Acushnet: School Committee Mar. 10, 2026

001Good evening everybody. I want to call the meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. This meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcast. Please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting. May I have a motion to open the school committee meeting? >> So motion. >> Second. >> We'll do a roll call. >> Mr. Ellis, >> yes. >> Mr. >> Yes. Mr. >> Yes. Okay. Should we start with the pledge of allegiance? for it stands nation under God indivisibley justice for all. All right. I think we have a special guest. space. >> Sure. Um this is the well uh this is about 30% of the four days from chorus. Um this is fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade. The fifth grade have had exactly two chorus classes. Um

002sixth, seventh and eighth grade have met all year long. The uh chorus is actually performing tomorrow morning at Whalers Cove in New Bedford uh as part of our PRM foundation grant. That's our uh community outreach grant. So we will go and perform for the residents at Whalers Cove and then we share some snacks and refreshments which is everybody's favorite part. Uh and then on Sunday we perform the national anthem before the Providence Bruins game. Uh so that's a big exciting uh event for us. And uh in two weeks the sixth, seventh and eighth grade band will perform at the Micah band festival that's like we call it the MCAST of music. It's a state festival. There are seven states all across the state. There are only I think 100 uh selection 100 spots for bands

003and choruses to uh perform it. We were lucky enough to get one of those spots. So, we're going to Agawam next f uh Friday the 27th and we will perform for a panel of judges and then have a clinic with one of those judges and we'll get rating and plaque and it's very very exciting. It's a fun day. Uh, and that wraps up music in our schools month. And so we're going to perform for you the Star Spangle Banner. And then we'll do another song. But if you could please rise and remove your hats for the national anthem. Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light that so proudly we held at the twilight last gleaming? lose our stripes and bright stars through the mers we watch were so gallently streaming and the

004rockets were buring in g through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangle better yet for the free and the bra. Please be seated. Our other selection is called Make New Friends. Great life advice for all all of us. Make new friends that keep the old one is silver and the other gold. you take me over and silver and the other and the other is silver and the other gold. Did I tie my shoes today? Yes, I tied my shoes today. >> Thank you. Exit the same way. >> Watch. Watch your step. Byebye. Yeah. Mr. Joy like completely unman. >> All right. That's a to follow, but we'll try. >> Uh, so the first item on our agenda is the consent agenda. Everything listed in the consent agenda was

005distributed in advance of the meeting. Does anyone have any requests for something to be removed from the consent agenda discussed or consent? >> May I have a motion to approve and accept the items listed on the consent agenda, including the minutes from the February 10, 2026 meeting? So >> second. >> All those in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. None opposed. Dr. Bailey, do we have anyone signed up for delegation? >> We do not. >> Okay. Um, so Dr. Bailey, I'm going to turn it over to you for hold business. >> Sure. Hold business. We have the high school tuition agreement update. I'm happy to report that last night I attended the New Bedford School Committee meeting and the school committee there voted unanimously to agree to our tuition agreement that we have in

006place. So, we'll be getting the signed copies. will be working with them. Um, so we're very pleased with that. And then we did send some counters over to Old Rochester on Friday and we're supposed to hear back um either yesterday or today and I'm still waiting. So as soon as I hear something, I will be in touch and let um the chair know um individually know as well. But I I don't anticipate any issues. It's just it takes a little longer. um and we have stakeholders that he's presenting it to, etc. Any questions on that? >> Uh any update? I know I think there was a meeting that we were going to have with the storm. So, >> so the blizzard um we were supposed to have a meeting with Fair High School for um

007negotiations for successor agreement and we just rescheduled it to the end of the month based on the uh the storm. Okay. >> So, if it's okay with you, I'll go right into new business. Okay. Our first agenda item is our spotlight on education. As you know, we like to spotlight all the good work that we're doing each month. So, applied learning update at FMS. And we have Mrs. Sylvia, the principal, to present to us tonight. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the school committee. Dr. Bailey, just the tenants of planned learning that we post everywhere. So, we got the project lead the way grant. We are so so excited. So, $28,000 in grant funding will be distributed over three years to help our project lead the way. We are super excited about this. Um,

008so we join a community of over 350 schools with project lead the way in Massachusetts and we are excited about the impact it will have on our students. So, next year all seventh and eighth grade students will participate in design and modeling. This introduc introductory experience will allow all students to develop confidence and they'll become familiar with the project lead the way instructional practices. In the summer, our teachers will go to a oneweek in-person um professional development on implementing project lead the way. 2728 7th grade will continue with design and modeling because that would have been next year's sixth graders. The eighth graders will continue to go to CSIM. They call it computer science for innovators and makers. It it's above my thinking level when I saw the kids. We went to sandwich um middle

009school to watch this and it was amazing what they were doing. Uh 8th grade um the third year. So then by that year seventh grade will be design modeling. CIM will be in the eighth sorry sixth grade will be design modeling. Seventh grade will be season and then the eighth grade they're going to be medical detectives and that does align with our OSE McKenna unit. Um the eighth graders have to diagnose what's wrong with McKenna in that unit. In design and modeling they're going to design a toy for a child with several palsy fabricate it test it make necessary modifications. This is going to be with the 3D 3D printer we have already. We may have to use some of the funding to buy another 3D printer. CSIM, they are they have a choice. They

