001Okay, I'm going to call the meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. This meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcast. Please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting. Can I have a motion to open this committee meeting? So moved. Second. Do a roll call. Mr. Ellis? Yes. >> Mrs. McGlinn? Yes. Mr. Harper? Yes. Mrs. Pedera? Yes. And Mr. Hood? Yes. Thank you. Uh, could we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, so the first uh item is the school choice hearing. Can I have a motion to open this school choice hearing? So moved. I'll second.
002We'll do a a roll call. Mr. Ellis? Yes. Mrs. McGlinn? Yes. Mr. Harper? Yes. Mrs. Pedera? Yes. And Mr. Hood? Yes. Uh, Dr. Billy, do we have anyone signed up for public comment? We do not. Okay. So, I'll turn it over to you. Okay, if anybody wants to speak on the school choice hearing, now would be the time. If anybody would like to speak on the school choice hearing, now would be the time. Okay, I'm going to be recommending today that the school committee vote against our school's participation in the school choice program for the upcoming academic year. After thorough consideration and analysis of the various factors, I believe it is in the best interest of our school community to refrain from participating in this program at this time. You received that in your packet.
003We'll do the vote later in the agenda, but I just wanted you to know that was the recommendation. So, do we need a motion to close the school choice hearing? I'll motion. Second. Do the roll call. Mr. Ellis? Yes. Mrs. McGlynn? Yes. Mr. Hockaday? >> Yes. Mrs. Madeira? >> Yes. And Mr. Yes. Yes. Okay, the next item is the consent agenda. Everything listed in the consent agenda was distributed in advance of the meeting. Does anyone have any requests for something to be removed from the consent agenda and discussed or voted on separately? Uh may I have a motion to approve and accept the items listed in the consent agenda including the minutes from the March 10th, 2026 meeting. I'll make that motion. Second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. I think
004we said we have no one signed up for public comment, so Dr. Bailey, I'm going to turn it over to you for old business. Okay, just a very, very quick update. As you know, we have our contracts executed for ORR and New Bedford High School. We did meet with Fairhaven, our negotiations team that with Fairhaven officials, and they asked to get back to us with another meeting date to continue the discussion. That's the only update I have on that tonight. Okay, do you want to take a new business? Sure. First thing we have tonight is spotlight on education and we are going to be spotlighting the Ford Middle School grade 7 probability carnival and I would ask Principal Silvia to come up and I will allow her to do the introductions if we have teachers
005or students present with us tonight. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the school committee, Dr. Bailey. Can you Yes. Seems to be too loud. I have um Ms. Katie Rogier and Ms. Kelsey Shutliff. They were both the masterminds behind this year's probability carnival. You can take it away. Then we'll introduce our students. Um so this is a project that uh we started last year. So this is the second year we have been able to run this event. And what we were trying to do is answer that age-old question for students is where am I going to use this in real life? And they're always saying math's not fun. So how can we make it fun? So we developed what our probability unit having them create and design their own games, letting them play these games,
006present these games and show the mathematics behind it. So we worked on this project for over a week both in my classroom and Ms. Shutliff's classroom. And they started by as you can see up on the screen drawing out their ideas on the whiteboards. Now, some groups stuck with their original idea, some groups changed their idea three or four times. But in the end we were able to create I think we had about 45 different projects this year which was really incredible to see. Just some faces of the day. Oh, the best part. Isaiah, Connor, Chase. Who did we decide is asking this group the questions? Okay, come up. Come up to the front, please. Do you have your project over here? Do you want to put it here? Who are you talking to? Um
007can you explain the probability in your project in your own words? Can you explain the probability of your project in your own words? Come up to the microphone. It was what? How'd you find it? Uh we were uh we found it 75% and we used a table graph to find that out. Um did your results match what you predicted? Why or why not? They didn't match because our prediction was 25% but it was 75%. Uh what was the most challenging part of your project? The most challenging part of our project was probably calculating the probability. Where might we see this type of probability in real life? Uh you will mostly see this probability at a basketball game? Okay. What was your favorite part of this project and why? My favorite part of this project was
008working with our group members and answering correctly or if other people were not answering correctly. Thank you. Who's asking? We are asking questions for Hunter's For Hunter's group. So we have Hunter, Aidan and Cameron. Come on up with your project. Chase tells me they're asking you questions. You got this, Chase. What is it? Can you explain in your probability probability in your project in your own words? Explain the probability in your own words. So for the project, we combined like the 50/50 chance of spin flipping a coin and spinning the wheel of prime numbers to get the probability of 1/5 or 20%. I'll I'll share. Did your results match what you predicted? Why or why not? Yes, when we did the experiment, it matched the results because we got like around like the 20% that
009we were like guessing. What was the most challenging part of your project? The most challenging part of the project was probably figuring out what we should do about the wheel and what the probability should be and how we decide on choosing how you win. Okay. Where might you see this type of probability in your in real life? Um maybe like a carnival game or like a um board game or like a house. Mhm. What was your What was your favorite part of this project and why? Favorite part. Um probably seeing the fifth graders' faces when they won. How happy they were. Mhm. Yes, there were a lot of winners. Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU. THANKS FOR AIDING OUR CAMERA. ARE YOU ASKING QUESTIONS? Who's asking questions? >> I'm asking questions. You're asking questions to
010the girls. To who? The girls. Oh. Oh. The to the ladies. Yes. Mariah, Charlotte, Ava, and Olivia. I would like to point out they put this together and didn't get any glitter anywhere in our classrooms. It's all at home. And to the prizes were Jolly Ranchers. Can you explain the probability in your project in your own words? Um so there was 120 outcomes and 24 favorable outcomes. So you did 120 / 24 and no, you did 24 / 120 and that equaled 0.2 and then that uh transformed to the 20%. Um did your results results match what you predicted? Why or why not? It didn't match what we predicted because we predicted 20% as the probability and when we tested it it was 45%. What was the most challenging part of your project? The most
011challenging part of our project was probably the figuring out what game to do and um setting up the wheel. Where might we see this type of probability in real life? Um you might see it in like a carnival game or like a festival. What was your favorite part of this project, Lauren? Our favorite part of this project was probably painting the wheel and putting the glitter and making the bows. You good? Okay, so Lucas, in your own words, can you explain the probability of your project? So um the probability uh uh probability comes from the marble bouncing into the uh green cup and then going into the empty spot in the spinning wheel. Did your results match what you predicted? Um no. They were like kind of like um they were The results were about
01230 to like 70, 30 being a loss and 70 being a win. What was your most challenging part of this project? >> Um the most challenging part of the project was finding the other um was finding the other part of the compound probability. Where might you see this type of probability in real life? Um you might see this on type of probability in arcade games. Okay, and then what was your favorite part of this project and why? Um my favorite part of the project was the designing and building because um I like to do a lot of engineering and uh engineering projects. Yes. Thank you, LUCAS. THANK YOU. QUESTIONS? NO QUESTIONS. JUST A COMPLIMENT. I attended that event. So, it's very well done. Yes. IT REALLY WAS. YES. YOU KNOW, WE WE ALWAYS LIKE IT
013WHEN OUR STUDENTS share their brilliance with us, and we thank the teachers, too, as well. So, thank you for that. Now, I'd like to call Ms. Ruggeri to the podium to talk about the 180 Foundation and Investigating History Grant, where we're at with that. Good evening, Mr. Chairperson and members of the School Committee. Um just wanted to announce that we are the a recipient of um a grant through the 180 Foundation to expand our Investigating History curriculum into grades 3 and 4. So, we this year we're in year one in grades 5 through 7 of receiving um grant funding for professional development and teacher materials for Investigating History. That program is going really well. Um we had a team from the elementary school who visited um both the middle school and also um a a
014a Dartmouth public schools. There's a teacher there who was piloting um the curriculum at the fourth-grade level, and um we did a lot of research to make sure that we were making a well-informed decision um in applying for the grant. We all agreed it looked like an amazing program. We already know that it is at the middle school level. Um we wanted to just ensure for grade 3 and 4, and um everything we saw seemed great. So, this grant will support professional development um in a train-the-trainer model. So, we'll have a teacher leader. It's a great opportunity for um, teacher leadership and then they will help um, then bring back the professional development to their counterparts. And um, we'll we'll start with implementation coming up in the next school year. Do you have any questions?
