001Okay, noting the hour and the presence of a quorum, I will call the actton Boxboro Regional School Committee to order. Members of the public who wish to watch our meeting online may do so at Actant TV's YouTube channel found at the top of our agenda, which is Actant TV uh or or sorry, or on Act TV's website at acttontv.org. As a reminder, as always, our meeting is being recorded and will be posted on Actant TV's website. Uh, I do wish to welcome everybody this evening. I might have a bet going with Peter about what time the meeting is going to end. And so, with that, is there any public participation this evening? Please step forward. No, there's a switch on the top. If you push it up, you should be all set. How about that?
002There we go. Hi everyone. I'm Glen Cody. I'm running for school committee. I had three things I wanted to share. Um, one, I think we should just acknowledge for the public. The chaos in DC. Trump is trying to close the Department of Education. Now, offensive doesn't even begin to describe it. What happens in DC ripples down to us. I think we should just acknowledge for the community that that's scary to deal with. and really tough to digest that we just don't have support from the federal government. I think that is something that we should just acknowledge that this is the reality we're working with. Second thing, the budget is being voted on tonight. I think it should pass unanimously. Peter Light has worked incredibly hard on this budget. The entire school committee has. These cuts
003are really tough. There are about 20 of them. This is with override passing. If override did not pass last year, this would have been 80 cuts and we would have felt that even worse. So between all that I think just this budget should pass unanimously. These cuts are really tough. The school committee did everything that in its power to make sure that we can serve our kids as effectively as possible with the constraints that we have currently. And I think that going forward to make sure that there are as few cuts as possible going forward into the future that we need community input. We need community buyin. We need community consensus. And we need to reach people where they are at cuz we're not going to get this with the help of DC. So we
004should get it from Actton. I'm Glen Cody. I'm running for school committee. Thank you. Thank you, Glenn. All right. Any other public participation this evening? Superintendent update. Peter, anything changed since last week when we talked to you? There's always things that change. Um, so one of the fun things I just want to, you know, recognize, um, every year we recognize staff who have reached 20 years of service uh, with the active Boxboro Regional School District. Um, the individuals that we recognize each year just deserve a lot of thanks. Um, just think about how many students and families our educators touch um, over 20 years of service. And so, um, just want to recognize we have a number of 20-year recipients this year. Um, leading off, I actually see in our audience, um, Mike Ballescu. Um,
005we also have Jodie Chu, um, Nicholas Causeron, Sharon Krooks, Wendy Hartman, uh, Renee Hill, Cindy Hol, Ingred Joyce, to Thomas Cara Mataras, um, Kathleen Knight, Moren Lynn, James Marott, uh, June Montipaluso, Kirsten Nelson, Mary O'Brien, Cali O' Connor, Carol Donahghue, Katie Arnard, uh, Violeta Powski, Lisa Rosone, Lindseay Rosenman, Vicky Spataphor, Carrie, oops, sorry, that there was my cursor Tentelis, uh, Sarah Wilcox, and Matthew Wsburgger. Um, that is a big list of people who have been with us 20 years. I think one of the really cool things is just how long our educators stay with us in the district. Um, that is a testament to community support, uh, which we need to make sure we continue. Um, and really just to the connection that our educators have with our families in the community. So, thank you
006to all of the educators on 20 years. Um, I also want to recognize no speech tonight, Mike. You saved that. Yeah. Um, I also want to congratulate some more student artists um who received the 2025 uh MA recognition awards. Alisa Jean Zang um Virginia uh Diani and Adma uh oh she re sorry sorry Alicia Zang received the Virginia uh Diani Adma memorial award and Yerum Joe received the Davis uh media fashion award. So congratulations to those two students. Um and then also we have another uh student athlete who was named to the Boston Herald all scholastic team this winter season. So, congratulations to Hannah Ridley. So, awesome student stuff going on. Uh, we are also making good progress on our vision of a graduate. Um, we met with our steering committee um this past week
007and we were able to look through um the about 2500 different responses um to our vision of a graduate survey that we'd received from community members. Um we had about 200 responses and that was about 58,000 ratings um that went into that. So, our team got together, analyzed it. We're beginning to draft um an initial vision of a graduate out of that feedback. Uh we have some really important community visioning sessions coming up on April 15th. We have two time slots, 4:30 uh p.m. to 6. Um and then 6:30 p.m. to 8. People don't need to attend both. We're actually looking for people to attend one or the other. Um certainly as school committee members, we would welcome your participation in those. Uh we can't necessarily have a quorum at either one. Um so if
008you RSVP we can track that and make sure that we don't end up with a quorum but we would love it if school committee members come to those visioning sessions. We are also seeking about 40 family members um to join across the two sessions um and about the same number of educators um and we're also inviting our high school students to participate as well. Um as well as kind of local business leaders, members of the community. Uh we're inviting our select and boards, finance committees um and other elected boards and and appointed boards in town. We just want to get a lot of community input to this. Um the vision of a grd that we are developing is going to form the basis of the district's next strategic plan so that the next strategic plan
009is focused on the types of outcomes we want for our students. So this is an incredibly important document. It will also serve as a fundamental um guide for how we think about reorganization of our schools. So want to make sure we have a lot of input up front um and are excited to kind of take the next steps on that. Uh, also we're sending out to families tomorrow, we have posted on our website information for rights for immigrant students. Um, that was released by the Massachusetts Attorney General. Uh, we have those posted in all of our major languages on our district website now and we'll be sending that link to families. So, they have that. And then finally, um, we have gotten together with our junior high and high school administration around the different half
010days that they have now that our school calendar is finalized. So, we've put those on the school calendar and we are sending out our final version of the school calendar to our families tomorrow so they can begin making plans for next year. Excellent. Thank you, Peter. Any questions or comments from the committee? I will just add that looking at that list of teachers who've served 20 years at the district, there have been a number of them who have um influenced my own kids' lives. So, I I would send out an additional thank you to all of those folks who've made such a long commitment to our district. Thank you. All right, moving on. Uh we have some new business tonight to appoint a new director of special education, Peter. All right. Uh so, I would
011like to welcome Natalia Carroll up to the uh table here. Um so, Natalia um has been through a very extensive interview process. uh not only an initial round but she actually came back to the district on two different occasions um throughout the process was able to spend time with um a variety of stakeholder groups um and you know throughout all of that just extraordinarily positive feedback um across the board from all of our stakeholder groups um I know our CPAC actually reached out to the Framingham CPAC where Natalyia currently works and the the Framingham CPAC just um was ausive in their praise of their work with Natalia um and just feeling like they had such a really good, strong, positive working relationship. Um, we are very excited to have Natalyia come before you tonight and
012we're seeking your uh vote to appoint Miss Carol as the next director of special education um effective July 1st. So, um I'll let Natalia tell you a little bit about herself and her background and then um turn it over. Good evening, Superintendent Light, school committee members, administration, families, educators, and the entire Actton Boxboro community. It is an honor to stand before you tonight as the finalist for the special education director position here. I'm sorry, Natalyia, can you get a little closer to the microphone? Thank you. I want to thank you for your confidence in me and I really look forward to working with each of you on excellence and achievement for all students in the district. I come with a diverse experience of being in educational field. It ranged from being uh at the academia
013level as an instructor at the Columbia University and Boston University through being a teacher at the parochial school in the Bronx, special educator in Frammingham, then being in an administrative role for over years. And all those experiences shaped me into a leader I am today. My leadership was framed by all those experiences and also by my upbringing. So why do I do what I do? And this very simple but profound question was asked just last week when I met with the parents of Actton Bucksboro. My mind immediately went to the time in my life when I was a technology teacher in the Bronx and that was a completely new environment. I was full of energy, passion, enthusiasm. I was like the world is mine. All the kids will succeed and I will be the best
014teacher ever. And then the reality set in and little by little I've realized that I did not provide my students with all that they needed. I've realized that I did not have all the tools in my toolbox. And that was the moment when I realized that I had to do better. I had to be better. I had to grow for the sake of the children who are left behind. My upbringing also influenced me. I come from a family that believes in service. My dad uh was a doctor in a rural region of Poland and my mom was a teacher and they always taught me that the most important values in life are to care for others and to be humble. So I kept repeating throughout meetings with uh all members in my interview process that
015I strongly believe that leadership is not about being in charge is about taking care of those who are in your charge and that's what I believe in and that's what aligns with your mission act mission. where you stress the access to equitable educational experiences, excellence and providing all students with high quality instruction. I want to feel that everyone sees me as an ally, resource and support. The principal see me as a thought partner. Families see me like someone they can trust. Students see me as another adult who can help them. So as we journey hopefully together after your vote, I commit to ensure that everyone I work with in this community has a relationship with me and feels like they can trust me and they belong here. My first experience when I came for my
016first interview, I felt so warmly welcomed. It was incredible. From Superintendent Light welcoming me as I was pacing back and forth before my interview. Of course, I was very nervous through Andrew guiding me throughout the whole interview process and staying in touch through com interview committee members who were smiling at me and encouraging me and I felt like yes, this is a place where I want to be. This is my next home after being over 16 years in Framingham. Uh so I commit to building relationships first. I also commit to building inclusive environments where all students can achieve. I commit to embracing innovation. The society is changing. The world is changing. So should education. We should look into latest technological uh developments, artificial intelligence, uh thinking about curriculum and how can we enhance it with
017social emotional learning on a daily basis so that our students can overcome all the barriers that they might have perhaps due to their disabilities. I also commit to strengthening relationships with families. I want to make sure that when I communicate with the families, they can tell me that when they come, for example, to their child's IEP meeting that they feel like they are part of the team, they have a voice and they their child is being appropriately supported. In addition, I commit to making sure that all our specialized programming is enhanced, is consistent across the district, and we have all the resources to support our children in district. So for me, this work isn't just about compliance or about programs. This work is all about creating equitable experiences to those who might be overlooked or
018underserved. And I believe in the vision of the district where the vision is to develop wellbalanced engaged learners through collaborative and caring relationships. So thank you for giving me this opportunity and I truly look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. Thank you Natalyia. Any questions for Natalia? Oh, sorry. No, you go ahead. I didn't have any questions. I just wanted to say thank you for coming and um letting us know about, you know, your background and your perspective on leadership. I think that that's really wonderful. Um I love, you know, the support that you have back in Framingham and that they highly recommended you. I think that something that we need in this district is stability and somebody who's here to provide exactly that kind of leadership. Um so I'm just very