010can produce a wearable safety device, engage in our installation, make a useful mechanic dispenser for a person or animal. That's what we saw on most of they were making a pill dispenser or a cat or dog food dispenser um with these little bits that they call microcontrollers with inputs and outputs and they develop the code that brings the physical designs to life. Like I said, it was amazing to see them doing that. And then then in the eighth grade in 3 years they are going to be dissecting a sheep brain investigating a disease outbreak and exploring how breakdown within the human body can lead to dysfunction. But already our eighth graders are making dialysis tubes in the McKenna unit and then the sixth grade they are dissecting chicken wings. So all of this is going

011to be bringing a lot of our current programming all together. We're so excited to get this grant and this was from the 1A foundation as well. On the way out, we had the 1A student industry connects. Mr. Salio put all his projects in the front foyer. And this was the um they got some feedback on their presentation. They didn't get it in real time. They got the written feedback. You provided a lot of evidence to back up your claims and knew where and when to use the data. It's a key skill in sciences. I like how you use specific data from the table to support your explanation. I thought your diagram showed a great understanding. I was impressed with your alternative hypothesis as well by saying that there might be a shortage of the bear

012population. I really like the structure of your first answer about how bears stay alive during hibernation without heat. You started by stating the key facts and calculations. Those are just examples um from the industry professionals. I want to highlight how effective and impressive your illustrations were. Your drawings add clarity to your model. We have started the Harlem Renaissance pilot. The Voices of Holocaust pilot starts next week. Um, grade 5 will start their pilot, I believe, at the end of April for ELA. And then we also have the ongoing pilots in illustrative math as well. Questions? This is great. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Sylvia. This all aligns to our strategic plan. Um, and as you can see, the kids are doing great work, and I'll get more into that a little later in my

013agenda. So, next up, we're going to talk about superintendent's recommended budget, and I'm going to ask um our business manager, Mr. Petrono, to give up the presentation, and we'll get to that. Good evening everyone. Like to begin just briefly going over our mission and our vision. So addition of the Christian public schools in partnership with staffs, parents and community is to promote student success, growth and learning in a safe and supportive environment. Our vision is the vision of the Christian public schools is to be a high performing school just for all students are afforded the opportunity to realize their potential. So our strategic objectives are achieing achieving academic excellence for all students creating a private social and emotional learning experience for all students and strengthening our partnerships with parents and the larger community. So this

014is what we take this is what we take in to account as we're building our budget. Our budget creation um starts in January where we we have to create the superintendent budget. During the month of February that superintendent budget is what we review with the school committee um to go over our our goals and our objectives. And in March is when we have more discussion with the school committee. We have public hearings on the budget and at which point in time we basically turn our needs or put our request into the town for our budget. We wait to hear back from them on what they will fund us or level give us on our budget. Then during the month of April, we go and we try and um adjust our budget to meet what they're

015going to give us for an appropriation. So just to understand how the budget is built, we begin by looking at our funding sources. We have the town appropriation. Well, first chapter 70 department of ed determine what our budget will be, the number of students that we have and in turn they make a a budget for us. They determine how much will be chapter 70 and how much will be um supported by the town. Their goal over the years has always been to try and increase the town's portion of that and reduce their chapter 70. they move all districts in that uh realm. So for FY27, the state is requiring the town uh to appropriate at least 9.6 billion towards our budget. Um generally the town funds approximately 57% of our budget. In addition, the town

016incurs uh expenses on their side. They get charged to our uh our net school expense as it's called. They pay the health insurance premiums. they produce the paychecks and so on. So those costs um are accounted for and reported in what's called schedule 19 which current is reported our end of year department of end and they go through that and look to make sure their accounts and cities are meeting obligations. So like I said for this for FY27 the state has determined 9.6 million from the town and they're going to um appropriate chapter 77.5 million for us that's approximately 44% of district spending. Aside from that, we have federal grants and state grants. Uh most of them are entitlement that we get and they're due to our population. So we just received notice a few

017days ago that our SSI grants, which are our title one, title two grants, they have to be reduced in next year. Apparently the numbers they've given us, our our lower income or our poverty um poverty is reduced and numbers are going down. So, we're going to substantially lose more than half of our title one next year because that the good thing is that people are uh are better off financially, but in turn for us, it means a cut to our budget. >> I just want to add one thing. I do believe that we have low-inccome students. It's all in how they claim themselves. So, I do believe they're in plain sight. We do have families in need. It's just the way it's being reported at this time. and many districts are dealing with the same