015I think you very much. >> Thank you. Appreciate the hard work and the teachers' hard work on this. Next, um, I'd like to present the F- Aldwin I will present the FY27 budget update. Dr. Bailey? Yes. Slocum classroom? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I skip one? I didn't mean to do that. So, the Slocum classroom rental rates have increased by 3%. There's um, nothing to vote on, but at the end of the meeting we'll just have you sign some paperwork for that. So, and then now at this time I'd like us to present to where we're at in terms of the budget. So, this is a continuation from last meeting and we've had meetings with our budget subcommittee um, to discuss the budget. And as you know, everything is aligned to our strategic plan. So, our
016mission of the Acushnet Public Schools in partnership with staff, parents, and community is to promote student success, growth, and learning in a safe and supportive environment. The vision of the Acushnet Public Schools is to be a high performing school district where all students are afforded the opportunities to realize their potential. And we also always say two schools, one district. We always try to maximize resources between the two schools and be as efficient as possible. Our strategic objectives that are aligned to everything within the budget, achieving academic excellence for all students, creating thriving social and emotional learning experiences for all students, and strengthening partnerships with parents and the larger community. And it is our responsibility, the superintendent, the school committee, to create a fiscally responsible budget to provide students with an excellent education in a safe
017and supportive environment. So, tonight I will be reviewing four different scenarios regarding budgets. A needs-driven budget, level-service budget, level-funded, and a constraint-based budget. In speaking with the budget subcommittee and town officials, we will be recommending a compromise, which which is the constraint-driven budget that you'll hear more about this evening. So, where have we been? Back in 2014, we had a an audit done by DESI, and we had uh DESI had cited at the time many challenges in the district back in 2014. There was a lack of coherent planning, which meant that there was weak and unclear district and school improvement plans. There was poor alignment between goals, budget, and actions. There was inconsistent curriculum. It was cited that we don't fully the district didn't fully uh implement a standards-based or a common core curriculum, and
018there was an over-reliance on textbooks and unclear expectations. There was cited to be uneven instruction, so there was no shared vision of effective teaching, limited rigor, differentiation, and student engagement. The report also stated that there was weak data use, data collected but not consistently analyzed or used. There was limited collaboration across the grades and schools. There was ineffective professional development not aligned to district goals and little evidence of impact on instruction. There was also inconsistent student supports, which means our response to intervention and special education were unevenly implemented. And as I did my learning tour my listening tour when I started in the district in 2018, these were all consistent findings when I met with all the stakeholders. This was very similar to what I heard in those groups that I met with. And then
019this just shows, you know, with all of those things, we have to strengthen oops. We have to strengthen planning and leadership so that we develop clear and measurable improvement plans, aligning the budget and priorities and our actions. We've implemented a standards-based curriculum, improved instruction. Again, establish a shared instructional model, increase the rigor, engagement and differentiation. Again, we looked at using data effectively. We built consistent systems for data analysis and instructional decision-making. We also revamped and continue to revamp professional development. We align PD to all of our district goals and we monitor the impact on teaching and learning. We enhanced student support system and expand targeted, which means expanding targeted interventions. So this is another way to look at it. Back in 2018, I was hired. In 2021, we hired a director of CIA, which is
020curriculum, instruction, and assessment, because basically that report said that the district was not focused on teaching and learning. So, we also, um, implemented, started to implement in '21, high-quality curriculum materials in ELA, math, and science. We hired two academic coaching positions. And we continue to implement high-quality curriculum materials in social studies, and we offer the high-quality professional development. And you can see this is 2018, the scores have consistently gone up. Um, and these are the percentages above the state meeting and exceeding expectations. So, we're definitely regaining momentum, we're doing the right things, and we want to continue with that. So, where we are in, uh, since 2021, the district has been awarded highly competitive grants. So, since 2021, we've, uh, been given 1.5 million plus in grant money. We do everything we can to get
021as many grant grants as we can. In 2022, we received national recognition, and we were declared, uh, the elementary school was declared a distinguished school, and that was based on academic achievement. We have Project Lead the Way. Again, you heard about the 180 Foundation today. We also very successfully navigated our COVID years. You know that we, um, had our specialists teaching the the lower grades. We had our K and 1 students in school full-time, which was very different than what many other districts did, and we believed in giving them a very strong foundation at that time. We also had the streaming going on in all the other grade levels, so the kids had school every day. US News featured Acushnet Public Schools. We, this year, we had our eighth-grade civics teacher become the recipient of
022the Massachusetts Council for Social Studies for Excellence in teaching. I'm proud of the work of our talented leaders and teachers, and we've had several accolades over the past years, and also our middle school has become a model school for other schools to visit and see the applied learning in action. So, with all this recognition and the accomplishments that our district has received, we've had many VIPs who spoke to our staff during important meetings and celebrations to mark the accomplishments. And again, we also work very closely with community partners that are listed there. So, we we see the former secretary Patrick Tutwiler. We see former Commissioner Jeff Riley, Regina Robinson, the deputy commissioner when we she came for the visit for the distinguished schools. And then you see all of the community partners, and these are
023just some of them that we do a lot of work with. So, we're really proud of the work that we're doing. So, we're looking at our budget for our school system. I wanted to show you the different funding sources that we have cuz we are limited in where we receive our funding from. The top uh the top top item here is the town appropriation. So, Chapter 70 gets set by the Department of Ed, and it gives you two figures, what they're going to provide to you in Chapter 70 and what the town has provide their share. It's different for every community. They base it on the on the earning levels and the wealth of each community as to what they can pay for. So, for FY 27, the state has determined that from the town
024we are going to receive at least 9.6 million. That's the base amount that they can provide, and they will provide 7.5 million of chapter 70. In the town's portion of of their cost towards us is what's an item that's called schedule 19. This schedule 19 is town services they provide for us. A simple example is health insurance. They cover the health insurance, but it gets charged against our net school spending. So, overall between the two, that creates our foundation budget of what we have to spend for our schools. And each year the state tries to increase the amount the town puts the the amount that the town puts in and decrease the amount the state puts in. But again, there's variable factors that they go up and down with that. Aside from the chapter 70,
025like I said, we're limited. So, we have federal and state grants. We have the You over You hear it as title one grant, title two. That's all part of the SA grants, every student succeeds act. This year we have 131,000 in total on those grants. We're told next year it's being reduced. They first they told us it was going to be reduced by 50%, but just a few days ago luckily they said it's only going to be going to be reduced by $10,000. But it's still $10,000 is is a big cut to us. We'll have 121,000. The IDEA or special ed grants, Individuals with Disability Act, we have about 314,000 this year, and so far they haven't come out with the figures for next year yet, but all of my sources have been saying it's
026going to pretty much be level funded. We were hoping for an increase, but we'll go with level funding when we go into our budget, build our budget. You hear about circuit breaker all the time, circuit breaker reimbursement. Basically, what that is for special ed students, the Department of Ed sets a limit as to how much each district reach each school, city, and town can put out per student. If you go over that amount, for example, if the amount you you you allocated to pay is 40,000, which I think it's 43 this year, If a student cost you 100,000 to go out to the school for the blind or the school for the deaf, the state will pay you back 75% of that portion that you put out. You get it back the following year. That's
027called circuit breaker. It's meant so that you don't break your budget. So, we receive We'll receive this year $283,000 for last year's expenses, and that keeps it rolling forward each year. So, those are monies that are available to our special ed department that we put in must be spent on special ed. It's not just general fund. It has to be spent for either out-of-district tuitions or special ed transportation. So, that's another funding source that we have. Again, we have no control over how much we generate. The grants are the grants, the circuit breaker is circuit breaker. That's what we have. We have revolving accounts, one of which is food services. Uh we produce about 100,000, we make a little more than that a year in excess of our costs. Most of that is reinvested back
028in equipment. As you know, our schools are built in 1971, so we're constantly changing and adding equipment to there. Our school rental fund, that's for our fields, that's for our classrooms, that's for our gymnasium. We generate 15, maybe 16,000 dollars a year uh of income in that account. And our preschool tuition fund, we bring in about $50,000 for our preschool tuitions. So, we have some of this available to us. We don't take it all because we don't know year to year what we'll have. This is all the different sources of funding that we have. And again, our biggest portion, as you can see, comes from the town. And we have no other real ways of generating our own income. What I want to show you with this graph here is in discussing our budget, I
029want you to see our fixed costs, how much we really don't have um any play in. The purple section is our professional salaries, our teachers, our That's a little more than half. Then as you circle down around by 6:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m. there on the chart, these are clerical salaries, our paras, our custodians, our technicians. Those are their salaries. Again, now we're at about 2/3 of our budget. Contracted services are again services like our buses that we have to hire, certain um services that like maintain our our maintenance our equipment. Those are all contracts. Brings us up to almost 3/4. There's very little play in there. You go to out-of-district tuition and you're almost at full circle and you finally get to supplies and materials and other expenses. That's the area of the
030budget that we have some some ability to manipulate, but there's not enough there to save us in the case of say our level funding by the town or any large budget cuts. A lot of it is contractual. So, I'm going back to what the superintendent brought up earlier about the different budgets we worked on. Needs-driven is the superintendent and school committee putting together everything the school district needs to continue what we're doing and improve. So, in looking at this, if if we would receive on top of this current year's budget and a million nine, we would be able to have no no reductions in staff. We actually add three staffs and our services our programs would all continue and some would be improved to meet the needs of the students. When you come down from
031the needs-driven, we have our level service. So, level service is basically is keeping everything we have right now status quo. So, it means no reductions in staff, but it also means no additions in staff, no additions in our programs and others. This is a point in the budget where we would basically maintain where we are. We're not moving forward. Um as you know, we've made great progress with our students. So, the next step would be constrained, but I want to go to level funded. So, we have level service and level funded. Level funded means the same money we got for for education this year, which is about 16 million dollars, is the same amount next year. The problem with that is it's a zero dollar increase, no increase to our budget. The impact though, because