019excited that you're here. Thank you. Thank you. I I was going to say almost exactly the same thing. uh the lack of stability and leadership has been a a real challenge and um I just want to say that if we didn't have Amanda Bailey heading our CPAC and doing the work of you know several people um in in a volunteer capacity I'm not sure um how you know how many more kids or how many kids would have fallen through cracks. So um we're very happy you're here. We're very happy. I I did get a chance to watch your final interview and was very excited with your response to your um intention to to stick around. Um so, thank you very much. Uh we got a lot of work ahead of us, but um yes, we
020do. But I'm I'm glad to see your energy and we're very happy to welcome you here. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. [Music] Oh. Ah. Yes. Um, we're just very happy you're here. I echo what they're saying as well. I mean, yeah, we're very much looking forward. Thank you. That's a very warm welcome. Another one yet. Anyone else? All right. Then with that, I'll entertain a vote or sorry, a motion to appoint Miss Natalyia Curroll as the director of special education for the Actton Boxboro Regional School District effective July 1st, 2025, pending successful contract negotiations with the superintendent of schools. So moved. Second, Jenny and Ben. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Abstensions. That is unanimous. Welcome. We're very happy to have [Applause] Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Congratulations, Natalyia. And I can
021just update the committee. Uh we have already successfully negotiated Natalyia's contract. So now that we have your vote tonight, um she's going to be receiving that from human resources first thing in the morning. So congratulations, Natalyia. I would also just extend my sincere appreciation to Andrew and the entire interview team. um they spent a lot of time uh really making sure that we found the right candidate and I think they just did a tremendous job. So, thank you to everyone involved in that process. All right, on to our ongoing business. Uh this is our final budget and assessments. Uh Peter, you've got a quick review for us of where we're at and then we'll take a vote. I do. Thanks, Adam. So, this is going to be a very quick overview. The slides are very
022much the same as what you saw uh at the last meeting. So, I'll just go through these, but I want to make sure we get it on the record. Um, and there's a real clear understanding of the budget that you're voting on. All of the detailed information is in the school committee packet, including the line item budget that you're actually voting tonight. Um, so in terms of budget development, this is the end of the budget development process, uh, where you vote the final budget. And our next step after this is really to be going on to the two town meetings and preparing for those um which come up on May 5th in Actton and on May 12th uh in Boxboro. So more to come on town meeting preparation. Um just a few key takeaways on
023enrollment and staffing because I think that is a story um of the district over the last few years. But student enrollment uh we recognize has declined and is expected to continue to decline slowly over the next eight years. Um and the number of classroom teachers in the district has declined in proportion to enrollment. Um the staffing is actually very close to enrollment. Uh we're within like half a percentage point on both enrollment and staffing. Um the number of support teachers however has increased in the district. Um and we've heard you know that in the community wondering why we have increased any teaching positions in the district during declining enrollment. It's because the needs of our students have evolved and we have more students who are now classified as high needs than we've ever had before.
024Um, specifically, we've gone from about a quarter of our students being classified as high needs up to a third of our students being classified as high needs. And then finally, in terms of special education programming, um, we have done a lot over the years to develop special education programs for two reasons. one and the primary reason we do is it's better for kids when they have an opportunity to stay in their hometown and receive the highquality education that they need. And from a funding perspective, it actually has saved taxpayers money. Um and so I think those two things are really important to understand that even as we've added um specialized staff to serve students with higher needs, that has also resulted in more opportunities for kids at a lower cost to taxpayers. some structural changes
025to the budget that we've made over the last couple of years. Um we talked a lot about health insurance um and the move to Maya and um also having saved over $600,000 by implementing an opt out program um for our employees. Um so we're taking advantage of it this year. We also have been working toward initially restricting and now eliminating the use of excess and deficiency because our reserves are really at um an extremely low level and they need to be rebuilt over the next several years. Uh we are implementing some of the recommendations of the elementary budget task force. We know we are reducing um the budget for elementary general education assistance by about 25%. And we um also are going to have to really look hard at how we're scheduling elementary because we
026are not providing the same level of supports in tiers two and three in math and reading um or um adding the necessary multilingual services that we really needed to add to serve all of our students. And so that's going to mean really tight scheduling at the elementary levels to try and serve as many students as possible. Um on a financial side of things, just a reminder that we have the excluded debt being retired from the junior and senior high school project. Um that last debt payment is this year, so it goes off the books for next year. That reduces our base budget by $1.6 million. That also reduces the town revenues by the same amount, $1.6 million, because there is no more debt exclusion. it goes away when the debt is paid off. Um, health
027insurance um is a challenge and somewhat of a bright spot despite having a 14.84% rate increase. Um, some of the other moves we've made around health insurance have allowed it to only be about a 3% impact on the budget. Um, so that was some work and thank you to everyone who was involved in that process around health insurance. Um, we had about $450,000 in savings due to attrition. So people taking um leaves of absence or either resignations or retirements that we know of. Um and then we addressed kind of a structural challenge in the budget with our vacancy factor. Um so we're continuing to correct that over time. The approaches we took in developing the budget having to really manage all of our class sizes um across the district. Elementary was already right at school
028committee guidelines, but we really looked hard at both the junior high and high school um and made staffing adjustments um where we ended up reducing eight general education teaching positions at the junior high and high school just to make sure we were programming very tightly to school committee class size guidelines. Um I already talked about the change in assistance, so I won't talk about that again from an elementary budget task force standpoint. Um, and I already talked about having to really look hard at our multilingual and special education scheduling practices as well as our tier 2 and three interventions that we provide for math and reading because we will not have the same level of support in those areas or possibly the necessary level of support in those areas. So, that is certainly an area
029of concern for all of us as we move forward. And I think what strikes me about this year's budget as opposed to all of the other years is this is the first time where the services we're reducing are impacting the students who need it most. And I think that's really important to keep in mind and is telling to just how thin the overall staffing of the school district has become. Just some reminders about positions. You can see at the district level uh we were reducing um a couple of different positions um both um an elementary special education coordinator as well as an administrative support position um in our human resources office. at the elementary. Um in addition to the reduction of classroom assistance, um it was also one math specialist. Um we are trading off
030um uh library position for an individual who's retiring um to become an assistant. Um that's an instructional change for us as well. Um for part-time reading assistants are being reduced and we are not adding a kindergarten section that we had anticipated doing. Um and we had already not added that in the base budget. So that is sitting there. Um at the junior high this results um in an entire team being reduced. So we will have one split team between seventh and eighth grade at the junior high level. And at the high school it's really um mostly about managing class sizes. Um so two social studies teachers, one math teacher, um two English teachers and um also the equivalent of about two campus monitors as well as an assistant in our STAR program. overall changes um
031the bottom line as I said is uh unreadable on the screen um but if you look at it the overall change in FTD FTE over um a 4-year period from FY23 to present is about 90 although we also have to acknowledge that a chunk of that is because we um changed to a 40hour work week as a standard metric for all employees so some of that is reflected in that and then you know just looking at the overall budget history and the current year's budget. Um, it's about $116.8 million budget that we're asking you to vote, which is a 2.11% increase from the current year. Um, that results in just under an $80 million assessment to Actton or a 1.12% increase and about just shy of 17 million uh assessment to Boxboro for a 5.41%
032increase. And my final reminder of the year is the uh assessment increases are enrollment based over a rolling three-year average, which is why the Boxboro assessment is higher than the act assessment. So there is motion language included in your packet around the budget. Happy to answer any final questions you have before a vote. Thanks, Peter. Any last questions or comments on the budget? Tori, Peter, can you go back to the budget history slide, please? So, I just want to highlight here that percent increase line. Um, we did what our towns asked for in coming in this year and we see what the result is and we see where we're at with how thin our staff is and the students that this is hitting. Right? There are people who are looking at this and saying, "You
033did it this year. We're good. The override worked. We're this is going to work forever." And we have to be really clear and saying, "No, we're not. We can't do this again." and it's actually going to be significant for us to be able to just maintain what we have right now. Um, so I absolutely support this budget. It's I appreciate all the work done and we can't do this again. Thanks, Tori. Other comments, questions on the budget. Lea. Yeah. Just in case there are others watching who haven't before, I just want to highlight a few of the things that I think I heard Peter say, which is like we've been cutting for years um and ended up in this position and we are actively cutting into ongoing priorities for this district. Um I'm also just
034thinking of this the public comment from staff clearly laying out how each of these positions is going to affect the quality of education for our students um and how it's going to affect the remaining staff. Um, and recently Rep. Catalo asked me how school committee was going and I just said the budget made it suck. Um, the lack of sufficient support from the state and federal government um have meant that many of our discussions are just about the magnitude of our cuts rather than like the the wonderful opportunities for education given how talented our um educators are. Um, I'll vote yes. I wish this wasn't the case. My curiosity is around the RFP that we're going to talk about soon. Um, and if there is an option that comes in under what was budgeted for
035and if there's an opportunity to reallocate that money towards bringing back a staff person. Um, I know the timeline might not be phenomenal and there are complications. Um, but that is my curiosity. I I can start to answer that question and Peter will correct me. Um, but sort of structurally the money that we're looking at for restructuring would be considered one-time funds. And so it's it's a it's a part of our budget that we've expanded slightly for next year. Um, but there isn't an expectation that we would use it again. We're not using reserves for it per se, but there is, you know, there isn't the expectation that that that sort of consultant money is something that would go from year to year. So I hear what you're saying. Um, we haven't seen what the
036responses to the RFP are just yet. Um, but I think, you know, if if we dial back a week when we we talked about the additional funds that we voted to put into the budget and those got all eaten up by just additional costs that didn't include bringing a staff member back. So, I think it's it's a good question to ask. I think that another way to ask the question is if the um what what can we bring back short of a staff person if the RFP comes in under early estimate? Please. So, just one additional point on that. Um, we knowingly budgeted less than what we would anticipate the RFPs coming in at um for FY26. Um, because we believed we were on a timeline to be able to start the work in FY25.