018issue. >> Yes. Just a question before we move on. Um is are there any issues with the way that those student SCES levels are calculated? Is it all self-reported? Is it based on school lunch applications? >> There is no school lunch applications, but that's a very good question. So the state takes our database and they match it up against um food stamps of Medicaid their databases and whatever matches up is what they have. There are there are people that are in a situation that they don't have the income level but they're not reporting they're not applying for not applying for any sort of exact state aid no Medicaid exams that kind of thing. >> Exactly. So there is a financial form if they're willing to fill it out will help us. Um so that's something

019we're going to work on between now and >> so this still an opportunity to to solicit more reports and if appropriate from the community. >> Correct. Okay. Correct. >> So um the other large grant that we get is IDEA. That's the that's the the special education grants. So far looks like um there's been no changes. So expecting a little over 300,000, but we have to wait for confirmation on that to see what's going to happen with that circuit breaker reimbursement. So whatever we spend this year in special a costs, we're responsible for approximately the first $40,000. Then anything above that, we got 75% reimbursement from the state, we'll get it next year. So we've got about 280,000 uh that we're accumulating this year. They come in the payment quarterly that we will have to spend

020next year. So that's available to us. We we try and not budget too much of that up front because all it takes is one or two students moving into the district. They have high needs that they get a lot of that money. And then we have our revolving accounts and our offset accounts. Um school lunch is self-funded. They generate about $100,000 a year. Uh we we try and use that to replace equipment. Um later on my presentation, my my business office presentation, we'll see that they want to replace the service lines. So that's something I'll talk about. Our school rental fund um and our preschool tuition funds, we try and budget whatever we take in this year for next year. We don't want to overspend. Um I'd rather underexpend that fund grow a little bit

021so we have some push in there. But those are basically our available sources of funds and any new grants we might get. One more quick question. So 57% town, 44% chapter 7. Is that the same percent as last year or does it continue? I think there's a trend in that rule continues to fall on the town versus what's coming through on the town slightly more. >> Um so basically our funding follows our enrollment. So this slide here will show you that um the third column in change in enrollment. You see that we've been losing quite a bit of students in the past few years. This one year it increases. That's right after CO was over and students came back. But um every time we lose students, we lose a lot of funding with it. And

022I columns next to that show the chapter 70 and show the town. You can see chapter 70 creeps up where the town portion has gone quite a bit. That's what chapter 70 tries to do. And then there's the change of how much additional. So this year it's an additional 450,000 that's expected to be spent in the school department. The town um when they they when they meet these goals when they meet these numbers they're estimates and at the end when it's finally reported items such as like health insurance the actuals come in that can push that number way up. So I see a year here where there a million dollars could have been a lot of claims that year. we get to claim them on our report. It shows that we beat net school spending,

023but past couple years it's trended down. I know it's been tough with the budgets and we've had layoffs and we'll see what happens this year when um when the town decides to appropriate for the school department. There's a lot of talk about health insurance and it's not just in the cushion. It's everywhere. Communities are looking at 14 to 18 to 20% increase health insurance. A family plan is going to be over $40,000 this year. health insurance. It's just unbelievable. So, that I'm sure is going to be up a good portion of any available funds. I produced this chart just to show you the trend. The the bright yellow is showing the net school spending, how the state continually moves that line up. Even though we lose students, the line still moves up. You'll see the

024blue, which is the tap to 70 funding or the purple. It's pretty much level. that you see the town portion as we talked about is ever increasing more and more pressure on the town. Now, in the in in the past years, many years, you would see unrestricted government aid come to cities and towns, that was in in millions of dollars. We haven't seen that. Last year, I think it was 21,000. I think FY27 is like 40 42,000. There's not a lot of funds coming to the town. That used to be where we would pull funds from to help with education. It's just not there. So the estimates on the budget when the we first go through and present the superintendent's budget we put through all the needs of the district even though some of them

025um will eventually you know could be cut we put it through to show what the district needs. So basically we're looking at about a million six more from last year to from this year to next year and broken out by category. Um there's some like personal services most of that is controlled by collective bargaining agreements control of that. Operations is what we can work on. Problem with an aging school or aging um schools is with equipment failures that need to be repaired and such. And then of course um high school costs which we're working on and out of district placements for at least on this chart for high school level. So most of those are usually a special education placement. The state sets their rate of increase which is usually over 3%. Even though we

026only get about 2% increase average on chapter 70. So we have that cost. I put in a pie chart to show you overall our budget as you can see most of it is professional salaries. Um there is a good chunk in out of district tuitions which again those are mostly uh special ed required and then as you can see it's small clerical salaries is very small is very small contracted services which many of those are special ed and um contracts we require to have and then supplies materials are small and other expenses which is um which is um like memberships and professional development. It's some of the computer programs that we use, the licenses for those programs. It's a very small number, but as you can see, the belt is the professional salaries. And that's

027actually in a cushion, it's a little smaller than most other districts. Most of the other districts, you'll see that well over 50%. You can see it as high as 70% other districts. So, I just want to show you staffing levels. So, this is elementary school. Again, you see the first column is the teachers. You can see over the past few years, you've been reducing trying to meet the budget that's been set. Um, Paris have gone up and that's because of special ed requirements, oneonone paris, um, learning and medical issues. We control of that. Almost every other category here has stayed pretty much minimal but even as far as guidance, coaches, library, nurses, the students we reduced because we use the service at night. Building based subs they cut in half to try and save on