032you saw on the previous chart, all of our salaries that increase, all of our special education costs that increase, as you all know, you've probably filled your oil tank lately, your gas bills, they've gone up 35, 40%. Those costs all impact our budget. If we were to have to do a level funded budget as the town requested us to prepare one, we'd have 21 staff reductions, along with cuts to major operations, maintenance programs, professional development. We'd be looking at cutting those extra programs that our students have that we don't want to have to go to. So, when looking at all of this, the superintendent, the school committee, they worked together and said, "We need something pretty much in the middle here." So, the constraint-driven budget is what was put together. Now, constraint-driven, although it looks
033like it increases a million dollars, that's not enough to meet our level services. So, we'd still with a constraint-driven budget, we still have eight reductions to staff. We still have budget reductions at operations, maintenance, professional development, and all the areas. It's It's not um it's not going to meet the current needs of our students. It's not going to be what we want. But, where the town is asking us to show a level funded budget and a level service, we felt that this is something that's in between that if they can't meet our level services, this is this is what we want to propose to them that we come in with a $1 million increase. And hopefully they can put together the funding for it. Okay. So a needs-driven budget, as um Mr. Petronio just discussed,
034this includes full level service, everything we have now with strategic additions. We would uh need currently needed the students is one element, two reading specialists, and two behavior technicians, and additional investments in professional development and training in reading interventions with a focus on dyslexia. The purpose would be to strengthen student supports systems, improve literacy outcomes, and address increasing behavioral and academic needs. This builds on maintaining services while making targeted high-impact investments, and it's focused on meeting student needs, the current student needs, and improving outcomes for our students. So to reiterate, the needs-driven budget would be our current 16.8 million or 16.6 million plus an additional 1.9 million. If we were to receive that, we'd have no reduction in staff, no loss in services, and an increase in programs that sup- support for our students. This
035of course is what the superintendent's job is, is to lead the district towards better scores, better support, and better outcomes for our students. And to meet their needs. Can I ask a question about um needs-driven? We we cut 14 positions in the last 2 years, six last year, eight the year before. We're adding three here, but we're not bringing back the four We're not saying in the needs-driven budget we're bringing back the other 14 positions that were Nope. No. It's It's a little over a million dollars here in those positions. >> So, I just want to be clear. We're not actually saying that we we don't need those 14 positions. What we're saying is we're going to somehow get by without those 14 positions. But, there is there is an impact to losing those 14
036positions. >> Correct. So, some of our realities is local revenue is flat. You hear that you hear all the towns out there uh complaining the same issue. Uh the town is is uh limiting the town's ability to keep up with rising costs. Proposition 2 and 1/2 means your taxes go up 2 and 1/2% overall, but most costs, as you know, like I said with uh heating, uh with gas, with other items are going up 30, 40%. Transportation is going up over 10%, almost 12%. So, the current taxing ability of the town is not able to keep up with those costs. State aid, which cities and towns have relied on for years, is doing the same thing. It's not keeping up with inflation. It's rising at approximately 2% per year, way below what is necessary for
037all the cities and towns. And that's a big funding source for everybody. So, what the state is doing is shifting their burden onto the local communities. And again, as you've seen, all the towns around us, all through Massachusetts, are complaining about that. This is not a one-year problem. This is a continual multi-year challenge. The district has been asked to plan level-funded budget despite the rising costs. As we said earlier, level services is 1.5 million, level funded is 1.9. So, again, one is just getting by with what we have, and one is providing the needs of our students. Now, although it says it's 9.1% the reason it's that high it's really close to a 4% but what drives it right now are the energy costs, the transportation costs, and some of special ed costs that are
038driving that number up. Otherwise, as you'll see in future slides, we're doing a pretty good job of keeping our costs, the majority of our budget, under control, under 3%. So, 90% of our budget is fixed as I showed you earlier again, it's salaries, transportation uh insurance, mandated services. This leaves us very little room for adjustment as you remember from this pie chart that very little two little slivers at the top. That's all we have that is really variable, the rest is pretty much fixed. Okay, level service budget. Level service budget maintains current programs and services and it does not add any new initiatives or staff, everything is status quo. In recent years, we have not received full level service funding and prior budgets and we're going to talk about that more, have required reductions in
039services. So, we are not asking to restore past cuts. We are asking to maintain with a level service budget current services, current staff, everything our students have now and avoid further reductions. So, this request reflects a fiscally responsible approach and it's focused on preserving what we currently provide for students. So, again, as we showed you earlier, a level service budget requires a million five over what we currently receive this year. This would would result in zero staff reductions no loss of services and programs for students but it will not fully meet the needs of all those students. Again, we're just getting by. We're not giving any improvement to our education program. So, I wanted to show you some of the major factors in the in our budget as far as the fixed cost and the
040and how the percentages go up. So, I organized them, you know, greatest to smallest. Uh special education costs up 60%, although it's $173,000, it's only a 6% increase in that section of the budget. Energy and utilities, again, up 35%. Special ed out of district tuitions, all it takes is one or two students moving in that have to go to a out of district placement. Those placements run anywhere from 60,000 to 300,000 per student, depending on who it is and so, we had almost a 20% increase there. Transportation of students, again, it's kind of a monopoly. We have one bus company. We have no other bidders when they bid. They they kind of have us there and we're looking at almost a 12% increase um in our transport I'm sorry, 17% increase. 12% is our buses.
041The other difference that drives that is our special ed vans that do a lot of one-to-one pickups. Same thing, um very limited, very expensive. At some point in the future, maybe we can look at buying a couple vans ourselves, but it also means maintaining staff who are licensed to drive those vehicles. Our other combined expenses is basically all the other groups that are left, about 12%. Our high school tuitions, we've talked a lot about that. We're looking to save uh income on that, save save uh the cost of the programs. The first year, we're not going to see too much. Um we still have uh quite a few students that are at the various high schools, but what we have this year is OC limited the number of seats in the lottery. So, because of
042that, we have 44 seats overall for the town of Acushnet, not just the Acushnet public schools. So, you can have students that are in private schools that are on that lottery. But, what it did this year is we have 10 more students now that we have to pay tuitions for going to the local schools we have contracts with. So, that in turn kept that increase at 10%. Again, going forward, we hope that can go down. And like I said earlier, with salaries, the school committee negotiated all the contracts, they did a great job, kept the total salaries of all employees under 3%. Um which is in line with districts around us. Um some did a little more, some might have done a little less, but um overall, they they did a great job of keeping
043that cuz that's the biggest portion of our budget. So, this 1.5 again is the cost for level services to maintain what we have. I see that a question on that slide. So, with regard to the high school tuitions, actually your comment about the Old Colony enrollment is is I think pretty smart. A student enrolled at Old Colony commands a higher rate of tuition to the town. But but it's what, around 16,000? Or around there, give or take? No, I think it's closer to 20. Closer to 20. All right. I thought it was I thought it was 16,500. So, we have the same number of students graduating, you know, in any given year, we'll say. Like we all we know the number of kids that are going to be going to high school. So, by Old
044Colony limiting the number of seats that we have, and those students then enrolling in one of our tuition schools, it's actually a net reduction in tuition costs to the town. Is that a fair point? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, it's just the the cost centers look different. So, instead of it getting charged directly to the town cuz the school department doesn't pay for Old Colony tuitions. The the town pays it directly. Right. That cost center is being shifted to the school department budget. Yes. Okay. So, going about the the town again recommended um not just to us, but to all town departments to propose a level funded budget. They want to see what it is. So, for us, it's no increase for the current year that we're in. It's about 1.9 million uh in reductions
045we would we would need in our current budget to make to meet that level funding. Um, rising costs means that maintaining services actually requires more funding. It's it's it's Our costs go up no matter what. We have the fixed pressures of our majority of our budget is fixed as you saw from that pie chart. We continue to have out of district tuition placements rising. Just you know, the out of district um providers, they apply to the state to get their annual increase in their budgets and their costs that we have a mandate to pay. I've never seen it less than 3%. Yet our again our taxing authority can only get 2 and 1/2%. from our town. So, we have those costs. Special education costs just the the students are more needy every year that we
046have here. So, those costs are going to rise. Energy and and utility, I'm thinking that once we get our budget set if the town level funds us, I want them to know that if our costs come back like they do now where oil is almost $5 a gallon, we'll be coming back to them in the fall looking for a supplemental appropriation because there's no way to to factor in a 50% increase in your budget for that. And vice versa. So, it'd be a line item that if there was a excess, we would we would use >> And I also think it's a rainy day. It we're having a war right now in this world. It's a rainy day. Prices are up. It's probably time to go to that rainy day fund. Exactly. Transportation costs, I
047talked about earlier the high school tuitions, yes, and the salaries and contractual services. These are again are all our areas of our fixed costs. That's why I detailed them out in the prior slide. Um, the impact of doing a level funded budget is going to be deep cuts to staff and programs. I hate to say that, but those are the only areas that we can cut to see any real savings. Can I cut back on uh paper for the copy machines? Sure, I'll save you $1,000. It's nowhere near the 1.9 or even the 1.5 million. The direct back uh direct impact on student services um and their programs, does it mean we might have to cut specialty programs? It it does. Bottom line is level funding is not level services. This leads to significant reductions
048despite the fact and you'll see in future slides, we've been very responsible with our budgeting. You'll see the per pupil costs and how we've stayed in line. So again, level funded budget would require a million nine to be cut out of the current budget and to translate that into to FTEs, um we'd have to reduce 21 positions. That's about 16% of our staff. That's that's unheard of. That's what it comes out to. These cuts would severely impact the district and the student services. There's no other way or easy way around it. Okay, this was the compromise constraint-driven budget that we had mentioned earlier. And this maintains fiscal res- a fiscal responsible approach. It requires reductions to stay within available resources, which is what the town provides to us. It includes no new positions, additions, or
049restoration of previous uh staffing positions that were cut. Required reductions under this constraint-driven budget will mean that eight staffing cuts will happen from current levels. So, eight more positions would be cut. It would be also additional reductions in operations, maintenance, and professional development. What is the impact? Fewer resources and diminished student enrichment. Reduced capacity for building maintenance and operations as well as reduced capacity for staff training and growth. And I can tell you that our teaching staff already stressed this year with the amount of cuts that have happened in previous the previous 2 years. So, cutting eight more positions will increase the strain and few supports for existing staff and services. So, I worry about teacher burnout, etc. The bottom line is this preserves more than deeper cuts, but it still results in significant impacts.