037Um, and you know, you there's there always has to be some surplus in a school district budget at the end of the year, otherwise you end up with a really big problem operating deficit. Um, so our intention is to start this year so we can use some of this year's surplus to pay some of the costs of the RFP so that we intentionally did not have to budget the full amount in FY26. So because we budgeted low for costs next year, it actually allowed us to keep more staff than if we were carrying the full amount. Um, I just have a comment. Um, I remember Nate at his last meeting with us presenting the elementary school budget task force and he said that it is this is the trend nationwide and we'll probably seeing this
038for a couple years to come. And he also said that it is reasonable to expect that with less funding service will deteriorate and morale will be low. But he's also said that amongst all of his clients, the districts he's worked with, there have been districts who which were able to provide the same level service with fewer staff with higher efficiency. Um I'm not trying to ask anyone to do more. I'm just saying like there's still we still have a choice in our jobs that we're we have very little but there are students in front of us and they have been through everything co shifting learning methods adapting to different like co like remote hybrid in person all the atte pack they have to master. They're little and they're being forced to learn all that those
039things. As adults, I feel like maybe this is a moment that with this number there, this is the time that we show them that we can actually do the job that we're given and the promise that we said we'd deliver for them. I hope to end this on a higher note rather than the depressing numbers. Um, just something that I tell myself every day to drag myself out of bed for those early meetings. Um, to think about the students in front of us. Just to say something positive about the work our educators do. um you know, we're heading into the fourth year of budget reductions and I actually just had a call with an educational leader um who's in the research side of educational leadership um and wanted to call and they were specifically asking
040what we were doing around our students performance because and the the specific subgroup they were looking at was in eighth grade mathematics um for our black African-American students was so significantly outperforming our peers that they were wondering what AB was doing differently um in terms of supporting that specific subgroup. Um and when he cited some of the numbers, we're not talking about 10 percentage points, 20, we were talking 35 to 40 percentage points higher in proficiency levels at that specific grade level for that cohort. Um, and you know, we talked about all of the work that our educators have been doing over a long period of time, um, to be able to really address some of our subgroup performance and make sure that all of our students are are achieving at levels that we want
041to be proud of. Um, and that's a testament to the work educators have done despite a lot of these reductions. What I think, you know, we also want to be really cautious about is this sense of burnout. And I just highlighted, you know, the 20-year uh, recognition. We want to make sure that we continue to have 15 and 20 educators every year that we're recognizing for being here 20 years. Um, and we also need to make sure that we can keep in district the youngest generation of educators that's coming into us because if we have to continue to cut them every year, we're going to end up with a massive experience gap that's going to catch up to us. So, I think in the short term, we're riding on the hard work and talent of
042our educators working with kids and the support of our families. I think what I worry most about maybe in the long term is the erosion of that and that it's something that we don't see the impact of until it's two in three years and four years in the the rearview mirror um because I think you know teachers are remarkably skilled at adapting to the students that they have in front of them um and do that but over time that can take its toll and I think that's that's what we're hearing from staff on a regular basis during public comment um and seeing but do teachers do the job every day with the It's absolutely 100% and I think we actually have the data to to back that up. So I would give it just a
043a real shout out to our educators. [Music] Peter, can could you go back to the comment you made about the African-American demographic? I'm I'm kind of confused about what you said. So the person called me because they had been looking at MCCAST performance data at different districts across the state for high performing districts. And the cohort, I don't know the exact number, and Gabby, I don't know if you remember it offhand, but I think it was something like 65% of black African-American students were proficient or higher. Um, which what's that? 84%. Um and that so exceeds what peer districts are seeing um for performance. They wanted to know what we were doing in and systemically what we're doing um in terms of addressing performance gaps. So going to ask a couple of questions. I mean
044it's 84% but the numbers absolute numbers are really really low here right in this district and the number of African-Americans are probably in under 20 maybe. Um but uh I don't think we should look at the percentages. But what concerns me is just because they're that demographic, should we always assume they're underperforming? They can excel. They do very well. So that has been a long-term goal of ours because we were not serving that demographic well um for a number of years. And it wasn't us precipitating the call. It was someone asking what we were doing in particular around that cohort because someone from the outside a researcher actually saw the performance gap between our district and another. Okay. I I was just concerned thinking that it it almost laid was laid like we are doing
045an amazing they're not capable. So I just wanted No, I don't think I think it's more along the lines of we've seen persistent gaps for students with disabilities. Okay. That haven't moved. And when you see a persistent gap over time and you start to be able to actually see improvement in that, then you want to make sure you're remembering what you did along the way to be able to get there. Okay. Thank you. Um I'm just deeply concerned about this current budget and the potential for further cuts next year. cuts that could have a serious impact on schools, on our children who attend these schools. We are already facing financial challenges this year that strain the abilities of our beloved staff to do their jobs and to do it efficiently and with care. What frustrates
046me to no end is that our legislatures have done very little to offset the challenges that we have to the point where one legislator who I emailed didn't even have the courage or the courtesy to respond back. I hope that going forward that not only members of this school committee reach out to our legislators and hold them accountable for the lack of care and consideration that they have for our schools because unfortunately for them the students that attend these schools grow up to be voters and those voters will challenge their jobs. I hope that this particular legislature does reach out and does do some advocacy on our behalf because I can I'm I shudder to think what's going to happen with the budget process next year where we may have to go for an override
047in one or both of our communities and there is no appetite for that in either of our communities at this point. Thank you. Thanks Ben. Becca, um I wanted to bring this back before I make the motion to uh I think the most important point that all of us are sort of circling which is um you know we're facing some challenging times. We have been through challenging times and it looks like it's not going to be ending anytime soon and possibly even getting worse. And I don't think that's alarmist to say. Um I think we all know what we have to do. Ben pointed that out perfectly. We need to um solve this problem by looking beyond efficiency and what we can cut in district. This is not a question of efficiency and you know
048wasteful spending or too many staff positions. And it's not hyperbolic when teachers come and tell us that they don't have time to use the bathroom. I challenge anyone who thinks that being a teacher is an easy job that's cushy because you get the summers off. Go ahead and volunteer in some schools. If you don't have a connection to a teacher, you might not realize how hard this job is. And that the people who stick by them and do right by these kids year after year for 20 plus years, they're doing it out of passion. Passion alone. because year after year their benefits have to be renegotiated. They have to beg for breadcrumbs. I don't think most workers would put up with that, but teachers show up and they do their jobs. So, this isn't a
049question of asking them to do more. It's a question of is the community prepared to come together and do what we need to do during these hard times, which is do right by these kids and our community members who work in these schools. So with that, I'd like to make a motion that the committee adopt the budget of the Action Boxboro Regional School District for the fiscal year July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 as presented in the amount of $116,791,164, which is reduced by the estimated receipts and available funds and the following amounts. Anticipated Chapter 7 aid in the amount of 16,829,871. Anticipated state transportation aid in the amount of 2,514,639. Anticipated state charter school aid in the amount of $139,515. Anticipated Medicaid reimbursement of $200,000. Anticipated investment earnings of $300,000. estimated miscellaneous revenues
050of $23,500 and transfers from the following district reserves. Excess and deficiency fund in the amount of $0, capital stabilization fund in the amount of $0 for a net amount to be assessed to the member towns in accordance with the education reform law and the terms of the regional agreement and amendments thereto as follows. Actton $79,959,269 consisting of a capital assessment of $4,46,526 and an operating assessment of $75,552,743 and Boxboro $16,824,370 consisting of a capital assessment of $924,380 and an operating assessment of $15,899,990. second. Thank you, Rebecca with the motion and Tori with the second. And um deep gratitude to Rebecca for reading that motion. All of those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That is unanimous. Thank you all very much. Thank you to the administration for all of the hard
051work this year. Um and off to town meeting with that. Thank you all. All right. Next item on our agenda is the second read and possible vote on our revised policy IKF, which is the graduation requirements. This was presented to us last week. Um, and it's back for a vote. Are there any final comments? I'll look first to Liz or Andrew? Any feedback received? Nope. We hadn't had any feedback um or changes. And I just want to again echo how hard, you know, our community, our staff, our, you know, um, Amanda Bailey has been very helpful as well. It's Thank you all for the work. Tori. So, I know I asked a lot of questions about this and I just want to say how much I appreciate the thoughtful approach and hard work that um
052the entire team has done to bring this together. Um and not just in revising the competency determination, but also bringing our graduation requirements into alignment with Massore. Elevating our standards in the arts provides broader opportunities for our students to find their why. And I often think about it as the thing they might never have tried, but that could become a driving passion and could shape the rest of their lives. With regard to competency determination, for on average over the past decade or so, about 96.6% of our students, this policy change is invisible. They passed the MCCAST in their 10th grade classes, and graduation was never in question. But for the remaining 3.4%, it matters a lot. They tend to be the students who are on the margins, and they're the ones for whom getting a