028the budget. The front office is uh I get three or four three people I take this bare minimum technical therapist technology is at a bare minimum. We go one person per school. I mean it's it is what it is. uh middle school uh is basically the same. It shows uh in addition to the elementary school, it shows the front office which is looks like down a person or two. Um everything else is pretty much you'll see the the coaches, the library, the nurse, everything's pretty much even the paras are up a tiny bit. So it's the same model as before. We are reducing staff where we can where we have to. But in some areas you can't do a 10% cut to an office that has two people in it. It's either no cut or

02950%. So as they get smaller it gets tougher. This is just the past couple of years where the cuts have been made and now some were vacancies, some were retirements and some were right up cuts. So you can see um easily the past few years we're down to 18 positions. So these are our budget challenges. I took everything we put into the new into the new budget model and basically projected it out. We have salary increases of $545,000. Title one the grants being cut $78,000 at least right now. They said there's a chance that it might change, but the guidance from the department of ed was budget for that. >> Do we have any? >> They haven't given us an actual date. I know they usually tell us after we set our budget. >> No,

030I know because it's true. >> So, um, our special ed out of district tuitions, um, those again are an estimate. Um, we're working on those as we continue one by one, see where we stand. Electricity and heating oil. Heating oil, we added just a little to it because the cost, if you've seen, is almost $5 a gallon right now. But our electricity, I wasn't here last year, but apparently you've been living off credits for a year. We've had solar energy credits pretty much covered this whole year. I think this month is the first month we're actually paying a bill from our own cash. So that's about up to 250,000. It's about 225,000 of that for electricity for next year. Now in my next report, I'll go into the solar field that we're building, but that's

031another year. So >> before we prep Yes. Correct. For transportation, um we've ran the model. The contracted costs are going up 11.5% 11.44. And I included one extra bus in the model because we don't know yet where the students are going to end up and what our busing plan is going to look like across the town. We've got time deadlines to meet. We can't send buses too late to the outlining schools. They won't be back in time for us. So for now, that's that. As we um get a firm um student database on who's going where, we will plot them out. in my office is plotting them out on a map. We'll look at bus routes. We don't want to keep students on the buses more than 45 minutes. We're going to try and do

032it with the number of buses that we have, but if not, I had a factor in one extra bus. One extra bus is $92,000. It's a lot of money. Not a quick question on the transportation piece. Um I know it's difficult to model but do you think that it is within the bounds of possibility that we may need more than an additional single bus up to two perhaps? >> I don't think so. >> Don't think so. Okay. I don't think so because basically the model that we use the buses circulate the town in the morning. They go to co park and they swap off on buses there. So you maybe have to start 5 or 10 minutes earlier so that the bus leaves there and goes to you know the other license and back in

033time. But >> so best case scenario we're looking at 238 612 increase minus $90,000 that we budgeted for an additional bus. So maybe down to you know 150,000. Yeah. But either way, there was a three-year contract and the prices were going. >> So, mechanical contract, by the way, next year is our last year. Okay. But mechanical repairs and boilers, we spent $42,000 this year on our boilers already. Good. I put in just a small increase on this. This is basically for boilers. I will at our next finance meeting discuss um asking the town for appropriation to either rehab to boilers or replace two boilers. So we'll talk about that in full length but this is just what we anticipate. We already have about 7 or 8,000 a boiler budgeted and I I doubled it basically

034to make it 15,000 or 14,000 a boiler. >> We should we talked about this last time. Yeah. And then at some point when we engage in that conversation, we should talk about just the longer term capital. So and then all of our goods and services and legal I know legal this year we cut by 20,000 but we're already expended. So those budgets back in line and then the high school tuitions um that is a lot of estimated work. you know what our contract team at first of all I I know cuz I called and spoke to them I know we have 23 students going there so we got some fair numbers for that so basically I think this is our upper end question the timing of course so the kids that got into old colony

035for example what is the timing when they have to make a decision to kind of have a sense of what the number >> this past week um they received notices from old colony and I think and they've sent notices out to the students and if they choose to go then they do. If they don't they drop out and they from the waiting list. So it makes it sounds like another two weeks from now. >> Like for tech though we do have some students going or trying to get in there and their lottery is not until April is my understanding. So >> there'll be some switching to kids from Christian. Yes. >> Like a lot or just as small? >> I just handle budget. >> I think when I looked at it, it was around 10.