050It reflects a balance between fiscal fiscal constraints and student needs. So, I know we keep putting these slides up with these numbers on, but we do it for a reason. We want these numbers kind of to be, you know, burned into your your memory. So, a constraint-driven budget means we're asking for an increase of $1 million, but that's still a cut to the current staffing levels that we have. Takes a million five to keep us at level services. So, this If if we were to get a $1 million increase in this budget, we'd still have staff reductions, the loss of programs for the students, and we will not fully meet the needs of all the students. So, this is just a breakdown of of those cuts that we just talked about. Um we looked at
051FTE reductions. We have seven. And roughly it's around $589,000. Uh with a cut to an administrator at $100,000. And then going through the operation and maintenance accounts, um right now we can um we I had about $240,000. So, we've roughly made a million dollars in cuts here um to meet that constraint budget. This will result in larger class sizes um um, and learning opportunities for our students. So, just to go over the cuts that have happened in the past, you see the actual positions from FY25, two building-based subs, a special ed teacher, a grade eight math teacher, a grade five science teacher, an admin assistant position, a math interventionist, and an ELA position at the middle school. A total of eight cuts in FY25. Then, we added eight more. Spanish teacher, a reading interventionist, a
052PE teacher at the middle school, an elementary technology teacher, a kindergarten special ed teacher, a special education para at the middle school, an LPN, and a grade one teacher. At the town meeting, the town voted to bring these two positions back. So, that was six total cut. We don't have the positions listed tonight because we will be notifying the teachers this week, um, of who is cut, and, you know, out of a courtesy common courtesy to them, they're going to hear it first from me versus in a public meeting. But, you can see that we have a total in the last 3 years, if we go with this constraint-based budget, we have a total from FY25 to FY27 of 22 positions, if we add in the eight positions. And that is really significant in a
053small district like Acushnet of only 130 staff members. So, our solution, and our budget priority, there's limited revenue from state aid, requires ongoing strategic reductions to maintain a balanced budget. Decisions aligned with district mission, vision, and core values. Again, we're we're trying to maintain the overall educational program we have in place and not simply just cut everything and go back to just math, reading, and English. We prioritize minimizing impact on students. That's number one. Academic excellence, social emotional learning, safe and inclusive environments, family community partnerships. Our approach would be avoided across-the-board cuts. So, in other words, we're not going to just eliminate um one of the arts programs. We're looking strategically at where we can make our um reductions in staff without seriously ending all our programs. We're used data-driven staffing and service adjustments for
054long-term sustainability. Cuz it doesn't help to just cut a position this year and then next year you put it back. Possible relocation of the fifth grade to the elementary school. We have room there. We've worked out some of the uh factors in doing it. Continued collaboration with the town, families, and staff to advocate for adequate funding and responsible resource use. And again, your commitment as a school committee, my commitment as a superintendent, is to create a fiscally responsible budget to provide students with an excellent education in a safe and supportive environment. It's like a non-negotiable. So, I created this slide cuz I want you to see that our budget isn't just one number. Our budget's actually two numbers. We have our net school spending, which is our education dollars, 17,313,000. Then we have our non-net,
055which is basically our bussing budget. It's a million eight. That bussing budget went up 300,000 from this year to next year. We have no control over that. But, overall, what the Department of Ed here is focusing on and looking at is at 17 million three. Now, we look at areas that can help reduce that. Title one grants, we've got some reduction as we have a we charge one person. The grants are set up such that you can't just charge whatever you want for them. They have to be approved in certain areas. So, we can charge one staff member to title one. IDEA grants, we have funds there that we can put towards our budget. I had a long meeting with our solar energy um um consultant. We went over the bills. As you know, we
056receive solar energy credits from the town solar field. That's I'm not sure where, but so, we factored in that looks like over the next coming year we'll receive about $75,000 in credits. That should be a conservative number. We don't know. It all depends on the number of sunny days that you have. But, we should receive that. Help bring us down. The circuit breaker funds, whatever you get in one year must be spent the next year. So, I put the full amount here and therefore 180,000. And then the slide you saw before this with the 929,000 the proposed reductions, that brings us to position of where we need to request from the town a budget of 17,691,457 dollars. So, keep Right. Keep in mind, this year they gave us 16,689,645. So, that's a like again, $1
057million increase. And I just want to point out this is a reluctant recommendation. We prefer to have level service, obviously. So, our funding reality and responsibility, the school department really has limited ability as we have alluded to tonight to bring in revenue sources. We're maximizing everything we can on any grant we can get and circuit breaker. But beyond that, our school district relies heavily on Chapter 70 funding and the town's support. So our next steps with this constraint-driven budget. We need to identify and communicate necessary reductions, which we have done. We will do this week with the staff involved. We will plan for a possible relocation of grade five back to the elementary school, which will bring some efficiencies to the middle school, and we have that later on in the agenda tonight for discussion.
058Um support staff through transition planning, adjust schedules as needed, and continue to monitor class sizes and service levels. So I put this slide up here because I've only been here, as most of you know, since July, and I've heard so much about the fact that we returned funds to the town. It's our job to return funds to the town that we don't use. But when funds are given to us, usually they have a certain um area they have to be spent in. And if they're not appropriate for that particular subject or area, you do not shift them and spend them elsewhere. I'm going to pass by the top line and basically show that um you'll see sped supplemental appropriation FY25 186,000. At at fall town meeting last year, the schools requested 186,000 because they anticipated
059a special ed cost that was going to happen that needed that funding. It ended up over the course of the year they didn't need it. So it wasn't shifted and used to buy paper products. It was given to us for sped supplemental appropriation, so it was rightfully returned to the town as that. It was not used for that purpose. Next line down, sped stabilization transfer. We're allowed to move any excess funds, especially sped funds, into what they call a stabilization account. It's a savings account. In the event that mid-year student moves in and costs you $100,000 you didn't have a budget, you can go to this account, you can borrow the money from it, pay it back the next year is what is what the responsible way to budget is, without having to go or
060wait for special town meeting to get the funds. You There's a limit as to how much money can be put in that account. The state sets that limit. But, those are monies that are transferred in there. So, that appears, when you're looking at the financial data of the school department, it appears as though we returned it to the town. We returned it to the town, but in an account called sped stabilization. It's just as if you put it in the regular stabilization for the town, but it's one reserved for us. There's an agreement that high school excess tuitions we budget a certain amount for the high school tuitions. If it ends up students get accepted and go to OC or somewhere else, and we don't end up having to pay those funds to the Bedford
061or Fairhaven, the agreement is we give those funds back to the town. So, in FY25 was $81,000 that was given back to the town. Jumping back up to the top of all of that, we ended up with $108,000, which is less than a half Well, it's about half a percent. Those funds could they have been spent on paper and pencils at last minute, you know, the the 24th of June? Sure, but that's not responsible. So, those are the funds we returned back. And in the same respect, you don't want to have it nothing there, which means you could put the budget in a position where you've overspent the school year, which is very bad. You are reasonably supposed to return. FY24 was even better, they returned $50,000. That was a very nice tight budget. Uh
062we try and get all bills paid by the end of June, so we know exactly what's available for funds. But, also in FY24, we are allowed to pre-pay tuitions for special education. It's allowed by law. So, if you've got money in your stabilization account already for sped, and you can't put any more in it, you can use the funds to pre-pay tuitions. You want to do that because you have to meet net school spending. You can't turn back so much money to the town that you don't meet net school spending. Pre-paying special out of out of district tuitions helps you get there. Also, in FY14, it was discovered that in prior years, Fay Haven had been overbilling us. So, my predecessor found that, and basically said to Fay Haven, you will pay us back. And
063so, Fay Haven paid us back. And the last is just a an accounting entry, $900 to balance it. But, this is this is the whole thing with funds returned to town. You should be returning some funds. If the unable to procure were $500,000 in itself, yeah, then maybe you could have um spent it on more staff or whatnot during the year, and you might not meet your net school spending. But, those numbers, 0.6%, 0.3%, even 1%, those are all reasonable. Anything under 2%. So, 0.06 on a $16.8 million budget, right, Tony? Correct. 0.3 on a whatever the budget was that year. So, we're talking about forecasting in most years within a percent or less. Yes. And just for clarity's sake, that FY23, the top right cell, is that supposed to read $175,000? Oh, it is.
