to be amazing um of course you fast forward it away from 16 you don't have to no you don't have to go back um because a couple of people have already touched on it and and I I just want to reiterate something that you said um that was really impactful and I sort of want to challenge you on how you talk about this so you you you talk about closing the
114Gap but then you caveat that by saying closing the Gap doesn't mean lowering the standards for those who are uh you know in the in the high performing group and so I think it would be really great to think about how do we how do we change that terminology to say raising the bar or doing something because we're we're not we're not closing the G Gap by bringing those at the bottom up and those at the top down we're closing the Gap by bringing those who are performing less and and and increasing their performance so I think there's a change in language that would be really good there to really illustrate the fact that um we're not lowering the standards for everybody we are creating an A pathway for everyone to meet the same level
115of high standards um and then you know Becca mentioned a little bit about the wellness thing what I really liked about that that sort of excited me was was the idea of a leadership position around comprehensive Wellness um and taking a lot of those disperate components inside our district and giving a a leadership and a and a sort of a a central voice to that so I think that that's something I'd love to hear some more about and then lastly Gabby I just want to you know over and over again every time I've interacted with you I'm just amazed by the passion and energy and energy and did I mention energy that you bring to this um and so I'm so glad that we have you here I'm so glad that you'll be a thought
116partner with us as we look to restructuring as we look to a strategic plan as we look to the vision of a graduate all of that work I think you bring such a depth of knowledge but did I mention energy and passion to this work so I'm super happy that that we've got you with us thank you thank you Leela did you have a comment thank you for your presentation um I also really appreciated the opportunity to talk to you as part of that process um and appreciate how you show up both really focused on kind of professional work but also like showing up as yourself um with all the experiences you've had and the professional learning that you've done um I have a few comments and then maybe one question I think for at
117least 5 years that I've been paying attention to school committee um I keep hearing about this kind of persisting achievement Gap and I I'm hearing Kira I'm hearing Evelyn in particular ask some really pointed questions about why that is persisting in what we are doing um I also recognize that mcass is a measure and most students take it um and it can be a starting point for this conversation and I'm wondering how we also think about evaluating student achievement more broadly both for an individual student but then also to think about evaluating our students kind of as a whole or in subgroups a little bit more broadly than just mcast scores um and I say this not as a critique but more honestly as a plea to like um I would I would love to
118see some of this stuff shifting um and I recognize that it is not only our district um I also heard you talk about conversations around reporting and at a brief glance it looks like Forefront does have the opportunity to share back with families I understand comp apps around wanting data to be interpreted accurately and as we build out this um practice of using data to make decisions I wonder how that can be shared back and families and students maybe depending on grade level it can be part of making some of those decisions um and then to my question a little bit more broadly than your presentation I see a lot of that this is great and I think all of us are well aware of how wild things are happening in the world um and
119I can it is certainly affecting me as a person and I'm curious how maybe this is a conversation for later and maybe this is an email I should have sent um but how we balance wanting our students to keep learning um and stay on track while also giving space for just that people are trying to Grapple with things that are happening and things are happening to their families and there's some fear and um how we balance all of that and like wanting our students to succeed and learn so I don't know if that's an answerable question in this moment but it does something on my mind as I hear you yeah thanks for sharing that with with such tenderness um and thank you for your comments yeah I think that um you know I was
120I was a I was a kiddo for whom um school was my Oasis um it was the place where you know there was safety to fall there was safety to make mistakes there was safety to be who I was when other places in the world didn't feel so safe and was like it was a space to shut out kind of other things and I think in a I'll you know this is public meeting in my in my own naive way I feel like I've wanted to create space for kids to have an oasis in schools where they could just be whatever they wanted to be and like we could we could pretend that nothing else is happening um and I think we're in complex times and that's becoming even trickier to do um and I
121think it's incredibly important for us to acknowledge the world events and the complexities that are happening as part of The Learning Journey and that's another I mean I didn't even highlight this but I can't tell you the number of conversations I had with Educators who are like um really who are who have such a deep belief in cultivating Global Citizens who are going to impact a a brighter world in the future and so you can't do that without acknowledging the darkness that does exist in spaces so I I don't have an answer for you but that was my postulation like um I think there is a balance um but I do think that there's a there's a role in our in our education and our learning that does need to to welcome in that flexibility
122of of navigation thank you any last questions or comments for Gabby um I I this whole thing about you know that emphasizing that we want to bring those up and not the others down uh it seems to me that just seems self-evident that I don't understand why there's a need to underline that clearly you wouldn't take the top performance and bring them make them lower performing to bring them in line so I don't understand why there's such an emphasis on having to underline that point that seems just sort of clear as a Bel it it seems clear of a bell to some but I will tell you that we've sat around this table at times and had feedback from the public with concerns around some of the changes that we've been doing with the concern