036Is that that sound about right? >> Yeah. >> So, what's not included in the budget are the items here that are started, but um in the budget, we currently have a a a data coordinator position that we have built. Um, we're looking to turn that into a special ed coordinator. Superintendent has um some thoughts on how she wants that position to go. So, we literally just be adding that to the salary to get to the licensed person position. The rest I requested from the um special ed department. These are all items that they feel would help with our students. So I wanted them incorporated so that if something happens if the house or the senate can put a little more money for us if they increase chapter 7 with some items we can look at

037some positions to talk about and and the any of the items marked with a star like the special ed subseeparate teacher reading specialist so on and so forth those are all not included in the budget amount that you've already presented but the 30,000 for the special ed coordinator is that I can help. >> And do we have any data that would um kind of help support that we're making here? >> So, right now we're in in um a special education audit that's happening and we're waiting for that report and we anticipate the need is there for some of these things. >> Um I feel like the staff could use some help even though we're down in enrollment in some areas. we see higher needs coming in where we need some additional assistance. Um so those

038are real needs um and we're waiting for that report so that we can be more efficient and effective in that department. As you know in the past we've done audits >> and now it's time to do a special ed audit and we feel like the time is right to do that based on this. >> I I totally believe that we have needs uh in this area. I think it would be helpful for the committee and then Obviously as we engage with the town to to the extent that we have the data that supports this I think it only helps. >> Yeah. Student services can definitely at some point talk to the needs and with data for these things and mandates. >> Yes. >> Sure. >> The behavior technician would that be working under the BCBA

039or the behavior technician would that be working under the BCBA? >> Right. We don't have any behavior texts, >> but if for these two, >> right, those are request that we feel that we need in the district. If she wanted one at each school, >> but they would they would be working under her. >> Yes, that's correct. >> Yes. So just overall like we were saying last year's budget I mean this year's budget to next year's budget about a million6 and this preliminary budget reflects about a 9.9% increase. I know that sounds large but it's about 3.7 collective bargain agreements which is pretty much in line 1.4 before was the trust station. That's I mean that's big. Um we have no control of that. That's an item that as you know you bid you get

040one company bidding work and the other 4.8% is operations maintenance and everything else is need of those students. So overall um that 9.9 is something that um we have to work on. again to see what um doesn't it can for us but we're working on that every day as it is refining all our numbers getting our u our quotes in for more updated prices as companies try and hold that price I know that technology asked our property company to hold their price next year they said yes so we do what we can in those areas the transportation companies to do a question. In your previous districts that you've worked in, I know they were much different in terms of size, but was it a >> and I don't know how often they was much bigger,

041but did you have one company that was always one company and it was always 6% increase every year, sometimes 8%. They blame it on the teams. So the team decision of costs they on gasoline even our gasoline went down in price but never and again only one bit of so I know in speaking with Sean or um regional rep for mass he said I talked to him about this I don't know maybe two months ago and he said it's the number of municipalities in the state that have more than one bidder for transportation is probably less than you can count on two mans it's um there's very little Many of us have got many of us districts have gotten together and asked the attorney general to step in and they say they're going to they're

042going to do a statewide contract but it's never happened. I got that probably hot potatoes that's it is what it is. >> I can ask the same question for 6 years. >> Well, we end up bringing trustation in house for that reason costs. >> Yeah. is do I know that that's not a conversation for this year's school budget, but um I I think that doing doing some estimation and modeling to see when that becomes financially viable. I know I believe the school at one point in the past did all their transportation and house that pivoted out to contract just like pretty much every other district. But I mean that might be something that we have to look at along with some other regional level discussions. We have some good regional talk that needs to happen.

043>> I was going to say with just 10 buses or so you need a facility. You need a 40,000 lb lift buses. Um you can't be down you have to have two or three extra buses. Whatever there's that needs that's the problem that we're running into. So, um, some cities and towns have big old buildings that they can just take and use, but if you have to create a building for the bus, it's not the whole story. >> Yeah. So, is the, um, I I know that in some other districts that may not be, we'll say, fully regionalized, they do regional transportation services, even if they don't regionalize administration and other aspects, right? >> Yes, they do. Okay. Um that's that's a great way to partner with someone who has the facilities. I know by

044state mass southeast regional has uh they had their own buses and had their own facilities there to handle it and they had had students that were in those courses. So it was great for them to have that. >> Yeah. All right. Well, bigger discussion for another day for sure. So, at this point, we are reviewing all of our contractual costs to see what we can um either get to hold or we can reduce. We're looking at all our discretionary line items. You know, salaries are non-discretionary because they've been set by CBAs and all that. And going forward, actually later this week, we're meeting with town officials to see where we stand um and what we have to work towards and then we'll bring that to you. But whatever they come up with, we'll bring that

045to you and discuss our budget. >> Mhm. town meeting the date is May the date >> June. >> It's around the middle of June. I don't remember the date off the top of my head. >> So there's a little bit of time. >> Well, there's new town administrator coming in. So >> yeah, see how that goes. Any questions? We are in comment on Thursday. So, we will continue these conversations. Next up is the superintendent's midyear check-in for my evaluation. As you know, um I always like to do a mid-year check-in. My goals and such are a two-year cycle, so it's just the beginning of the cycle, but I like to do a mid-year check-in and just check in so that everybody is aware of all the good work that we're doing in the district. Um