064>> Yeah, I see it down the bottom, but I just wanted to make sure I'm clear. Okay. Yeah, we'll fix that. Good. I must have good glasses. I know, right? Thank you, Elga. Thank you. So, Acushnet is not alone in facing revenue constraints. Uh the situation is not unique to Acushnet. And you can see the headlines. Many towns across the state in our area are facing the same types of revenue issues that Acushnet is facing. Now, I know um I did quite a bit of research over the past couple of weeks just to get a sense of what the financial climate in the rest of the state is like and it frankly it's it's pretty dire. Um I think for fiscal 26, so that would have been last last year, um there were 54 towns
065across the state that requested Prop 2 and 1/2 overrides, um and there were a total I think of 74 questions put on the ballot. Some some in some cases they put question on the ballot multiple times. >> Mhm. Um and I mean there's news coming out every day about additional towns this year that are requesting Prop 2 and 1/2 overrides. I haven't seen firm numbers cuz I mean Fairhaven was just talking about it last week. I mean they haven't I think This just came out today. >> officially. This headline. Yeah. This is today. But I mean they said that so far for this year um DESE reports I mean record numbers of Prop 2 and 1/2 requests. >> Mhm. Not to say that that's the the solution, but just that it kind of paints an
066overall picture of what finance looks like. I know basically every one of our neighboring towns is facing diff- very difficult financial situations, so I don't want to go on too long, but I think it's really important to to make it clear that it's not at least in my opinion, it's not the town or the town administration that's saying the school department, you know, can't have additional funds or can't have level funding. It it really comes all the way down from the state. And the same thing is happening across the whole, you know, Commonwealth. I mean, I know we don't see health insurance as one of the line items on our budget. The town picks up health insurance for all the town employees, the school department, that kind of thing. But you said that's up what,
06730% versus It's up LY? It's up 18%. >> 18% 18% sorry. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a $400,000 increase over >> $400,000 that's what I was I was getting the two numbers conflated. Yeah. Huge huge huge increase that I mean nobody could really see that coming and I know I mean just myself when I I had to call uh an oil company to fill my oil tank at home cuz I was down to I was trying to like bleed it out as long as I could. I was probably down to 10% left in my tank and they said it was $4.99 a gallon. Well, to fill my tank that would have been $1,200. Price. Insanity. We're seeing that on a municipal level on a much grander scale. Yeah. Luckily we don't pay tax on fuel here.
068Yeah, but it's still we fill up 10,000 gallons at a time. Yeah. Okay. So as we were saying we're not alone. Many communities across the state including South Eastern Massachusetts are facing these budget challenges driven by the limited growth. Uh a cost rise faster than 2 and 1/2% which is the tax limit. Many towns are considering pursuing overrides to maintain the school and municipal services. Statewide data shows that hundreds of Massachusetts communities have brought override questions to voters like an common response to ongoing fiscal pressure. Like our neighboring towns we hope to collaborate with town officials to identify sustainable solutions to support next year's budget and maintain student uh services for students. So this slide is really what I spend a minute on to show you. So this is FY24 data from the Department of
069Ed. That's the most recent data they have. This is at the end of the year when you report all your spending. So it's not what they project this is the actual figures. So FY24 the state average per pupil spending was $23,165. Now Acushnet at that same time was $16,082. Basically, we were number 388 out of 351. We were seventh from the bottom, meaning we spent the least amount of money of all the other districts uh I think 321 school districts in the state. And I believe that all six other districts are um virtual. A couple of them are virtual, a couple of them are charter. So, we're really low. But, if you look at how our scores have improved. Now, this isn't the first year. It's always been like this. If you look at the
070other slides and how our scores have improved, we have spent our money very strategically. We have spent it very well. We're getting great um returns, great scores, great improvements for our students with our limited money. Other communities are spending a lot more than that, and they're not doing as well as us. So, for someone to say that we have a spending problem, let's say, we do not have a spending problem. We control our funds very, very well, and we get great results out of our students. As you hear when they graduate in high school, they say that the class valedictorian was from Acushnet. The schools they get into, the great colleges they get into, they're students from Acushnet. They've had a great start to their career here, their their educational career here. And it shows
071that it really shows in money is managed very, very well here. Okay. Less support plus fewer opportunities is going to be equivalent to diminished student experience. And unfortunately, this is the reality that we are facing with with additional cuts to our budget with this constraint-driven reluctant recommendation. So, just to go over this uh closing remarks, building this budget for FY '27 was an all-inclusive process that took collaboration from our budget subcommittee, our leadership, and our staff members. In the next steps of the budget process, we will continue to collaborate with input from the full school committee, the public, and town officials. Every item in our budget can be aligned to a strategic objective, and I have those listed right here. We've talked about those already. And again, this constraint-driven budget does not maintain level services.
072We strongly encourage staff, parents, and members of the community to engage in the remainder of this budget process. As considerations take place on how to address the needs of the Acushnet Public Schools and other town departments, it's important that the voices of all stakeholders be heard. Please keep in mind that each percentage of our budget represents approximately $191,262, which is the equivalent of two to three teachers, two school buses, or Chapter 78 for about 12 students. All budget decisions have consequences, and behind every number is a student or a teacher. And just because a need goes unfunded does not mean the need has gone away. And that's all I have that at this point. If you have any questions or comments, we will hear from the committee, the full committee. I just I commend the
073staff, you the superintendent, the business manager for the extremely comprehensive budget presentation. It's one of the better ones I've seen in my many, many years of serving this town. I agree. Thank you. Does anybody else have anything? >> Anybody else? Yeah, I mean, I I think the reality of the situation is that this isn't like just like it was discussed last year during, you know, all the different budget meetings that the school committee had and the joint meetings with, you know, town administration at town meeting, you know, it's not it's not a one-year solution and I don't think it's going to be a one-year solution. And suddenly coming up with a balance or I shouldn't say a balanced budget, suddenly coming up with a much lower budget number for the next, you know, 3 to
0745 years. I mean, this is not a problem that's going to go away unless we see changes to the way that state funding is uh is assessed and paid down to the towns. Uh we're really seeing significant decreases in unrestricted local aid. I mean, I think you know, the governor just proposed adding additional taxing options for municipalities like additional meals taxes and a number of other things. Essentially, to to quote give towns ways to raise more revenue without the state actually handing down any additional aid either as unrestricted aid or through Chapter 70 funding to the school districts. So, what we're seeing is is efforts on a statewide level to redistribute the costs of municipal governance and school department funding to the actual districts and the town's taxpayers. So, it it unless we see big
075changes on a state level, I think that we're going to be seeing the same situation next year and the year after and the year after and we're going to continue seeing probably, you know, $1 million, $2 million uh budget requirements to maintain that level service. There's no way for the town to get that money. I guess I would want to know what is the plan. Right. Right. Exactly. I don't want to be sitting here next year saying the same thing that I said last year. Right. I want I want the public to still want to come to our Cushnet public schools. Yeah. I don't want to go back to the audit back in 2014 where the district was under the watchful eye of the Department of Education. We have made a lot of growth since
076then. We want to continue with that momentum. Mhm. Um so I guess I would need to know what the plan is. >> one of my concerns, and I have many, is um we've had 14, this is potentially another eight, that's 22. Mhm. I did the math right. We're moving more towards 2014 than we are in any other direction. This is unsustainable and I I don't envy the Board of Selectmen or the FinCom because everything we've talked about is right and more of a burden is being put on the town. That's true across the state, but at the end of the day, in my my opinion, the School Committee is here to fight for kids. And so we have to do what we think is right for the kids in this town. And and we're going
077to have to figure it out and we need to put it to our residents to decide what what they're willing to um accept because I personally am never going to be willing to accept a level-funded budget that doesn't meet our school system. So. I just >> I hope we don't have to cut eight positions. I hope we can land in a better spot, but I would also urge everyone to show up and and voice their support. I would also ask that our elected officials, our appointed officials, you know, whether they're union or non-union, like these are if we end up with cuts, these are human beings Mhm. that deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and I don't know that we've always in some instances done a good job with that. So, you know.