053job without a diploma is the most difficult. This is a solid policy, and I support it. With thoughtful implementation, it may drive what I think many MCCAST opponents envisioned, an opportunity for teachers and students to partner more flexibly, not only to achieve academic excellence, but also to support our students in showing what they know through their coursework, whether that's in a traditional classroom or with a portfolio. I look forward to the data and the stories that will allow us to track this progress moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Would anybody like to make a motion? I move to approve the I should probably read some language. Competency determination IF. Where is it? It's not going to be as long as mine. No. See, it's not so easy when I just
054set you up and you all get to say the approved the proposed revisions to policy IKF. Second. Nice. So, thank you Leela for the motion and Tori for the second. Uh, all of those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That is unanimous. Thank you very much. All right, on to strategic planning and reorganization discussion. So, Peter, you've got a a couple quick slides. Um, if you recall last week, uh, we saw the, um, draft RFP, um, which has now been put out on the street, uh, for this, uh, consultant to come in and do, uh, the work with us to, uh, look at reorganization. And we've got some more activities we need to start thinking about. So, I'll hand it over to Peter. Thanks, Adam. So, obviously, we're looking at um
055potential reorganization of schools in the district for really two primary reasons. one is enrollment based and that we have gone down about um 6 to800 students since regionalization. We're slated to go down another 300 um as we look forward over the next eight years. Um but coupled with that really just the extraordinary financial challenges that are going on in education. Um and a worry that if we continue to try and do everything that we're doing everywhere we're doing it, um we're spreading our resources so thin that the programs become unrecognizable and unsupportable for kids. Um and so we sent the RFP out request for proposals. Um so far we've had six different consultants um request to look at that um and express some interest in it. So we'll see how many bids we get. Um
056our goal is to have bids in and be selecting a consultant by April 15th uh which is right before April vacation. Um so we'll be able to announce that hopefully at the school committee meeting before we go away on break. Excuse me. Um, and then we want to actually be able to start the work as soon as possible. Uh, because if we wait until next fall, we're actually going to miss multiple months of preparation that we could be leveraging. Um, we can't really commu engage with the community over the summer because people are away. It's just not a good time for high community engagement. But what we can do is start meeting in May and in June, lay the foundation for work um with a leadership group and the consultant so that the consultant can
057do a lot of the numbers work that they need to do over the summer. And then the fall is really focused on immediately engaging with a variety of stakeholders in multiple means um to get a lot of feedback from the community about what we might need to be able to decide to do. Um the goal of that would be able to come back in um December time frame with school committee and make some decisions about what reorganization might need to look like. Um that is, you know, really a decision that can only rest with a school committee after a lot of community input. So that's what we're headed toward. What we're talking about tonight as a step an important step in that is the formation of a leadership group um or a steering committee that
058can work directly with our district leadership and a consultant. Um and I want to talk to you a little bit about a potential framework for that. There is a memo in the packet um kind of outlining potential guides um to that and I tried to think about what we had in the RFP as well as different um conversations the committee has had over the course of the year in shaping some of the purposes and goals of that steering committee. But I just want to talk a little bit about that. Four really major pillars in this would for a steering committee. One providing the leadership and oversight of this entire project. This is a massive and extraordinarily important undertaking um that we're about to endeavor on. Um and I think it's really important to have um
059a leadership team leading that work, not just any one individual. Um the focus of that is obviously on school district reorganization as a core tenant of the next strategic plan. Um we know that we're going to need to be able to address very complex student needs. Um, and then we need to maintain a very transparent and inclusive process with our community in order to have buyin from the community about change. We have a long history of doing things the way we do them and this is going to be a challenging process for many in the community, I think, to be able to wrap their heads around. So, we're going to need to be thinking a lot about communication and transparency. So some potential charges of a school this steering committee um providing strategic direction u
060making sure that we stay aligned with the district's vision of a graduate um the realities of the finances of the community need to be some significant boundaries to this work um and the diverse needs that our students have um stakeholder engagement and making sure that we have a really engaging process for all of our stakeholders and that we've done our work in that regard. um overseeing the work of the consultant um and making sure that the consultant is producing for the community what the community needs um developing multiple reorganization options. My personal target is that we would come to you with at least three options as a full school committee. Um, I anticipate you will hear from the consultant directly multiple times through the process, but in the end, I think really coming in with
061three organization options, a full analysis of different financial um, impacts of those um, as well as kind of an operational impact to what we might need to do so that the school committee can make some final decisions. Obviously, presentations to school committee um, and support for the school committee is you have to make these difficult decisions. um outcomes of all of this. Um we want to have a comprehensive strategic framework for the next five years um to guide not only potential reorganization but also all of the other work that we want to do as as a school district. Um we need obviously viable reorganization options. We need a stakeholder informed approach. Um a clear presentation to the school committee um and hopefully multiple clear presentations to the school committee. um when we develop a a
062strategic framework, we need that to be actionable. And so we want to have this process result in an actionable plan that we can then put in place. Um and then talking about just really informed decision-m for everyone involved in that process. Um and laying that foundation for how we're going to implement this. Um whether it's a one-year implementation, is it FY27 that we're talking about or FY28 or is there some phased approach that we need to do? we need this uh steering committee to help a consultant vet. So those are, you know, high level. I would actually encourage you, it's more about what's in the the document that we would set out. Um but I wanted to at least just talk that through and bring some clarity to what I see as goals for the
063steering committee. Um my goal tonight is to just get your feedback around the charge of the committee so that um I could bring this to you on April 3rd uh during the workshop and we can vote that so that we can get it out the door and start getting um people on board to develop the steering committee. Um you know I actually you know thinking about the size of the committee um the elementary budget task force was a really large group but it did most of the work inside the budget task force whereas this steering committee the function of this steering committee is really just to guide the work of the consultant and to make sure that the consultant is doing the work to engage the community in multiple ways. I don't think a 30
064person steering committee is going to produce effic efficient or effective results. It's just too big for that purpose. Um what I'm proposing here is about, you know, a 15 member steering committee. That's a little bit on the large size. Um you could also choose to shrink that by maybe going to two representatives from each of these groups or we could stay with three if we think it's just a little bit more um stakeholder engagement throughout the process. Um but and that would make the difference between either a seven or eight member steering committee or a 15 person steering committee. That's that's roughly. Um I think we could manage either. Seven or eight certainly would be more efficient, but it may not get the diversity of perspectives um sitting around a table. So there's a little
065bit of trade-off either way. So my goal tonight is only to listen to feedback um that you have. You can also email me feedback and I can incorporate that um before the April 3rd meeting. Thanks, Peter. Um I just want to point out that the the um what is this document called? The document that Peter referenced, which is the strategic planning and reorganization steering committee document that was emailed to the committee outside of the agenda. It'll get put in the minutes for the public to be able to see. Um but if you're looking for that, um it was in a separate email that Peter sent out yesterday to the committee. Um, so yeah, now it's time for feedback, input. Andrew, thanks, Peter. Thank you for putting the RFP together. I have a question though specifically
066about this slide. As you look at the uh membership of the committee, I wonder if I'm curious about the potential bringing in someone who's not directly within the schools. Like we talk about the parents, the educators, the principles. Do we want to have anybody from outside the community who is not specifically in that to be able to have additional voices? And it's more a question than a directive. You know, I I actually thought about that in one iteration that I went through this and I think that we need to make sure we're getting voices outside of the school district in the process. I'm open to that if the school committee wants that. I didn't personally land there because I think it's it's really the for this one it was who's being impacted by this most
067directly um to get those voices around the table and yet provide other forums. I mean, I'm I'm envisioning we're going to be doing surveys, um, focus groups, workshops, and presentations as different ways that the a community member. I'm just thinking about I feel like at some point we had a conversation around how this might result in something that might require some capital costs and so looping in you know someone in the decision making not decision-m the steering committee uh might be helpful. So that was a thought that I also had. Um, and I think CPAC is great and PTSO. I'm also wondering about LPAC as we think about um diverse needs of students and representation from folks who understand those needs intimately. Um, I actually disagree with having uh another community member on the steering