123that it might lessen the expectations for the the community as a whole to so to actually work on lowering the performance to me bring them in line that seems to me you know of course we you know we see what's going on in the world these days especially in this country so I suppose it's not surprising any other comments questions thank you so much Gabby thank you all all right we are going to as Gabby finds her comfortable seat behind all of us uh move on to new business um which is the first read of proposed changes to policy ikf which is our graduation requirements I'm going to turn this to Liz who's probably going to invite somebody like Gabby or Andrew back to the table um Gabby and Joanie are going to come and
124talk about graduation requirements so Liz do you want to give us a like two second update while they find another chair at the table uh yeah absolutely so um we got some significant feedback from our um Educators on you know what the graduation requirements should be uh I really really appreciate all of the thoughtful um feedback and input that we were able to get from uh our staff here and Joanie has done an amazing job as well um so yes thank you and this is sort of like what we came up with collaboratively and with a lot of their input and track changes as well so with that take it away [Music] ladies right I'm back this is not as nearly as exciting to talk about no all right so just to provide a little
125bit of background this is all in the memo that's in front of you but just to just to kind of like look back to look forward um as you recall on November 5th we were all um presented with ballot question number two which eliminated the grade 10 mcast as a criteria for competency determination for high school graduation and replaced with the um with the language that districts certify that students have mastered the skills competencies and knowledge of the state standards and by satisfactory completing coursework that has been certified by the students District spe specifically that shows Mastery of the skills competency and knowledge contained in the State academic standards I feel like I'm getting into Edge to speak again I'm so sorry Becca um it's right from the statute I'm reading legal language um and
126curriculum Frameworks in the areas measured by the mcast high school tests described in section one blah blah blah which is basically the 10th grade mcast which is in U mathematics English language arts and some um science area we were then provided with guidance from desie um um about a month and a half later November 5th to the middle of December um that included some language in support that um really clarified that the districts needed to identify their own individual competency determinations specifically emphasizing those three content areas aligned to grade 10 standards um and then also sharing that desie was going to approach this work in three phases shortterm for the class of 2025 medium-term for current high school students and then longer term for our class of 20128 is that our Frost class or 2029
127because I'm sorry 2020 okay 2029 my Logan um so there are going to be three phases of this work since that came out there's ALS there's been a lot of other chatter at the state level as well um so we will talk about that probably after Joanie speaks about the specific competency determination language that the high school staff um department leaders and Joanie LED and collaborated on so you want to talk about that okay so we are proposing then that our competency determination be earning passing grades in Grade 9 and 10 English um or equivalent courses uh passing grades in Algebra 1 or GE um and geometry or equivalent classes and earning a passing grade in biology or physics or an equivalent course we also have or the completion of a subject area portfolio which
128demonstrates Mastery of grade level standards in the content areas delineated above and those are what I just read which correspond to previous mcast exams culminating the 10th grade year so in addition to that um the the policy that you have is not the competency determination policy it's the graduation requirement policy so at the same time it seemed appropriate that we adjusted the competency determination proposed language to be what Joanie has just identified in addition um Joanie made some kind of like administrative changes to align the um graduation requirements policy language to match what's in the program of studies and as well added um some language um the to um Arts language arts requirement to meet Mass core um or a full year of art um an Arts elective in the Arts areas um to the
129graduation requirements it's probably a good space to provide opportunity for some questions about the compy determination language or any of those changes to graduation requirements vicam I have a question uh I'm not clear on the social studies requirement um I see in one place there must be two year two of which must be US History one and two which seems to me to be excessive and later on it says uh one must be US history so um what which is the proposed one going forward I think you're looking at the difference between what it was and what we're proposing that it be yes what are we proposing that it be 2 years including us one and us2 uh and what what what what what propelled that change um that's what we've always been requiring that's
130what our 10th and 11 us us one and two yeah 10th and 11th grade is us one and us2 so we are just cleaning up the language and school committee policy it's been what we've been doing I for decades all right thank you for clarifying welcome Yin and then Tori um forgive my ignorance I'm just wondering what's the Fitness for Life or living yeah that's our that's our ninth grade PE course our physical education and health course in the ninth grade so I'm wondering a little bit about the portfolios and what we think that will look like or if we don't know this yet cuz I I've heard that we haven't actually done any mcast alt so maybe we don't have background in that what's the process moving with that yeah we are developing that