078I was just going to add to that. I JUST I WANT TO ADD TO THE CREATIVITY AND TRYING TO think outside the box. I just been good with this, too. It's been a strong push point for me because we're not just going into saying, "Okay, well, personnel." It's how can we restructure? What can we do to try to make this work for our students and our teachers and our town people. So, it isn't something that we're just taking lightly at all. It's It's serious to all of us. And I would I would just add, you know, I'm sure this is something that's close to Ebony's heart, but you know, when we're talking about reducing the number of positions that we are, especially a lot of those positions being ones that serve the special education population
079in town, you know, you look at let's say we have to theoretically cut, you know, we'll just make up a number, two special education positions that amount to, we'll say, $140,000 in the budget. Well, by cutting those positions or just any teaching staff for for that matter, uh anybody that directly interacts with the kids, that increases the likelihood that we're going to see out-of-district placements become a reality. And I mean, we talked about out-of-district placements for high-need children. We don't want to see anybody placed out. The kids want to come here. Parents want the kids to come here. And it's very disruptive when they have to go out of district. And the cost can be astronomical. I mean, we're talking 200, 250, 280,000 dollars for one student in very severe circumstances. So, by maintaining at
080least a minimum floor of you know, a safety net, so to speak, to try try and make sure that we keep as many kids in district as possible, it actually saves the town a significant amount of money in reality. That's right. Just on your point about the state doing their part. Mhm. As the budget season began three or four months ago, um the state Department of Ed and the Department of Local Services did a little tour around the state where they wanted to hear from different school districts. So, the superintendent and I wrote them a letter, um basically saying that they went over the Chapter 70 formula. And in there there's something called the AGI, the aggregate uh total value of the city and town and what you can pay. So, we wrote a letter
081basically saying that there's a flaw in that and that if you look at a rural town compared to most other towns, the infrastructure isn't here to go and build a hospital, to go and build a hotel. The sewer, the water's not here, the roads aren't here. Um the the traffic pattern's not here. We don't have that ability. They need to change that factor where more money goes towards a rural town percentage-wise than it goes to a New Bedford or a Taunton or a Fall River who have the ability to take old factories and turn them into thriving businesses which in turn bring more tax revenue to the town. So, at the time that the rural communities were farming communities, they did a benefit for the state in not developing. It's time for the state to
082step in and say, "We need now to take care of you because you provided uh vegetables, fruits, you know, uh cattle, animals. You provided all that for us. Now it's time to do something back." So, it was a kind of letter. I know other communities have sent the letters, but hopefully not for this year, but for future years they can make changes to the formula that will benefit us. Yeah, and I think there's some unique impacts to coastal areas as well. Southeast coast, northeast coast. You know, you talk about a rural community down in this part of the state that's very different than a rural community in central Mass, western Mass. We're loaded with essentially undevelopable undevelopable land. We have a lot of wetlands that are not buildable, and even if they were buildable, they're
083protected for good reason. Whereas, some other parts of the state, they don't lack for buildable land. We literally just don't have it. It's simply not available. So. I know when I was doing some of my research on the number of prop, you know, 2 and 1/2 requests and budgetary crises that different towns around the state were facing, I kind of looked at the history. And it was it was actually really interesting. The number of prop 2 and 1/2 override requests that we're seeing this year and last year are the first time that we've seen that level of requests since the the early 1990s. So, the early 1990s were when I was in school here. And I know for a fact that at that time, we saw drastic reductions in student services. We lost music programs,
084we lost library staffing. There were uh we didn't have health teachers for the most part. That was handled by PE teachers. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm just saying we're we're at a point right now, all these years later, that we're reliving exactly the same situations that I went through as a student growing up in this district. And uh now we have much many, many, many more uncontrollable costs like the transportation piece, the health insurance piece, etc. It's uh sobering, to say the least. And we know now with the kids with social emotional learning that they need these programs now more than ever. So, I would be strongly against wiping out programs. Obviously, if we level fund, I don't think we're going to have a choice, right? So, that's why this compromise,
085this constraint-based budget is a reluctant recommendation. It is not what I want. I I prefer a level service, but I guess I just need to hear from the committee that it's, you know, we're going to go through with it and let's hope for maybe less than eight cuts when we meet with the town tomorrow, you know? >> Yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think it's, you know, we've communicated what the level service budget looks like, what the constraint based budget looks like looks like, and what the, you know, level funding budgets look like. So, I'm sure there's going to be a lot more discussions about that during the, you know, town budget meeting tomorrow, and we'll I'm sure have ongoing discussions about it right up until town meeting. Right. But, I think it's important that we
086communicate those three levels pretty consistently. Not to say that the town isn't willing to fund, just to say that it's the reality of the situation. I mean, costs are going up by more than 2 and 1/2% every year, and they're going to continue to for probably years to come. Right. Yeah, I mean, you're never going to hear me say I'm comfortable with this, but I hope is that we have a discussion with with our partners in the town, we can collaborate, and we can be whatever that word is, we can cut to a level services budget and not have to cut. But, that that's what we want to have happen. That's right. I just want to say that we don't have a turnaround in the direction that we may be headed. Um I I say
087this to the the audience that is here, that we have to make this town this town will have to make some very decisive decisions, very important decisions. Shall we We have certain assets in this town. It was was small, you know, and and we we have a choice of high schools where people can go, you know, you know, so we have a lot of local assets for our for our kids that we we enjoy. We could if it comes down to shall we just if things when we're cutting and strangling quality education to to our youngsters. Shall we just throw up our hands and say we're going to regionalize and let another town take over our operations? Where if that is the case, then we're going to lose a lot of of of of local
088input, local decisions, and and what and what and education really is on a ground level with the community. We will have to lose that. If in turn if this continue the the direction that that we're headed with with with you know, we we have naysayers that say uh nothing. You just cut. Oh, in fact, cut more. You know, every time and we and we can't do that. You know, in order in we could in one sense if if we just had a a custodial type of operations in our schools, if you know what I mean by that. Just keeping kids keep discipline and that that would be the end of it. And I've I've been in school system where that has happened that occurred. So, so I I think a just say say that we
089got a very decisive very challenging road ahead of us. And that we need to cut everyone to join in and say what direction do we want to go? Do we want to keep what we have? Improve what we have which we're doing. You know, for example, we know our our tuitions you know, going into other communities of one community we never do tuition before. That means our kids will get a you know, excellent education at a at a low cost. And it's all those type of things that we have to put in place with with cooperation of everybody. But I'm just saying uh we're reaching that we're reaching a breaking point. That may not It may be next year, it may be the after, but some real decisions have to make. And I just say,
090stay tuned. So. >> And our children have one chance at it at first grade, at kindergarten, at third grade, 1 year. So we we want to make every year quality education. And again, it's our responsibility to be fiscally responsible and provide them with that quality education in a safe, supportive environment. Yeah. I think we also have to think about going back to the roots of it. Like we're all in it for the same purpose, our children and our community. And our children are the future of Acushnet. So I think working together is something that we just have to do for the benefit of the whole town. Yeah, it's funny. I I've been thinking about, you know, obviously we're elected officials in the positions that we're in. And on face, the constituency that we serve is
091is the town electorate. But to my mind, and this sounds like kind of a, you know, sound bite, but my constituents my constituency is really the kids in the school. They're They can't speak for themselves. They They even if they could, they don't necessarily know the ins and the outs of what makes an effective school district, a safe and inclusive place, you know, however you want to term it. And obviously there's budgetary constraints so that we, you know, as a school department can't necessarily do everything that we'd like. Um including bringing back previously cut positions, adding positions like we discussed, but I mean, ultimately a balance needs to be made, and I would frankly I'd like to see the balance beyond level funding, or I'm sorry, uh level service, but reality of the situation is
092I know that that's going to be very difficult for the town to manage, especially given that reduced state aid. So, it's it's not an enviable uh budget, no matter what. Can't slice it any way that makes sense. Yeah. Any other questions or comments? So, unless something drastically changes tomorrow evening, my plan will be to move forward with the eight cuts at this point, hopeful that we bring back more, but I I think we have to stop there. At least that's what I'm recommending to this committee, that we can't go further than that. Yeah. For level funding. I I mean, we're already stressed out with the cuts from last year. Yeah, I think it makes sense to put both requests on the table, both the level service and the um you know, the constrained budget that
093you put together. And uh notify the folks that would be impacted by the constrained budget, and continue to strive for the level service budget if possible. Okay. Well, and I I agree with that. I I I just think it's really important for for the folks in other whether they're appointed or elected positions, and it's uh incumbent upon us I think some of the data we had tonight, like there is an impact to that. So, it's easy to talk about numbers and cut this or cut that, and do it very clinically, but there will be an impact to this. There was an impact on the 22 positions that we already lost, or sorry, the 14, and there will be an impact from 22. So, It's a choice I don't want to make, but we need to
094we need to have those conversations. Is that meeting public tomorrow? Can anyone come to that? They can. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. It's here? It's here? Yeah. Yep. Tomorrow evening at 6:30 Mhm. is the budget discussion and joint meeting with the Board of Selectmen and the FinCom and the School Committee. And anyone can attend? Anyone can attend. >> Yeah, it's open. Yes. Okay. Just had to make sure. Anything else further on the budget? Okay. So, next up we have the strategic realignment of grade five elementary school integration. And as you know, Ms. McGlynn kind of alluded to it, you know, we have to get creative. And as we were looking at the budget, um one of the things we talked about was looking at grade five and moving it back to the elementary school. Currently, there are
095two ELA math teachers, two two ELA teachers, two math teachers, and one social science teacher. So, that's an automatic cut by bringing them back to the elementary school because it's a different model. That would be a position cut. And I can say this publicly because I've met with the fifth grade team already about this because to me, this was one of the more major uh program shifts that we're talking about here. But more important than the budget, we believe that this recommendation is um a good thing to do for kids, okay? So, while there's less less staff, and we know what budgetarily with 100 less kids in the middle school moving over to the elementary, we're going to have some efficiencies at the middle school. We still think that our fifth graders need to be
096in the elementary school. So, historically, they were part of the elementary school model and the environment. Our fifth grade moved to the middle school more than 20 years ago due to class size and space at that time. Moving the fifth grade back to the elementary school model allows this pre-teen population an additional year to work in a cohort-based environment focused on social development. And also DESI classifies them as elementary, even though we have them in the middle school space. This will allow our fifth graders the opportunity to ride the school bus, to have lunch, and to use common space with elementary peers. And this offers one additional year of social and academic growth before they transition to a content-focused learning model. Fifth graders going to AES keeps them in a developmentally appropriate environment. It allows
097students time to build confidence and readiness before they transition to middle school. Now again, going back to Mr. Hood's comment, this greatly impacts our teachers. I will work with them, but the majority of our fifth grade teachers are not licensed at the elementary level. However, we will work with them if they choose to get licensed, we will work with them to obtain that license. If they choose to apply for an opening at the middle school, they certainly would be encouraged to do that. And I will say given given this meeting and the and and the magnitude of what I was saying, I I will say that the fifth grade teachers were extremely professional in listening to the conversation. I also met with the president of the ATA. She was present during the meeting. But this