068committee because I know that we did involve um, you know, people who were not directly impacted by the uh, school changes in the elementary task force and we actually got some push back about sort of like waste of time. So in the interest of protecting that, what I had wondered is if creating the steering committee if we could have specific guidance about ways that the process is communicated to both of both of the town communities, you know, so that it's not you don't have to be on the parent square list. you don't have to be, you know, so that this information and the process as it moves along um is widely broadcast, you know, working with councils on aging, working with other um groups within both communities just to make sure that everybody knows what's
069happening. Oh, wow. I'm just going to go down the line here. So, we'll start with Becca and Jenny, if you have got something, then we'll go all the way down to Vic. Um I I wanted to make a comment I guess that I think one of the most important things as we talk about this process um moving forward for people especially like incoming kindergarten families or people that might be thinking about moving to the district because there are still a lot of people looking to move into this district um that this is going to be um about choice for families. That's historically been something that's been really important in this district. And I think that's something that people are going to want to be assured as maintained that no matter how the buildings and other
070facilities, you know, are made use of and how these new communities sort of like come together within them that families will still have a choice about what school their kids attend or, you know, that sort of thing. I think that that's going to be really valuable um to make sure that that's talked about a lot. Um, and then I guess since we're nitpicking on um, membership here, I wonder about the value of having a principal from a secondary school, uh, maybe they'd be providing guidance on sort of what they would want to see kids know or have experienced coming into the secondary school part of the system. But I just wonder like also maybe that seat could be more valuably used for a different I'm just going to jump in really quickly. Part of the
071reason I think that the secondary principle is important is because a lot of this is also about um strategic vision and vision of a graduate. And so I think that's where that makes a lot of sense to have the secondary principle on. But anything else for that? Yeah, you know, I mean, I've been meeting with, you know, staff to talk about this um along the way, and I've actually been really clear with staff that my only function right now is every time someone comes up and says, I think this is how we need to do it or do that, I actually take an opposite viewpoint. Um, just to make sure that we keep all the options on the table. So, you know, I I certainly if the school committee wants to commit early that we're
072keeping a school choice model, certainly the school committee can do that. I would actually advocate we don't do that to be honest. Um and that we really lay all options on the table upfront. Um and say that what we're doing is we're going to look at the needs of our kids, the resources of the community, and our overall vision for education and then figure out how we're best going to balance all of those. School choice could be an option um and a viable option going forward. But there are also a lot of other models that I think if we rule out too soon, we're not going to have thoroughly vetted um to be able to make decisions about that. Um and including some models that might impact organization of secondary schools. Um so I think
073my my and so whatever decision that we come to is fine. Like I you know I think there's a lot of ways we could do this and do it efficiently and effectively. Um, but I'm going to push back on any ideas early just to make sure that we're all keeping everything on the table. So then, and I think this is why I'm thinking like super specifically for language for people along this process. Um, I guess my saying choice is less about what school choice technically means. Um, but I think that's really important to say like everything's on the table, but this is very much a community decision. We want people to not feel that their kids are being taken and placed wherever for ulterior means. That this is absolutely a community discussion. Yes, Jenny Hansen.
074Um I have two questions. Number one is like is there a reason why we are only including one of the two secondary school principles? Is um I think they're both extremely busy. And I'm not sure that they would have the time to do probably and also it's the same reason why we're not trying to bring in all six elementary principles. It's just kind of um reasonable representation. Yeah. Great. So that leads to my second question. I'm looking at like so the school committee membership is like you're looking for three and I'm thinking next year in the fall we will have negotiation going on. So that's another three members. All of us all have our committee assignments. I think like I see almost everybody a couple times a week on a regular basis. I'm kind of
075wondering like I know we have 11 people but I don't want to see that people are getting taxed out on the committee and then the possibility delivery less. So I was actually wondering if we're entertaining a thought of reduce the three school committee member to two and free up that membership to someone else. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, having every person at every meeting is going to be absolutely critical. Um, because this is a once every 50-year type of discussion that we're about to have with the community. Um, and it's about to, you know, potentially touch every member of the educational community. So, I think that's going to be really critical. Um, is making sure people can commit to it. Um I put in three just because I said okay what is like let's
076every you know keep everyone equal at this this table. Um but could certainly go to two if that's what the committee wanted to do as well. So one thing I'm seeing kind of absent from all this is organized labor. While they may be nested within educators or the central office, I don't necessarily see Abea or ASME represented as part of this uh working committee. I think the memo might have said ABA. I can't remember, but our intention was to have at least one ABA rep. Um and most of our educators are ABA. Um, you know, we usually make Mike do all this stuff anyway, even though he doesn't doesn't want to have to end up making the decision that's disappointing to people in the end, but um, you know, we we we drag him along
077cuz he's such a good person to have. Um, it seems to me to be uh, pretty well-rounded. It doesn't seem too large. It seems to have good input from a bunch of rounded groups. as to having somebody from the community come in. That that seems a little bit to me like if you're restructuring the inside of your house, you ask the neighbor down the street for their input when you have all the architects and builders who've been doing this for a very long time already weighing in. So, I'm not sure that I see the, you know, the benefit to that. Um, I'll start following on that. I think something that we really benefited from in the elementary budget task force was having our fincom members deeply embedded in the process. And I'm not sure if
078it makes sense to to pull a spot out of there for them, but I think we should think about how to make sure that they know what is going on and they have eyes on all of this because that was that was really helpful. Um their community outreach and their ability in their own meetings to be able to answer questions with their own committees was really important. Um, one thing I've been thinking about is um as as the consultant evaluates, you know, kind of where we are before we figure out the many places we might go, um, I'm thinking about would it be useful to have them kind of evaluating the status quo using the same evaluation criteria because that's that is common to all of us. At least we understand what we're looking at
079now before we start ideulating about what could be. Um, yeah. Thanks, Tori. Leela, just to respond to Tori's comment, I wonder if uh there's a possibility of adding a FINCOM member to this, but I wonder also about the opportunity to uh share a list of all of the events that we're planning to have or at least the meetings and ask them for leaison maybe. Um, just a thought. Yep. All right. So, I've got a couple thoughts that I want to sort of summarize what I've heard and and sort of put my own in. So, I've heard both sides of we should include more people in this in this um steering committee and I've heard we should have less. Um I've heard we need community, we don't need community, we need, you know, finance committees, we
080don't. Um and I guess my question is or my wonder is um do we maybe set up a central steering committee? And I think back to Peter the when we were in the pandemic and we had a lot of things that we needed to get done quickly, we had a central steering committee and then we had a bunch of other working groups. Um so I wonder if as we get the consultant on board, we identify some of these um other key stakeholders um and put together opportunities to go to them with an update or even have representatives from the steering committee go to those bodies. Um the thing that I worry about a lot is availability of the membership. So, we heard it, you know, Yansshin said it as well. Um, we had a really
081hard time getting all of the people who wanted to participate in the elementary budget task force to come to all of those meetings. Um, the challenge we have, right, is that we need to get in a consultant on board. We need to get dates and everything and then we need to sort of get everybody to to commit to being able to do that. Um, so I I wonder if going smaller um is better. This is a steering committee. It is not the the committee that does all the work. And I wonder if we have a smaller sort of more agile committee and we commit to having a number of like specific outreach groups that get updates. We there's a lot in here that talks about presenting to the school committee and maybe there's an opportunity
082to have um outreach liaison inside the steering committee who go back to their representative groups, the ABA, the Boxboro and Actton leadership groups um and parents and PTOs because we've got you know a PTSO rep as well. Um, I wonder if that's a way to make sure that we get everybody included but also don't have such a difficult and unwieldy time with the steering committee. Um, just a couple more thoughts and I'll come back to everybody. The um, with regards to school committee membership, I'm I'm fine with two or three. Um, what I would say is if you're interested, please email me um, and then we'll look at that uh, at our April 3rd workshop. The other thing that I want people to think about um and don't necessarily need to to sort of discuss
083it now, but we this will be this will be a public body. They will be a subcommittee of the school committee. Um it will be an open meeting, so obviously anybody can attend. Um but we also should think about who's going to lead this. Do we think that there is capacity um capability I'm sure but capacity in the school committee members to be able to lead this or do we want to look inside the administration and ask somebody like Peter Light to to chair this meeting for us. Um so things to think about. Um uh and so personally I would I would advocate for maybe um a smaller more agile steering committee but with that commitment and understanding that the consultant needs to have outreach groups um and that they need to prepare materials for