046you can see on the first slide we have uh our championship girls basketball team. They just won the game on Saturday against Roosevelt Middle School. So we have a very active um thriving athletic program at the middle school level and they play competitively against the other area middle schools. So this I like to start presentation with a students at heart cuz everything we do is student centered. This is actually the first day of school. I have a tradition of riding the school bus. So, you can see me in the back there. Um, but I I enjoy doing that. I get to interact with the students and the bus drivers as well as some of the families. And I've done it every year since I've been here. So, as you know, I have four goals and

047then there's four standards that I want to review with you tonight. And again, this is just an overview. I tried to put the big nuggets in of what we accomplished, but there's so much more that we can add to this. Smart goal one is um students will report increased engagement, safety, and positive school environment as meas measured by the district benchmark surveys, and that's beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year. We do it three times each year. We do it for students in grades 3 through eight. And the goal was at least a fourpoint increase in positive responses across these domains compared to the spring of 2025. This is an area that we struggled as a district. Um we don't know if the students weren't understanding the questions. So

048we really did try to put a lot of effort and work into this. And as you can see um we've made some significant improvements in our data. So in the green you see where we went up. um the minus it's supposed to be minus on those particular questions that have the asterisk but I'm not going to read all the questions to you but the students answer questions um like students have a voice in deciding school rules rules for example students in classrooms make the rules together and they should be posted around the schools so students are understanding now that that is actually what we're doing and that has to a lot to do with bringing in responsive classroom and advisory um at the elementary and middle school respectively. So, we're really happy with those increases.

049They're significant. And the these are just some I like you to see visuals of actually things that are happening in our classrooms. These every day here's morning meetings um where students have they're greeted by classmates. All of the students are greeted and they have an opportunity to share and participate in a community building activity. And this is something similar at the middle school level um that's developmentally appropriate for for middle school students. So the district has a variety of activities throughout the year that help build a sense of belonging. This goes along with this goal as well. Smart goal two. I will strengthen district-wide strategic communications to enhance transparency, trust, and engagement among all of Christian public school stakeholders through targeted professional learning, including participation in the leading now cohort 16, consultation with PR vendors,

050and collaboration with district and community partners. I will refine systems, practices, and messages that promote clear, consistent, and effective communication across the district. So, here's where we're at. We >> had a quick question on that last piece. I I was thinking about the like the district newsletters with regards to, you know, um community communications. >> Um I know that like I have some family members who have said that they don't feel like they get the newsletters, they get sorted junk mail, that kind of thing. Patrick, this might be a question for you, but does our email server have the capability to track open rates? >> It does. That would be fantastic because I'd love to see like what percentage of email addresses we're sending out the newsletters to are actually consistently opening them. >> That'

051be awesome. >> I can't see that that level does. >> Yeah. Yeah, you got what I got number. >> It's my marketing frame. Like I, you know, I can't help myself. >> So again, this is a 2-year goal, but this is the progress so far. Um, as part of this goal, I had applied um to be selected in a grant for leading now, which is a national group of superintendents. And it's an opportunity that supports superintendent around the country to navigate the complexity of our roles and to strengthen public trust in order to advance the district's commitment to all students. So, I started in September with my initial in-person training in Atlanta. And then you can see all of the offerings that they have for professional development. And the nice thing about this professional development

052is again, it's totally grant funded. This year, I've been able to bring some of my team with me to some of these webinars. So, we're all benefiting from the Leading Now program. It's been absolutely amazing. They have experts on each of these topics from around the country. um meeting with us and the strategic communication. Um Mr. Hood and I met with Guilford PR firm. We have them to do some nice stories for us and media relations, but we really wanted to have a stronger focus on strategic communications, especially as it pertains to the budget. So, we did complete a contract with them to develop a strategic plan. We did have to move a workshop along the way. So we now are scheduled to meet with them as a school committee group on March 24th and

053then obviously this is ongoing and we will hear more about that as we move forward with this smart rule three uh public schools will collaboratively develop approve and provide professional development and implement an updated district strategic plan and that will be 2026 through 2031 that clearly outlines district vision, mission, core values, strategic objectives, initiatives for continuous improvement, and success measures. And you notice along the way with our previous plan, everything we do has been related to the plan, but it's time now to really go deeper and dive in. So, as you can see from this slide, there's three phases. building the foundation, building the plan, and then later in the spring and in the summer, we'll be implementing the plan, doing our professional development for the staff. You can see our leadership team and teachers

054are meeting here. All the people on the planning committee, including a parent representative, we have those meetings. Um, we've already talked about the mission, the vision. We've had focus groups and currently, right now, we are in the process of a survey that has gone out to all stakeholders. It's very important that we get input from all stakeholders as this is not Dr. Bailey's plan. This is everyone's plan for the district. Smart goal four to continue to provide a safe and healthy learning environment that prioritizes the well-being of every Christian public schools community member. Um we've done quite a bit in this area. Um you can see that we've have four safety and wellness committee meetings and you can see we've done quite a bit of new professional development in that area as really it's been