098impacts human beings, all these changes, right? While we think it's good for kids, it's going to help our budget, it impacts human beings, and we cannot that is not lost on me at all. So at this point in time, I would be looking for a vote to move the the grade five students for next school year back to the elementary school. Can I mean I can I just make a comment? >> please. So, We actually would have a mo- motion first. Uh I I think we can have discussion first. Yeah, we can have discussion. Go ahead. I I can make the motion. Yeah. Um I mean, frankly, I've personally been in favor of moving the fifth grade class back to the elementary school regardless of any financial impact. I mean, I would have been happy
099to do it even if it caused a cost increase, quite frankly, cuz I do honestly feel like it's a more appropriate place for those fifth grade students. Definitely. >> Um yeah, there's I mean, there's no question in my mind. I mean, as having had two fourth graders promote to fifth grade and seeing some of the the difficulties that it caused from a a social uh standpoint, never mind changes to the way that the curriculum works. It That's made me very firmly believe that fifth grade really does belong to the elementary school. So, I know the first time that we even, you know, had any conversations about this was really before the budget impact was really part of that discussion at all. We were just talking about it from a student services standpoint. And I mean,
100when you took when you look at other neighboring districts, there were some I mean, not to say that we could do this, but just for comparison's sake, there's other neighboring districts that still have sixth graders in elementary school. Um I think Medical Marion and Rochester uh both have sixth grade included in that cohort. So, frankly, I think that this is just a great move for the students. And yes, there will be a financial um savings at the cost of teaching staff, which is still disappointing, but ultimately, I think that it's the right decision. All right, so I I'll entertain a motion to to um approve the integration of grade five from the middle school to the elementary school. Um do we have a motion? I'll second. Um yeah, so before we take the roll call,
101I would just say I'm supportive of this cuz it's the right thing to do for kids and we're going to Dr. Bailey to your comments, we're going to give our teachers every opportunity to to um be part of this. So for those for those reasons, I'm supportive of this. Agreed. I I just think social emotionally brought that up Dr. Bailey talking about that and the kids that I've worked with that are at the fifth grade that were coming into fifth grade prior to coming here from the elementary school really had a struggle um feeling like they could fit in and feeling confident enough in themselves. So I do think this is a great move for them and I do think that they will like the elementary school. I agree. You think about it, they're 10-year-olds
102coming to middle school. Like I've had two that have gone through and now my little guy will hopefully have the opportunity to get another year in elementary school, which I love so much. Any further discussion? Let's let's do a roll Mr. Ellis? Yes. Mrs. McGlinn? Yes. Mr. Howcroft? Yes. Mrs. Guedera? Yes. >> And Mr. Hunt? Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Next Next up is the school choice vote. I made the recommendation to not >> Dr. Bailey be Oh, the reads. reads stuff. The reads FY27 appointment of the superintendent to the reads board. This is the annual appointment. It's just procedural. We just need a vote so that we can send that through to the reads collaborative. >> can I have a motion to approve the appointment of Dr. Bailey as superintendent to the reads
103board? So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Any opposed? Okay, thank you. School choice, as you know, the recommendation um has been to not uh to vote against it for the next school year. So, I'd be looking for that motion tonight. Okay. Uh let's have a motion to participate. Uh let's have a motion to not participate in the school choice program for the upcoming school year. So, moved. Second. I'll second it. Any further discussion? Yeah, I just had a couple of quick questions. So, I know when we discussed this last year, um just after I I had asked at that time for a little bit of information on why the superintendent and the administration team had recommended against it. My My understanding is that
104essentially because we tuition out our high school students, if school choice students enroll in K through 8 in our district, and then they end up moving on to one of our tuition school districts, we have to of course pay the we have to pay the tuition rate for those students even though they don't reside in this district, but we only get the school the significantly reduced school choice rate from their home district. Is that accurate? That is. Okay. So, I mean, while it would increase enrollment in K through 8 potentially based on number of spots if we were to open those up, we would end up paying potentially significantly more in tuitions uh services for students that grad go into high school, right? Um not that I not that I think it's appropriate to make
105any amendments to the proposal at this point, but I'd like to you know, confer with Desi and just see if there's any way that we can restrict school choice to only certain grade levels. I know that other school choice uh our school choice districts in this area do have restrictions on what grade levels they accept they accept school choice students for. Now, to my understanding I in the in the kind of investigation that I did I didn't see any that restricted high school level enrollment. It was primarily lower grade levels. So, for example, like Marion does not participate in school choice for K-36, Rochester does not participate in K-36, but once they get up to ORR that high school level ORR does have a certain number of school choice slots available to them. Um if
106there's any reasonable way that we can put restrictions in place such that we could only accept school choice students at lower grade levels with the understanding that once they graduate to high school it is then their home district's responsibility to either educate those students in-house or they would the students would then have to apply for school choice at these other high schools and that funding would come directly from their sending district. So, we have had meetings with the Department of Education and that is a no-go. Once a student is a school choice student in our district, they have to follow the students for high school. Perhaps the Tri-Towns are different districts, so they do it differently, but for our district because we're having budgetary fiscal constraints right now, this is not a good time to
107be taking on more kids when we're making cuts in the adult teaching staff, right? But I think in the future should we have a good fiscally sound budget, we can look at taking in students at kindergarten level, perhaps set up a revolving account for school choice, save that money over the years, and that could help pay for high school tuition later on. That we are not ready for based on the current budget status. Yeah. Yeah, I think future discussions would be worthwhile. >> I think we can take the roll call, but to Ms. Ellis's point, I absolutely think it's a conversation and a topic that we can further explore to figure out other ways that we can utilize this to to our benefit and the benefit of our kids. So Yeah, I think we explored
108this same position couple years ago on the budget committee. Yes. especially well because I was advocating what Mr. Mr. Ellis had been been saying and you did a thorough investigation on how it would work and not work. Jesse officials are very familiar with me. Okay, we'll do a roll call on this. Mr. Ellis Yes. Mrs. DuBois Yes. >> Mr. Howcroft Yes. Mrs. Cadiero Yes. And Mr. Hood Yes. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh next we have the designation of a Ford Middle School store named after Judith Ford Latif School store. Um this is a relative of Albert Ford. Uh this family has I have this in your packet. There should be a letter in your packet. But this family has come through Um they have donated $25,000 as you know from a previous school committee
109meeting in scholarship funds and now they want to donate $20,000 towards building a school store that would have swag, possible artwork for kids. We could branch out to the community. We could have students involved in the store for financial literacy, etc. Um and it stems because she opened a store um and she was very passionate about shopping. So we already have plans from the Old Colony School District um and we'd like to move forward with this. But um basically with our policy, the School Committee would need to take a formal vote to name the school store the Judith Ford Latif School store in her honor. All right. So could I have a motion to name the Ford Middle School School store the Judith Judith Ford Middle School Store. So moved. Second. Uh any further I
110would just like to say there can be other discussion, but obviously we're very grateful to have folks out there in the community who are so generous to to our school, so we really appreciate that. Absolutely. I think school store at the middle school level is a fantastic idea. I mean, when I was a student here it was right back in that corner. So, this was the cafeteria, not the library, and the school store was right back over there. Yeah. And it would really be used for the district, and we could also branch out at the community as well. Mhm. Someone to call the roll, please? Mr. Ellis? Yes. Mrs. Woodard? Yes. >> Mr. Hargrove? Yes. Mrs. Cordero? Yes. And Mr. Head? Yes. And that concludes my report for this evening. Great. Thank you very That's
111That's not That's not right. business manager? Yes. Superintendent Curry. Yeah, for sure. Um Can we project this up there or Can we do Sure. Share with you? Yes. So, every month I present our budget. So, what I do is I compare it to the same period as last year. So, this is our spending from July till Now, July is period one, March is period nine. So, for the nine months of this school year, FY16 compared to the nine months of last year. The most important column here that I review and watch constantly is the percent used, so the right-hand column both sections. So, as you can see, professional salaries, we spent 63% last year at this time, we're at 64% this year. That's good. I try and be either equal or a little less. Um
112you see the same thing on clerical salaries, we're under um under the percentage. Other salaries, which is paras and whatnot, it looks like it's overspent right now, but it's not. We have to I have to move those paras out to um the IDEA grant. There's a number of paras I'll move out, that'll bring that back in line. And going through the rest of the budget, we're right in line with where we were last year. Last year, we ended very well. So, at this point, I can see that it looks like we're going to be ending very well again this year. As far as when I say very well, I mean on budget. Yeah. We won't be um overspent. So, those are the different categories. And again, each month or each period, I'll bring that forward
113till we're all the way through June. So, any questions on that? You'll see how the district has a negative in it. Same thing, I've got some costs there I'm going to move to circuit breaker. So, they haven't done that yet. Um we found just set those accounts up for me a couple weeks ago. So, those will be charged out today, and that'll come back in line. Um the rest of my budget is narrative. I just wanted to talk about facilities department. As the weather as the warm weather has now arrived, uh the facilities team will be starting new projects both indoors and out. The boilers will be shut down, and the annual maintenance of the boilers will begin. Uh the fields will be used daily, and notices will go out whether uh whenever there's any
114pesticide or fertilizer being applied to the fields. And we Bonnie in my office coordinates that with all of the sporting events that go on outside. Um as far as the boilers being shut down for the summer, we do our maintenance in there. At the same thing, I Superintendent I sent an article to the town yesterday asking for about $95,000 of maintenance money for our boilers. We'd like to go to go through one at each school and do a lot of preventative maintenance so that next year that we got a nice smooth transition. Hopefully this preventative maintenance will get us a few more years out of our boilers before we have to really consider what we're going to do with them. Um As you know from the snow storms this winter, you see outside, you see
115damage to the grass areas, you see damage to the parking lot, the the curb stones. Um now that it's spring, we will be working on all of those, um fixing, repairing. We've done some work to the the grass field already. Um I urge everyone to watch out for the saw horses and the the orange cones. Those are any areas that were uh damaged that we don't want anyone walking or cars driving through there. So, those are the DPW is um um going to be repairing one of our parking lots for us. We asked for a vendor, but they said they can probably do it for us. So, between the two schools there's an area that's torn up between the two schools, also the walkway, but that's the area where the solar array is going to
116go in. So, I'm talking to their um their representative to see if that actual spot I feel is going to be a piling there, so we don't have to repair it. That piling will probably work to be done. That'll ruin That'll actually repair it for us. Once this school year concludes, we have some major projects. One is a solar array that'll be going up to the schools. They'll be starting that. Um Freezer replacements in both schools, um either rebuild or replace the freezers in the in kitchens um for those projects. We are going to be doing some carpet and some tile work in the schools, uh, again, while there's no one here. And again, you might see engineers or or company representatives out taking pictures of the parking lot, taking pictures of the work to
117be done. That's to get our bids and everything else in place for that work to be done, so thankfully, uh, we got a notice this morning that State Senator Mark Montigny, uh, has secured some funding for us. And I'll let her talk about that one. >> Sure. Uh, last week I was contacted by the Senator's office asking for a project idea. They needed to spend down some money. Uh, we came up with a bunch of ideas, but he was really looking for a very specific project, a renovation, so it it appears as though we might be getting $100,000 or so to renovate this library in terms of the the carpeting, the floor, some new furniture. This is probably all original. Um, but that that was what they chose to to do with the money, which
118was Library renovations. Mhm. Library renovations, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, at the middle school. I think there were a number of It was, uh, a number of schools got some money from that particular grant, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. We're very thankful. So, continuing, um, we continue We continue to see a consistent demand for breakfast, uh, food service program. And we've been purchasing some new equipment in there, um, some warmers to provide, I think it's Thursday and Friday that we're providing warm breakfasts. Students like it. The um, Shelly is actually, um, trying to do some new, um, items in there. Recently, she did, uh, I think a flatbread pizza. Um, she's doing some other I think it was a chicken bacon ranch. She's doing other items and she said that the force the students love it.