131process Tori and um as we're looking at the students in the class of 2025 we're being really thoughtful about how we develop that process in fact we had a meeting today with all department leaders and Gabby and Peter to kind of walk through that but I just want you to know we're being thoughtful and I can't tell you exactly what it is so you're actually trying to roll that out for 2025 yes we are oh my gosh you go that's awesome um can I ask one more question um so there there's also something on there about waivers I mean honestly as I was reading portfolios on waivers I feel like I'm looking at what used to be the alternatives to passing the mcast um and I was wondering so is that anything in the graduation
132requirements can be waved including the competency determination or are we just talking coursework there and then if I can ask one more can you give us an example of like what that might look like please the language specifically refers to the graduation requirements or the distribution requirements you could find similar language in what is stated in the competency determination because we say or equivalent courses and we say or portfolio right so and it is specifically in reference to the graduation distribution requirements um any course in that list of graduation um requirements can be waved it is rare a situation could be for example when we say biology students normally take biology at actum boxor in the 10th grade year if a student comes in in the 11th grade let's say and they didn't have a
133specific biology course in n9th or 10th grade and in previous years passed mcast because their class even though it wasn't called biology fulfilled some sort of biological uh Sciences standards sometimes we would um wave that requirement so that the student could stay on grade level with the rest of their peers and they had met standards so those are the kinds of situations when a team including Department leader assistant principal finally principal would wave such a graduation requirement um every once in a while World Language can also be considered based on different circumstances as well other questions comments so so my question is what's the likelihood of what we have here based on March 13th guidance from the commonweal what's the likelihood of that changing between now and maybe for next year's graduation for class of
13426 I think it's such a good question it has been um a little bit of whiplash um going on so after um the department offered some guidance there was some further conversation at the state level with um Governor Healey's office and she has organized a I don't think she's calling it a task force but fundamentally a task force to look at graduation requirements she's intentionally calling a graduation requirements versus competency determination so that's something that is that's going to take probably about I think Peter 18 months was at the intended timeline for that study um to in basically her um her goal is to ensure that all students in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have some standardized measures for um diploma access um and at the same time the board of Elementary and secondary education um
135has a public comment period open right now I think it's through April 4th maybe April 6th or April 4th um with some other specific language so they've um they've provided the statute with all the delet of mcast as being the competency determinant um they've added in some language about and this isn't going to impact the class of 2025 because it's public comment right now they're not going to land on a a decision until I think the end of May maybe May 20th um but there are a couple additions that are um different to to your question um so one of them is for um the immediate impact that um in the limited there's some language in here in The Limited circumstance where a district is unable to document a student's prior coursework a student may
136earn the competency determination by one attaining a qualifying score on mcast um or meeting the standard for a subst substituted equivalent that the district certifies um certifies that it satisfies the same academic standards so that's creating as you can imagine some um discussion across the state because it you know the the vote basically abandoned it and now there's conversation maybe for a limited number of students um we might consider using mcass as part of this public um feedback period additionally they're proposing that beginning with the graduating class of 2027 that the um two years of math through 10th grade two years of English language arts and then the science additionally they're suggesting that um the student also show Mastery of Common Core of skills competencies and knowledge in US history which we already have as
137part of our graduation requirements it wouldn't be a problem but that would be a new addition as of the class of 2027 and the last um the last piece that is up for public comment is a completely different pathway that brings mcast back fully so so the sand is still shifting underneath you is what you're saying I don't know what else to say so yes that's I I I guess the point that I was getting to yes was that we we are going to potentially vote something next week um and it's very likely going to change and we may have to come back and revisit this in the future year um and the reason I sort of set that up is because of the timeline that we have we don't have a competency determination and
138graduation requirement that is in place right now that will work for this year's graduating class and there are some kids who are on the edge of whether or not they will or will not grad until we decide what the the the determination is so I I lay that out because I like to think about schedule and process we meet again next week if there is no significant feedback or questions from the committee then this will come up for a vote next week if there is then it has to go back to policy sub who's not meeting for another couple weeks and it will get delayed in our vote so I lay that out to just say now is the time do you have feedback do you have questions that are substantive about what's in the