084us to do some of that outreach as well. So I'll go to Tori and then I'll go to Vicram. Smaller is interesting because life happens. Um, we've seen life happen to all of us at some point in time with, you know, people being out sick or life emergencies that just take over. It's harder with a smaller group because you have less depth. Um, so I don't know what flexibility f what flexibility we have there to be able to have somebody who is the backup plan. Um, so that we're not stuck when, you know, we all get wiped out by a range of COVID. Uh, I was just curious. Um I I also I agree with you and a smaller more agile group kind of makes more sense. I hear what you're saying Tori but but
085I think a smaller group my other thing that actually comes into play. My other question is uh what is the expected lifespan of the steering committee? Like is it for a few weeks or is it for the entire duration? Uh it would be for the entire duration of at least the engagement with the consultant um which I think in the what is that expected sorry what is that expected to be? Yes. So, what I was going to say, if you would have let me finish, the the RFP indicates that we're going to bring the the consultant on in May um with a timeline to have something to present by December. Now, there is the opportunity that the engagement goes longer or we extend depending on what the implementation plan looks like. Um but, you know,
086this happens all the time where people, you know, life does happen. Um we will have at least two new committee members next year who won't have anything on their plate school committee wise just yet. Um and wow, wouldn't this be a great frying pan to throw them into? So, um there's there's opportunities there. Becca, can I just go just to add some some thought to that? You know, my my initial instinct is to try and schedule about three steering committee meetings in the current school year. Um to get oriented to the process, I think is going to be really important. Help develop kind of a common shared starting point. Um lay out some of the boundaries of the work and make sure the committee understands that. Um, and also give the consultant enough feedback that
087they can do some work over the summer. But then probably I can think maybe like one July check-in and maybe one August check-in. Um, and then probably, excuse me, like a bi-weekly meeting schedule would probably be necessary for something like this as we get into fall. Um, and probably bi-weekly in fall right up through, you know, December of of the year, I think, would be a reasonable thing to anticipate. I think um I on the subject of how many school committee members to have on the team. I think that when there are three members, it's easy to think, "Oh, they don't need me." And then, you know, there's a psychological thing that happens in my three years that I've been here. I've noticed this for myself and others. Um if there's only two, then you
088know you have to go. And I think that that kind of helps. And also then if you only have one or two, you know, um, responsibilities outside of this committee, then I think that's helpful too. Thanks. Yen, what's the size of the agile smaller steering committee you're thinking about? Like what's the size? I think we're I I mean I think I think 10. So there's there's five groups there and if you had two from each of them. Um, I also would just say that I don't necessarily think that we have to have equal representation. You know, it is going to be a school committee decision in the end. So, as I look around this table, we could say we only want two people on that steering committee, but we definitely want three educators. We want
089three principles. We want three parents. You know, there's there we don't have to be evenly balanced. Um, that that's I I'm worry most about us. um because we have to do not only this but a lot of the other subcommittee work whereas you know our principles as Peter said are very busy our educators are very busy um but there's a there's a larger well not on the principal side there's only eight of them but uh you know on on the community side on the educator side there's a larger pool um I think it will be important for us to be very clear upfront about time commitments some sort of regular schedule um for that and I agree with Becca when there are three, you're like, maybe I don't have to go today. Uh just uh
090sort of leaning towards two committee members. Um but I I see school committee members in this as sort of more like flies on the wall, sort of watching and learning, whereas those other people sort of the key people who know what really logically makes the most sense in terms of redesigning and reorchestrating things. um I don't know that we can really provide that much valuable input as the other people on that panel. So I think two is probably fine is what I could ultimately say you know and what I would say is there are going to be lots of other outreach opportunities and surveys and visioning and all of that and I would encourage everybody on the committee to participate in those components um because it is going to be really important for you to
091take off your committee hat and put on your parent and community member hat and and and provide the input in that forum. So um that that would be one thing I would say. Yeah, I think um in response to what you're asking, we're supposed to be representing the community and I think a lot of us have a particular subsect of the community that we particularly represent and spend more time in and around. So I think that's where we really provide value. Like we might not be professional educators. I'm not um or you know have some of these perspectives and that's why it's important to have them. But we do have a very important position because we're the elected representatives of the community. So we really are the ones helping bring in more of that voice.
092Peter, I'm curious why you Sorry, Vicram. Hold on just a second. Lakshmi had her hand up and I called on her. Thanks. I I think I go back to what Vicki said. Why do I keep doing that? Tori said, "I think you do need somebody from the town that is not part of the school committee or any of them because they are the ones who actually make it more a community investment in the institution rather than not. I think the community needs given that not everybody has kids and people pay taxes and they know they have to support schools. You do need that. I think you want to get maybe uh the leadership um you have the town leadership boards maybe somebody from there from each town or fin whatever. So I guess my I
093I hear what you're saying and I guess my question is do we feel like that it's important to have them on this steering committee or is it important to keep them informed and get their input along the way through a standard set of outreach and even specific outreach is kind of what I would vision to a finance committee select board. I think either way is fine. I think yeah it's it's as long as they're part of it. I think I think that's more important rather than leaving them out. Thank you. uh than saying that hey this is not our house so you're not going to participate in yeah I totally agree I I don't think that everybody is a stakeholder here great oh I was I was curious curious Peter why you happen to land
094on uh three school committee members as opposed to one or seven or um noting the distraction going on to my left. Um no, the um I I think I just put a number on a page. Um you know, quite honestly, um you know, my goal coming to you tonight with this proposal was not to try and come with a finished product, but something that was clearly a work in progress that could generate discussion. Um, so that it was in in the end more of a committee decision. So my goal in doing this was just to get numbers on a page and get something to to debate. Uh, Adam, would it be okay for us to just take a consensus if we can go ahead and, you know, advise Peter to drop this down to two
095school committee members? Leela, I would love to do that. My only thought is then it becomes an even number. I think. So, can we reallocate that seat somewhere else? Perhaps a third grader. Did you say a third grader? Yes. Yeah. I mean, just playing. Yeah. Um, committee being is the steering committee being even that huge of a deal if this is not necessarily like this is who is guiding the consultant, not necessarily the final word. Depends on the Yeah. And I think that the the question is quorum, but with nine or 14 or so people, I don't think you're going to have a quorum issue. Um the other is is around a vote. And what I really see the steering committee voting on the majority of what they're voting on is minutes of the previous
096meeting and to recommend uh you know a to recommend a a solution or proposal to bring to the school committee. So I don't think that I don't think having an even number is a problem. Um I guess I I I'll I'll go back to Liz's question. Is there um through a sort of nodding, are we okay with only two committee members? Okay. You know, like I said, I asked for people to to send me email if you're interested. Let's see who signs up and, you know, raises their hand with interest. Um and we can go from there. Uh the other question I had, and this is um Peter's question for you and a little bit of a discussion we've had already, which is around selection of the consultant um and that process. I think we
097had talked about maybe having a couple school committee members who might have expressed interest to be um involved in reviewing some of the potential consultants. Is that right? Yeah. My thought um thinking the timeline on if we I if you were to send Adam your interest prior to the the workshop we have coming up on April 3rd, he can potentially appoint and have you approve that appointment at the April 3rd meeting. And that would be on a timeline where then those couple school committee members could sit in on some of the interviews with the top few consultants that we really want to vet and so that there's some opportunity for input there. Um so that that would be my goal going into it. Um the other reason I'd want to get um school committee members
098appointed to this early is what I'd like to do is immediately know who the members are and reach out and coordinate schedules now between central office and school committee. So we actually have dates that we can publish so that anyone else signing up for the committee knows exactly what the dates of the commitment are going to be. Great. Thanks Tori and then Rebecca. So to Yenshin's point as well that we have a lot of havetos on the schedule for next year that are going to take I I guess I just wonder how much for April 3rd we need to be aware of like all of those havetos that are out there and where those interests lie because we do need to make sure we're not spreading our own selves too thin and it's a good
099good question. Yeah, I don't know if there's a good answer to it, Rebecca. Um, I would similarly like to propose that maybe we get a consensus on the idea of reallocating that spot. Not that it really matters to have an even or odd number of people on the committee, but how about having one more educator specifically saying somebody from the union um since it I checked the memo and it wasn't in there either. So, I don't know if people are on board with that idea having four educators and specific Mike just raised his hand in volunteering. Oh, it was just a thumbs up. Sorry. No, that was a commitment. It was a third grader. He volunteered a third grader as well. His wife is texting. All right. A consensus on adding an additional educator to
100the to the panel. Yeah. Okay. Um, what I would say I I have no problem with it. What I would say is let's leave that open as an option. In fact, let's leave that 15th seat open as an option for any of sort of those broader groups, particularly parents and educators. Let's see what we get for interest. Um, sometimes you're going to get a lot of interest and sometimes you're, you know, calling people up begging them to serve. So let's, you know, let's let's say that we'll make the the the committee comprised of 15 members, two of which are school committee members, and then leave it to the process once we've published dates and published commitment and all of that to see what comes in. Um, I think as long as we cover those five