119Anytime it's different, they love it. So, that's been going very, very well. She continues to work with Project Red. Uh we received $4,000 from them to buy additional equipment for the breakfast in the morning uh meals that we have. So, um I think that's going very well. Shelly runs a good operation there. It um our students we have literally no complaints. Our food is I think they feel it's very good. They love it. Transportation is the same. We continue to work with our vendor. We continue to, you know, monitor, take care of our routes, accommodate parents who move or change or uh students who want to move. And as I said um earlier about the boilers, we're hoping to get some funds to do some renovations to our boilers, but we're also still waiting. We
120should hear in May about two grants we've applied for. One is a $3 million grant to go towards the HVAC system at the elementary school. We're very hopeful on that grant. And along with the solar array, we applied for a $2 million battery backup system that basically we applied, but it goes part of the asset that solar energy would have. That battery backup system would allow us to have no loss in power at the schools here. Um that grant would fully fund that cost. So, um we've got a lot going on um under the CPC. I saw that we were awarded some money to do the tennis courts and basketball courts over. So, the superintendent has asked me to pull all that back out again, look at the design, meet with some of you on
121what we can do out there. Maybe we get some pickleball courts in. I want to try and get that started in time for the summer. I'm not sure what the time lag will be on that, but Patrick McIntyre has left me his files on all of that. He'd done some bidding and received some quotes, so hopefully we can pick up and move forward. And if need be, hopefully reapply to the CPC, the Community Preservation Act, the committee of the town, and apply to get additional funds if we need additional to really, you know, redo our fields out there, do the fencing around the fields and make them more useful for the whole town. Keeping in mind that this is a short summer because we're in school so late, so we're just going to try to
122get done as much as we can. Um so I know that's something we're going to look at in the future as well. >> I think it would be, you know, we have great soccer fields out there, but yeah, to the point the tennis court, basketball courts are a bit decimated and so to refresh those I think would be an amazing thing for uh the kids and and adults. Absolutely. in the town, so Yeah. AP That's my report. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um I'll go one question. So in terms of the boiler and the article, are they considering two articles, one to potentially replace the boilers and/or one to repair or are we have we landed on a repair at this point? I sent the repair, Okay. but I noted in my email to
123the new town administrator >> Okay. the cost for a new one new boiler for each school, total cost is $325,000. >> Yeah. Okay. So. Okay, do we have any uh thank you. Do we have any school committee member reports? Um yeah, I've got one. So um after Yeah, sorry. You go first. I was going to go first. >> You can go first. No, I'm Mr. McDonald. Okay, I'll go. Um so I just wanted to update on my SMEC, the Southern Massachusetts Education Collaborative meeting summaries that for our meetings that in January the January's up here, too, but um we went through and approved all staff actions, hires, transfers, and resignations. Approved the fiscal year 2016 budget. Um and then approved the policy for SMEC financial manual on the acceptance of gifts. Approved amendments to employee
124policies on personal appearance, use of company equipment, salary salary administration, and rules of conduct. Katherine Cooper notified the board that she'll be retiring August 28th, 2026, which I tried to say she couldn't, but she didn't listen to me. Um then we did the board we received a DESE response, and we reviewed that. Um and financial audit submission showing compliance with all DESE audit requirements. The executive director explained potential DESE guidance changes. Business manager notified the board of SMEC had requested an extension from the operational services division for the filing of SMEC's fiscal year 25 UFR, and that it would be submitted before the extension expired. The board entered into executive session to talk about ongoing litigations. And then March 31st, 2026, the board conducted final interviews for the two finalists for um executive director. Uh
125there were 12 applicants. Three were initially interviewed by the search committee, and two finalists were subsequently interviewed by the full board. After discussion, the board voted unanimously to appoint Kimberly Wilmot, for SMEC's current director of student services, to the role pending successful contract negotiations. The The board approved all staff actions, approved 3% COLA for fiscal year 27, approved a 3% increase for the collaborative's classroom lease, which we already talked about, approved SMEC's plan to gradually assume the operation of the K-5 intensive ASD program, currently operated in New Bedford Public Schools at Carney Academy. Um and then the board received the DESE response from SMEC's fiscal year 25 annual report. And the board entered into executive session again to talk about ongoing litigations. So, that's my update for SMEC. Thank you. All of All of our
126members should that format. Mr. Perry. Mr. Ellis. Um yeah, so at during our last uh school committee meeting, um I got appointed to the wellness committee within the school district. Um I had the opportunity to attend a wellness committee meeting. It was the last one for the year, uh but I'll continue on with that committee once they start to meet for next school year. And you know, I was kind of jumping into the end of some of the ongoing discussions that they'd had throughout the course of of the school year. But one of the things that really stood out to me was there was a real emphasis on traffic safety around, you know, pick up, drop off time. Um and I Towards the end of the meeting, I asked Officer Cathcart, our school resource officer,
127you know, if you could be king of the question of public schools for a day, from a safety and security standpoint, what's what would be the change you'd make? And it actually surprised me. Um he said that it would be 100% bus ridership. That would be, in his eyes, probably the single greatest improvement to overall student safety on campus. Um I got to thinking about it afterwards, and we had some ongoing discussion, just talking about the really large number of pickups and drop-offs that go through the chute at the elementary school and happen over here at the uh middle school every day. And then, you know, we hear about some bus routes that simply just don't have enough kids riding on them. So, the bus routes end up being very short. The kids have to
128just sit and wait for a long time before they can be offloaded to the school. And larger bus ridership would actually smooth out those routes, and it would also improve safety and security. So, I think I would just impress upon the members of the community that if you do pickups, drop-offs, and next year there's an opportunity for you to kind of reconsider using the bussing services, that would be wise. We're not getting charged per a student, we're getting charged per vehicle. So, there's no extra cost to the school district if a bus is full versus half empty. So, I just I thought that that was a really good point and one worth mentioning here in the committee meeting. The other thing that I would say off of the wellness committee discussion is I just wanted
129to thank Dr. Bailey and the admin team because fairly recently when I was leaving one of the school committee meetings, I noticed that the US flags that we had flying out in front of both buildings were getting pretty tattered. I have a long history in the Boy Scouts. I did I was involved in scouting right up through 25, so you know, stewardship and maintenance and respect for the flag was always top of mind for me. I saw that and mentioned it to Dr. Bailey and I think within two days she told me flags are in, new ones are up, we're working with the local scout troop to retire the old one. So, big thanks to Dr. Bailey for the help on that. Go ahead. Anyone else? Okay. So, there's a number of communication and other
130information in the packet. I won't go through all of them, but does anyone have any questions on anything that was in there? All right, before I ask for a motion to adjourn and to go into executive session, just want to call out our next school committee meeting will be on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 6:00 p.m. in the FMS John Tavares Library for a budget hearing, but as we talked about earlier, we also have a joint meeting tomorrow here with the Board of Selectmen and FinCom. So, we'd love to have folks attend that as well. So, may I have a motion to adjourn the meeting to enter into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A Section 21A4 to discuss the deployment of security personnel or devices or strategies with respect thereto because an open
131session may have a detrimental effect on the security position of the open body. The chair further states that the body will not return to open session following the executive session and will adjourn from executive session. So moved. Second. We'll do a roll call. Mr. Ellis? Yes. >> Mrs. Newman? Yes. Mr. Howard? Yes. Mrs. Pereira? Yes. Mr. Hood? Yes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Take care of yourselves.