139the language here knowing full well that it might change and we might be revisiting this again next year um and if not then we're probably going to see this next week which is a quicker turnaround than usual and Peter is just itching to make a comment now so please Peter what would you like to add yeah I just want to say you know huge thanks to Joan's team I mean they've done an incredible analysis of all the students in the high school um and you know we're really we're working with a cohort of seven students at this point um who may not have have met the competency determination by being able to pass mcast before it was eliminated um you know we've actually narrowed that about half of that group um will have met the
140competency determination U because they have completed cours workk and um Janie and her team have actually proactively identified Pathways um for remaining students um it may not be this year for every student um because some students actually um were already know like it was known that they would not be on a a traditional pathway um for a four-year graduation and so that was a dialogue that was already happening with families um but what they have identified is what would be that pathway into the future for those students and for the I think it was either one or two students um we you know really had a good dialogue it typically is around math um and I know you know our math department had was awesome in the meeting this morning because she even said well
141why don't we go into what we do have for prior mcast scores because we had some students really right on the cusp but maybe hadn't passed it and why don't we look at how they had done on some of the different um Concepts in both algebra and geometry narrow the standards and then think about what the student might show to be able to show Mastery through that alternative portfolio so it's not even the portfolio concept isn't necessarily about a student trying to demonstrate a whole course it's about demonstrating Mastery of the specific Concepts that they hadn't had been able to do that before so we're really at that level Nuance of things and I think Joanie and her team have communication plans for all of the families involved and are really looking to be able
142to start to execute those thanks Peter all right one more round questions comments vicam um so so if I if I get this correct so I mean the thing is now you have students that are just about to graduate some of them may or may not but you've actually been very very thorough and there have been seven students that have been found of those half of those actually are meeting requirements so really looking at three or four students that we have to work very closely with but that seems to be absolutely the the best possible scenario because we can work hand inand with them to sort of guide them to where they need to be so it it seems and then that buys us time really for setting proper graduation I mean not you know
143I mean we're voting next week but I mean for for the following graduation year we have a lot of breathing room so so I think we're in a very good place Tori so not a language thing for this but something maybe to stick in the back of our minds once we get this thing past and everybody can breathe is knowing that we're probably going to iterate some more what data are we collecting along the way to make sure that we have this where we want it to be and also to you know once we start dealing with whatever changes come our way at the state level to be able to come back and go no this is what we know and this is how things are working and this is what we think works and
144this is what we think doesn't work um yeah that would just be my request but I appreciate the the thoughtful approach and looking for many flexible ways I think we heard that from Leela earlier you know what else can you do besides mcast um obviously this is a new way of thinking for us in some ways and I appreciate your work on this thank you all right so I'm just looking around the table anyone have any I'm sort of a looking for a sense of the room about being okay to vote on this next week great yes yes viam go ahead just one more thing because obvious this is this is very very important um so am I correct in seeing that basically what we're doing because I mean the whole idea is you you
145go to high school you take all these courses and the courses that you take prepare you for the mcast which you subst take and pass and previously and then you would graduate based on your mcast scores right and passing the mcast the idea here is the mcast has been removed but the coursework that you would take to pep you for the mcast is still in place and we're sort of showing those that up a little bit more right is that is that more or less What's Happening Here um go ahead I was say I actually do have an answer for that um yes and one of our concerns is we did not want to make it so easy that you know um not easy but we do not want to craft this in such a
146way that now that the mcast is not here that students can essentially be graduated and you know sort of like passed along when they weren't really ready yet so we really worked to be very thoughtful about having something that students can show the competence and also having the flexibility to meet students where they're at and find the best possible solution for bringing them to where they need to be before graduation okay and and that's really being addressed by showing up the the class the requirements yeah yeah I really want to move on thank you we we'll we'll have yeah uh all right so next item on our agenda is the draft request for proposals for our strategic planning and reorganization consultant I'll hand this over to Peter quickly to give us an overview of what's
147in there and what he's looking for from us sure So based on prior discussions we want to maintain positive momentum around the idea of pursuing a potential reorganization um we had indicated we would be developing a request for proposals which is kind of the formal document that would be sent out for potential um Consultants to bid to work with us around developing a reorganization plan what we have done we are at the of our strategic plan anyway um as of next year so what we've actually asked for is a successor strategic plan that is centered around the potential reorganization of schools within our district because a reorganization of schools is so impactful that it actually requires an entire plan to be able to execute effectively and if we're going to reorganize our schools we have