055a focus of that committee. So all paries this year were trained in CPR. We've had advanced Alice training. We had stop the bleed training and you can see the retired colonel Colonel Gabrian here um providing that training for the staff. food allergies, choke saving procedures, and then some of the focus um areas that we're going to be moving into is bicycle safety, anti-bullying assemblies. We have Gazelle from Fun 107 coming in April to do both schools. We have a campus traffic safety study happening next year. We have internet safety for families uh date to be determined. We also do an internal audit called the past school safety and security checklist. Oops. Um, and that's just us saying yes, we have this in place. No, we don't have this in place. We also have um the

056AIM curriculum pilot, which is something that um Colleen Doyle, our student director of student services, can speak to, but we're just starting that process this year. So, if you want to just take a couple of minutes just to explain that. >> Sure. You're welcome. >> Oh, do you want to go up there then with the mic? >> Thank you, Dr. Bailey and school committee members. So, I just wanted to take a moment to share with you some information regarding the AIM curriculum. It is a social emotional learning curriculum that was designed by a behavior specialist named Mark Dixon along with some clinicians with the goal of creating a product that can be implemented by teachers as well as special educators and support personnel within the school. AIM stands for accept, identify, move. And it basically

057takes the concept of acceptance commitment therapy along with um mindfulness training and blends the two to create the opportunity for staff to mentor students to be able to create a self-determined plan for mental health. um I'm sorry, mental wellness and um to be able to regulate their behavior as well as to um do some goal planning that assist that self-determination process. And so, um, sort of the main context of it is that students select their own goals and values and then working with staff along with some of the, um, curricular materials and, um, design, they work along this continuum to really reflect on the actions that they take as well as the non-actions and how those things help move them toward versus away from their goals and values. And um it's it's a nice concrete

058product so that um it's easy to take data to show the progress. It's easy for students to be able to see sort of where they've started and then how they've progressed. And it's something that they can repeat over and over again to just make part of their toolkit for um self-determined planning and then just overall social emotional wellness. And um we're really just in the introductory stages. So our so our um school adjustment counselors now have this information. We're setting them up with training that they can do online um which will be a self-paced opportunity. There are some live trainings that we might pursue moving forward. Initially we're going to use it through the special ed lens to collect data via IEP goals and objectives. So sort of on a smaller scale and in a

059more specialized context, but it is something that can grow to be a whole school support for students. And given the fact that one of our main um components of our mission and vision is student safety and emotional wellness, I think that um it's it's a really good product and it will be a nice addition to what we offer students in that area. >> Thank you. So, also in your packet you can link the next safety and air quality calendar. That just gives you an idea of all the different things that we've been doing in terms of project discussions. And I want to thank Mr. Ellis for being our representative from the school committee to work with the town for these discussions to really get that project at the elementary school going. Um, and Mr. Petronio

060applying for grants, etc. We've been very very busy, but you can take your own time to look at that list, that extensive list. And then these are just pictures from Stopad and Professional Development. Um, we had Mr. Tomlinson who is also on our safety committee. Uh, he's a parent and he's got extensive training that he was able to offer us that day. Um, his staff really did appreciate all of the safety training. So now we get into the standards and again we're putting just the big picture things right now. Uh we've spent a lot of I spent a lot of time on high school research and tuition agreements this year. Um as you know we had the high schools present to us back in August. We created rubrics for you. We arranged visits um parent

061panels, teacher panels. It was very very extensive and I appreciate how seriously this committee took that. Obviously another big bucket this year is our strategic planning applied learning that's ongoing professional development. We talked a lot about that during school committee meetings. We have the applied learning leadership institute investigating history grades 5 through 7, open sedk which is democratic knowledge project in grade 8. Um, and actually Massachusetts Council for Social Studies recognized recently one of our teachers, Karen Bentley, and there'll be more information coming about that at a future school committee meeting. Multi-tered systems of support at AES, assessment data, of course, we're continuing with all our assessments. And just some of our recent grants, ignite reading seats and project lead the way. One thing that we've added to our learning walks this year is learning

062walks not not only within district but we've done a lot of learning walks outside the district to really elevate our teaching and learning and it's really showed to be uh very good with our teachers. Silk professional development. Um those are our teacher leaders and we're really getting diving in deep to the updated educator evaluation rubric for all teachers and those teacher leaders will be leading the um professional development for all of the teachers. And then here you can see that um on the left is a kindergarten classroom and strong instruction really starts at the prek kindergarten level. And here's an example of differentiating instruction. And on the right is a picture of FMS. This is an example of teachers showcasing that applied learning. It's the investigating history curriculum through a learning walk. And those adults

063in the room are actually from Westport Public Schools. And also earlier in the year, we hosted King Phillip Middle School. Um, so again, our middle school has been a model for our client learning, which is great. Again, under instructional leadership, we do um this is our partners in New Bedford with our leadership team over the summer. We were able to attend New Bedford to do some of our work, our team building. Uh we have a grade six this year toward New Bedford High School and they had organized three different activities for our students. We actually had a lesson going on in the school on astronomy. So, we thought, let's get that field experience and go to the newly updated planetarium at the uh New Bedford High School. We had astronomy activities in the library and