101areas that are listed there, the the quantities are probably a little bit more flexible. Does that sound good to everybody? All right, so there's no vote here. Any other last comments or questions on this? Um, sounds like, uh, again, if you have an interest in serving to, um, be on this steering committee as one of the two school committee members, please reach out to me in advance of the April 3rd meeting. Um, I'll just add if you're interested in being as part of the review, but not necessarily uh, review of the consultants, but not necessarily on that committee. Let me know that as well. Um, and uh, we will vote this steering committee into existence uh, on our April 3rd workshop. Wonderful. Moving on, the monthly personnel report is in our packet. If you have
102any questions, let Andrew know. Seeing none, we're Leela. Nope. I just answered my question. All right, there are no questions. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Leela. Uh, moving on to subcommittee and member reports. I'm going to try something different tonight. I am going to just go around the table to all of the members here and give you an opportunity as we go around the table to report out on whatever liaisonship subcommittee uh you serve on and we'll just go around the table that way. So that Okay, hold on just a second. Hold on just a second. Okay, I think we're good. So says YouTube. Tori, so now that you've laid out this great plan, I'd like to throw a monkey wrench in it. Wonderful. Can we Awesome. Um, if it's okay, I maybe I'll get
103started on the ALG and then pass it off to Yenshin to finish it. So, um, ALG met at 7:30 on March 11th at Actton's town hall and on Zoom. The current ALG model for fiscal year 26 allocates an additional $130,000 of the untaxed levy capacity to cover the shortfall um that we voted with the district's preliminary budget which is now our budget. Um this results in a 3.12 increase in the act and assessment without excluded debt. The municipal operating budget has been adjusted down to a 4.56% increase without excluded debt and the DPW building estimate is still being refined. While the finance committee has not yet fully supported the municipal portion of the model, supports growing. I shared the school committee's support for the DPW building. I also emphasized our district's inability to meet another
1043% assessment in future years. to maintain services from fiscal year 27 forward. We asked to update the ALG model to represent a 6.33% increase in the um district's assessment as the acting component of a 5.25% operational budget. I thank you. Yeah, got all those notes on those numbers right. Um additionally, the estimates for capital needs are being refined. A bond package may be needed to be included and all of this will have a big impact on taxpayers. Um, we also shared plans to with the restructuring. Um, and also that uh Sherry had drafted a cover letter for a legislative advocacy package. Um, and that Adam would and now has sent invitations to the select board and finance committee um to attend the Ways and Means Legislative Local Aid hearing. And the select board and the
105town manager are going to go back and do sort of the same projections that we did for fiscal year 27 and beyond. and Yenshin, you want to jump in? Um, I think the my understanding of the whole process of ALG is to reach consensus before the town meeting. So, we don't have like quote unquote floor fights. We're not there yet. Um, I think we have like literally one last meeting before the warrants have to be printed out. So, at the meeting, I just said like, you know, we need to get moving. And I had a short conversation with uh the town actton's town manager John Manderati and he said you know with the school's new assessment for possible assessment for FY27 he usually the town has like nine months to plan out the budget. Now
106they have to sort of shorten that process so to speak. they will give an update on the impact of the model uh at the next meeting but he reiterated like usually it takes nine months so I'm like just get moving thank you all right moving down the table l anything to report on the steadily receding hit met on March 13th 2025 to review our ongoing runout the runout costs continue to shrink and as we currently have funds on deposit with our insurers we're looking at an interesting opportunity. We may be in a position to return between $500,000 and 8 up to $850,000 from the trust to the town and schools. The trust is going to review the implications of this and set a vote for our next meeting to define the amount and the timing
107of the return. After that review, we'll have a determination as to the amount of the return and may bring to that next school committee meeting a big cardboard check. Our next meeting will be on the second Thursday in April and Sherry may have some more things to say about this. Do you have an update on hit before we go? We have another topic that well we'll come to Sherry in a little bit because there's another agenda item for that. Leela, any updates for you? Yeah, on the legislative front, I've been in contact with folks. Um I also started a new job as a policy director for the state, so it's getting a little awkward um differentiating the two. Um, so if anyone has an interest in getting more involved legislatively, I'm happy to facilitate that,
108support you in that. Um, yeah, reach out to me. Thank you, Liz. Uh, yep. I do have actually two updates and just one friendly amendment to the hit update that we heard is that we would be re we could potentially be receiving money back to two towns, not just the town. Yeah. Okay. It sounded like the town and I was like, nope, towns. That's gonna Oh, yeah. You're going to hear me say that lots. Towns plural. Uh, so the policy subcommittee met on Friday, March 7th at 7:30 via Zoom. We continued our discussion on a new financial assistance policy and the disciplinary the discipline policy, which we are still working on updating. Thank you to Amanda Bailey for the thoughtful feedback regarding the right to recess, which we intend to consider. We also discussed some
109additional updates concerning Title 9, which was fun. Um, our next meeting is on Friday, March 28th at 7:30 a.m. via Zoom. The Boxboro Finance Committee met this past Tuesday, March 18th, and has continued reviewing the warrant articles and budget to be presented at annual town meeting. The sentiment was again noted that Boxboro is looking down the road to another difficult budget year in FY27 and is eager to receive updates from the district as we examine our processes and organization for potential changes. Thank you. Um I don't think we've given an update on the Boxboro leadership forum which has reconvened. Um so the Boxboro leadership forum did reconvene. I don't remember what date it was. It was some Wednesday in March. Um and uh we had a very good and frank discussion with all the leadership
110in Boxboro around all the budget drivers that we're seeing um both the fire station, the municipal budget and obviously the school's budget. Um, I would say that there was um positive support from the the folks on the BLF regarding the work that the school committee has done to date around um bringing our budget numbers down and and support for um supporting us as we move forward into future years. Um lots of discussion not only about that but other sources of revenue recognizing that we are a relatively small town. Um, we've got some commercial development opportunities, but also need to have support from all of the boards and committees that facilitate that economic development planning and whatnot. Um, the select board also met. Um, and I was at that meeting. I don't even remember when that
111one was, March 3rd or 10th. Um, and there was nothing substantial that happened. We're moving towards our town meeting, which is obviously a week after the Actton town meeting. and uh their voting warrant articles. Becca, I have a few hats myself. Um so, first I guess I'll I'll do the budget uh sub that met on um March 10th, Monday at 2 p.m. on Zoom. Um we this was before last week's um discussion of the budget. So, we basically, you know, discussed what was new at that point. Um, we didn't have any more funds to add anybody back into the budget, unfortunately. Um, you know, I think we all felt very moved by the teachers that came to speak to us. Um, and it, you know, it's really hard to not be able to add anything
112back in. Um, but, you know, we another big part of our discussion was around um, the two towns and their finance committees and how um, they do clearly see the effort that we've made to do the best with what we have. um they see that we've consistently um been willing to do the work to open up the books and be very clear with everybody and you know work really hard to um you know allocate the resources that we have. And um it seems that both towns are acknowledging that um there isn't anything left to cut and they're not going to be pushing on us to do that um in the coming years. So that's good. Um I think uh well I'll save that for finomecom. Um Sherry also gave an update on um where we
113are with debt um in terms of needing to finish the um take out another bond to finish the boardwalk campus work. Um as well as you know we sort of are waiting on some federal tax return money. That's TBD. Who knows what might be happening with that. um we are trying to be as you know sustainable as possible and not count on anything that we know you know could show up at any point but um I think you know we did discuss rates about uh for bonds going forward and how you know it seems like we're in a pretty good position for that um I think capital sub probably will have more to discuss about that so um I'll just say that our next budget sub meeting should have been Monday but it will two
114weeks from now. So, we won't be having it next Monday, but the Monday after at 2 p.m. on Zoom, I believe. Um, then I will go to the FinCom who met on um Tuesday, March 11th at 7:30 at the town hall. Um, they went over, you know, all of the work that we're doing. Um, as well as the town. Thank you, Tori, for giving us those hard numbers. Um, I think that there's still some feeling, uh, you know, as Yenshin mentioned, that the town could do more to tighten up their budget. So, I think that the FINCOM seems happy with us and they're focused a little bit more on the town side right now. Um, they did discuss our commitment to support um, town projects and allocation of funds. Um, but I think they also
115understand the points that were made about us being a mixed committee of some Boxboro and some Actton folks, which makes that a little bit more difficult. Um, there's upcoming union negotiations that was mentioned that, you know, we have to sort of have that in mind. Um, the number that I heard for the B DPW estimate right now was 40 million and it sounds like that's still ongoing. um but they're a little bit happier with where that number is. So, um that's good. One thing that I do want to highlight um was the discussion is around wanting a a 5-year outlook and understanding that we don't know numbers. There's a lot of unknowns looking into the future. Um but clearly, you know, we're making the effort to sort of be realistic and say these numbers are
116not 3%, they're not 2%, they're more like six, seven, eight depending on what it is. health insurance even worse some years, who knows? Um, so at this point, I think that we're sort of like tentatively saying there might have to be an override in FY27 that was mentioned at the finance committee. And I think everybody wants the community to be notified early and involved early and know that this, you know, is again highlighting the um the fact that the way that we develop these budgets based on, you know, mostly homeownership, property taxes is just not financially sustainable. Um, so I think that the good news is it feels like everybody's coming together and there's understanding and appreciation for everybody. Um, so that, you know, felt like a good discussion as dark as it is. Um,