148to do it in a way that actually improves student learning for kids right like that that's actually the ultimate goal um I did receive a couple comments from Tori uh that I already have incorporated into the next iteration of it um one was being clearer that it is a successor strategic plan that we're looking for um two um was around putting up some um additional Clarity that there's Financial boundaries that we need to work within um so that we don't leave our community ideating in infinite resources and that we are resource constrainted um and that is going to be a limiting factor that we have to have as serious consideration so um this does not require a school committee vote excuse me um we are posting this on Monday morning um in the central registry
149and all of the other uh Avenues we have several vendors that have you know um expressed interest um in possibly working with us on something like this we will make sure they get copies of it um the turnaround time for this is going to be relatively short um it certainly meets all the required legal turnaround times um but we're looking to have kind of a couple weeks where vendors get to look at it ask us some questions we would respond to questions but we want final proposals du um the week prior to April vacation and then we're hoping to have a small group be able to meet um with kind of our top three vendors that bid hopefully we will get at least three if not more um and be able to select one as
150the preferred uh vendor of choice and then hopefully enter into a contract with them even as soon as April vacation week um with uh an anticipated start date of May 15th so that um we can actually get this moving this year so we're not waiting until the fall to begin a really significant process my hope is that over the same period of time while we're waiting for this request for proposals we can work with the school committee to actually develop what the steering committee will look like how that's going to function um and you know and start to actually then solicit members of a steering committee um from the community so that around the same time that we have a consultant in place we also have members of a steering committee in place um so
151that we can really begin that early work in May um hopefully around miday that should give you know about six to eight weeks of time for that group to start the work and lay out kind of the scope of what's going to happen start getting information to a consultant so they can do a lot of work over the summer and that way when we get back in the fall a lot of the preliminary work has been done and we're really focused heavily on community engagement um and we have requested that you know any consultant that that bids on this um have multiple touch points for community members to be able to engage and provide feedback um including various surveys focus groups um workshops um and or large presentations that that people can provide input so
152that's the overall scope of it um if you have comments about what you things that you'd like to see included in that uh we do have a very very fast turnaround time Sherry's going to be finalizing the doc um tomorrow um so that it can go out Monday morning and we can get this this process rolling thanks Ben real quickly I'm looking at the uh the timeline is there a contingency plan if the technical proposal that comes in does not meet the requirements of the RFP uh we would probably have to rebid it I I don't that's you know unfortunately that's I'm just speaking from past experience unless you have suggestions on a contingency plan and you I I do think we'll have at least a couple vendors who can who can help us I
153just want to make sure that we have something to go on and in a with an aggressive timeline as this is yeah we want to send it this out widely and cast the biggest net we can for really good qualified Consultants who have done work like this um and we know of some that have already done this work in similar communities and so as part of the development of the RS FP I actually met with several different Consulting groups um to be able to talk to them about what our proposal was receive feedback about things that we might be thinking about including um and you know and then we will be sending this out widely to everyone to be able to to pursue um this is not something that's out of the realm of possibility
154there are actually multiple vendors doing this work in other communities even as we speak sounds good thank you Yin totally possible I missed it but like do you have an idea of like estimated cost not yet that will come in with the proposals um I do think there's an opportunity um part of the benefit of splitting it over two years too is to not incur all of the cost in FY 26 um we always have some type of a turnback at the end of a fiscal year and so if we can use some of the turn backs at the end of this year to offset costs it actually lessens the impact on the FY 26 budget we which keeps resources more available for other priorities that we have next year any other comments so reminder
155there's fast turnaround on this so if you do have any other comments or feedback on that RFP please get them to Peter by uh tomorrow all right noting the time uh and the fact that we're going to be meeting a week from tonight I am going to suggest that we pass over item8 in our agenda which is all of our ongoing business and we can address that next week which would be subcommittee updates and liaison updates uh and our school committee goal update any objection to that didn't think so so uh we're on to our consent agenda as a reminder items on the consent agenda do not usually require discussion or approved with one vote unless a member would like to have an item held if you'd like to have it held you say hold
156uh the following items uh so let's see what do I say there's there's some one piece of language in here uh members do not have to attend a meeting to uh yeah okay so item a on the consent agenda is approval of the absc meeting minutes of 2825 Item B approval of the absc meeting minutes of 22725 item C is fy2 budget transfers and item D is approval of warrants as presented in the packet 31325 with a recommendation to approve them is there a motion to approve the consent agenda second Ben and Leela will go with uh all those in favor I any opposed extensions that's unanimous thank you all item 10 on our agenda is a motion to anyone want to make a motion to adjourn so moved Becca Becca totally made that motion
157to adjourn Ben seconded that all those in favor I opposed exensions unanimous thank you all have a wonderful evening