117and I think their next meeting is next Tuesday, um, if I'm not mistaken. Um, and then my final hat I'll put on is for the joint PTSO meeting that was March 3rd at 7 p.m. on Zoom. Um we went over you know budget Saturday the discussion of school restructuring. Obviously there's a lot of um trepidation and interest in that entire discussion. Um so it's important to make sure that we are as collaborative as possible with those people that are able to get the messaging out to all the families and the schools because we clearly have an ongoing issue reaching people. Um, so you know, one of our big discussions was looking forward, what do the um, PTSO owes need from us? Um, so it sounds like what they're going to need is somebody who's able
118to go to every meeting. So, I think this is another time to discuss having two members to make sure everybody knows they have to go um and you know that they're on the hook to give as much of a detailed understanding of you know what's going on here and translate it into terms that families are going to be able to understand and clear messaging that's going to be able to um work down you know the pipelines. I think this is a really vital resource that we need to make sure that we are leaning on especially in these you know most difficult years. Um and they also would like to have um you know scheduled times that you know some relevant admin member um comes as liaison and it was wonderful that Peter has been able
119to go to a couple of meetings recently to really answer all of those questions that I might not have the answer to because Peter knows all those hard numbers. Um, and then you know the end of the joint PTSO meetings is always the discussion of all the wonderful work that everybody's doing in the schools and it's just so uplifting to hear about all of these cultural celebrations and exciting new ways to get kids interested in reading and just times to like bring the community together because I think that you know we may not want to say that the schools are the heart or the center of our community but they are absolutely the biggest um place where people come together and you know go see a play or go watch a sports game together with
120their family and we don't want to lose this community that we've built. It's really special here. Um so the next uh joint PTSO meeting is going to be 7 p.m. on Zoom. Um and it's going to be the first Monday in April, which will be the 7th. Um, so there'll be a reminder about that going out in a Zoom link for anybody that wants to listen in. And I think that's everything. Thank you. Looks like uh everyone looked down at you, Ben. It's your turn. Oh, well. Uh, capital subcommittee met on March 12th at 7:30 a.m. with only one interruption from a coworker that morning, I think. Um, we discussed debt instruments, specifically the considerations between bonding and bands, which are bond anticipated notes or anticipation notes. The subcommittee reviewed the financial implications of each
121option and the potential benefits of securing a long-term uh bond at current fiscal rate or current interest rates. After the discussion, the subcommittee voted in the affirmative to support the admission in exploring the advancement of a $3.9 million bond over 15 years for ongoing capital needs, including what's going on at the Boardwalk campus. On March 3rd, the act and select board met and appointed a new town accountant who I cannot remember the name of for the life of me. Uh she begins effective March 10th and approved the request for proposals for the disposition of rail property at 3 and 13 school streets. The board also took no action on a letter of support for the safe communities act and a fee waiver request from the Emerson Hospital 5K run or walk for cancer. The next
122meeting is on the 24th. Thank you Vicram. Uh so we had uh the monthly CPAC meeting on uh on March 13th and the big topic obviously was uh the new director of special education which was not known then but uh also discussed um high school graduation requirements uh preliminary budget stuff uh that's now pass a and of course uh the strategic plan of potential school reorganization uh so obviously CPAC wants to have a say in that as well obviously is going to be a key player as well. Great. Thank you. Thank you everybody for your updates. All right. Moving on uh to item F in ongoing business. Health insurance stabilization account. Sherry, I'm going to hand this over to you to give us an update. Sure. U we're going to be in the future looking
123for the school committee to create a new health insurance stabilization account to help us with the unforeseen employees seeking health insurance during the school year. As you know, health insurance cost very volatile right now and when someone comes into the district and chooses to get our insurance, it can be quite costly over what we've budgeted. As Andrew told you, we will be coming forward hopefully with if he wants to bring a big cardboard check, a big cardboard check. Um, based on the numbers that we preliminarily spoke of, the district would get about 77%, the town of Actton would get, you know, 28 point uh 22 point whatever percent. Um, that could be up to about $650,000. So, we will be looking into creating the stabilization account. This afternoon, I went back to the May 23rd,
1242019 minutes when it was voted to create the capital stabilization account. And yes, indeed, the select board does have to vote this first. So, I will go forward and I will submit something for both of their agendas to vote it. Come back to you. will ask you guys to vote it. And then the select boards, we have to let them know within 7 days and they'll have 45 days if they have any questions on it to have a special town meeting. If not, we'll vote it and by that time we'll probably know how much we'll be getting back and we can kind of collectively come up with a number to hopefully move. It will have to probably go into END and we can vote to move it from END into a newly created account. Questions?
125Vicram, this might be a silly question and largely impossible to answer, but do we know what that a what that optimal number would be for that fund and b is it really matter because we're going to put as much into it as we possibly can given our circumstances? So, I don't think our goal on this Let me just back up because when we had kind of our health insurance crisis of last year, um we really, you know, in order to pay for that, not only did we tap OPED, but we really depleted the excess and deficiency account, which is the most broad use of any reserves you can keep as an excess and deficiency because it can be for any purpose. With a stabilization account, it can only be used for the sole purpose that
126it was designed for. Um, I think the very specific usage we want to have for health insurance stabilization is for unanticipated employees coming onto the district health insurance after a budget's been voted. We're getting budgets tighter and tighter as as we move forward and which means we have a lot less flexibility to just add more employees on health insurance, but we're required to. So, you know, I think, you know, if we added 10 employees in a year, that would be about $250,000 potential liability to our budget. Um, if they all took family plans. So, I'm thinking somewhere between 250 and 300 probably is an appropriate number for that stabilization fund while we we figure it out. But then I actually would advocate that the rest of the money that comes back just goes right to
127END because that um is dangerously low as we know. And so rebuilding both simultaneously to me would probably be the most prudent thing. Are the Indians are more far reaching? Yeah, it's you know the the difference is once capital once a health insurance stabilization is established and that both towns have supported the establishment of that the school committee can vote to use those funds on its own without having to ask the towns every time you want to use funds from that account. Whereas with excess and deficiency, you can use it for any purpose. However, every time you tap access and deficiency, you have to provide notice to the two towns and they have the right to call a town meeting. So, there's more process involved with access and deficiency, but more broad usage, but capital
128stabilization is narrow usage, but more flexible to access for the school committee. Other questions or comments? All right. So, because this does have to go to the select boards first, we'll see this at a future meeting once the select boards have been notified and uh vote on that. Yeah, Leela, can I ask a very brief question about the last item? Last item. Ben's update process real slow in my head. Can I ask for clarification? Did you say the select board took no action on the Safe Communities Act? That's because my recollection is they voted 4 to one to approve sending a letter in support. I submitted a correction to my meeting because clearly my notes were off. Excellent. Wow, that was that was a good catch five minutes later. Any other comments on subcommittee updates?
129Um, anything for Natalya? You know, we want to go all the way back to the beginning. or healthcare stabilization. Look, you decided to stay, so we'll get to call on you again. How many uh school committee members are we going to have on that steering committee? 15. We're going to bring some third graders onto the school committee. They're the ones affected. Uh on to the school committee goal update. Anybody have uh communication goal updates that they want to share? No. Nope. All right. So then we have a consent agenda. Um there's one item on the consent agenda, but I'm going to read the consent agenda language as opposed to the item because the item is our warrants and it will be quicker for me to just say items on the consent agenda do not usually
130require discussion and are approved with one vote unless any member would like to hold them for discussion and a separate vote. I'll read each item. If anybody wants it holds held, please say hold. Uh, and the item is the approval of our warrants as presented in this packet of 32025. Is there anybody who'd like to make a motion on the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Did you want to make a motion to do something with the consent agenda? Move to approve the consent agenda as presented. All right. The other side of the table got this. So that was Liz uh with the motion and Leela with the second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Anybody want to make a motion to adjurnn? So moved second FYI. Is there something in the FY?
131There's nothing in the FYI. I I think there's just an opportunity. Um Adam and I started to talk about the agenda for the workshop. Um so what we settled it's pretty simple agenda. Um one part of the workshop will be focused on just giving the committee time and space to talk about and share initial ideas about this idea of strategic planning and reorganization. Um a second one is talking about some of the different different initiatives that have also been proposed that might want to be undertaken but I think it's important to understand the scope of the strategic planning and reorg potential priorities. Um and then the third is developing a clear communication plan for all of the work that we're about to undertake. So those were the three things just to preview that for you
132because that is our next meeting. Thanks Peter. So Leela made the motion, Vicer made the second to adjurnn. All those in favor, please say I. I. Thank you all very much. Have a good evening.