064juniors and seniors were teaching our students about water filtration and the kids absolutely loved it. So, this was a new field trip that we added this year intentionally planned it so that kids could get that field experience in addition to getting the classroom experience. And we also wanted our students at an earlier age to see all the great things that our high school partners um have to offer the other districts. So that's going well. Standard two, we have management and operations. So obviously we have our district calendar and we're going to talk more about that tonight. We have our air quality project and you saw the calendar listed of all the things there. We have a lot of technology infrastructure updates that are happening within the district with Wi-Fi etc. We have that solar candy

065project that will be happening this summer. My office handles all of the human resources and personnel matters, family communication. We have school and district newsletters, school handbooks, which drive everything for students and staff. We had quite a bit of snow removal this year and that really did take a lot of organization, especially with the unprecedented storm and the blizzard we had this year. I talked a little bit about the special education audit. Um, and as you know, in the past, we've done other audits such as curriculum, technology. We have the sheriff's office do the facilities safety and security audit. Um, and we also do a self- evaluation audit as well. And then we have professional and leadership development and those again are department specific trainings. our summer institute I meet onetoone with all the leaders

066the monthly leadership team meetings and we're also each year have been doing a book study um in this particular year is focused on the communication the listening leader which goes along with the goal so again talking about the storm we um we usually plow out our campus ourselves but there was so much snow and due to the volume of snow our plow broke and you know the smaller plows really could not do it. So in working with the town I was talking to the board of selectsman chair on a daily basis, talking to Dia Manard on a daily basis, Mrs. Petronio to Mr. Hood, all of the stakeholders working together. We were able to get the big trucks in to help us out from the town as well as from PJ Keating. This right here,

067this is Brian Rice. He had his machine here from PJ Heating. He was a great help to us to move a lot of even after we plowed to move some of those snow piles so that we wouldn't have mounds that were unsafe for our students to come back to. We also had our students write letters at both schools to both the custodians and maintenance staff because while we were all at home in our warm houses, they were here daily um dealing with the snow. Um, so it was important to us that our students also understood how to show gratitude. So, as a matter of fact, the DPW called uh Damonard called me. He was so thrilled with the chart paper letters that we sent them. He said he was going to be laminating laminating them

068and posting them all over um his office. So, I was happy to hear that as well. Standard three, family and communication engagement. We continue to collaborate with town officials. As you know, we meet with all the boards. Um, constantly calling them individually as well. We have facilities used for uh, sports and other organizations that come in, whether it's Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, athletics. We talked about school and district newsletters, PTO events, and fun nights. We do a lot of family surveys so that we can really keep a pulse on what our families are thinking. Uh, stakeholder involvement and strategic planning. I've already talked about that. This year, a new partnership is graded in advance with vote tech. We our maintenance department department did a lot of interviews for our co-op students and we have two

069co-op students who are with us this year from the stationary engineering shop and it's really a win-win for us and them. they're getting uh a skill set and experience and we're getting um you know help uh inexpensive help and it really has been wonderful. They check the boilers every day. They've done a lot of work on the air handler units, the thermostats, you name it, they're doing it and they've been absolutely wonderful. They even helped during the blizzard with the shoveling. So that was wonderful. Another new partner is the Judith Boutique family. um they donated this year, as you know, $25,000 in scholarships. And tonight, I'll also be talking about um a donation they're going to be making $20,000 to build a school store. So, we'll talk about that later on, but that's a new

070partnership. Um our new staff orientation and tour, that's very inclusive of community partners throughout town that we go on visits with. PJ Keing, not only do they donate financially to us, as you can see from the school committee meeting where they have their golf tournaments and want to make improvements in the school, but they also do some education for us and we'll talk about that. Our 18 Foundation area high schools and colleges. We also had a holiday gift card drive and we continue to do philanthropy for families in need and that's really important to us. And you can see from some of these pictures, you can see the police department doing our high fives. uh PJ Keing the um rocks are our world lesson for all of our fourth graders they did this year and

071that was new uh like the library when we went on tour. So there's quite a bit happening. This is parents um in the schools building snowmen activities. This is a parent and also a staff member. our gifts to give literacy day which was held on a Saturday and I went to that and not only did they have all the books that they were giving away for the students but they had activities for the parents and the students so it was really a great thing. Standard four which is the last standard is professional culture. We continue to access our media with fun 107 articles. We did one on custodial appreciation day and I can't say enough and the kudos and shout outs that I want to give them this year. I I I got not one

072complaint with all of the work that they did during the blizzard. It was amazing. We had a standard times uh video which is um they highlighted Christine Daniels who was the longest serving teacher in our district. Um, we had an educators night recently at Southeast Sportslex and we basically it was open to all staff, administrators, teachers, everyone to play pickle ball. I do a monthly you've got mugged and I have these two big mugs in my office with all of the teachers in Paris. Everybody's name is in it. I pick one every month and then that person is allowed to leave early and I cover the class and I love doing it. It keeps me connected to the kids um and keeps my you know me in teaching really what I love to do. We

073have the leadership book study. I mentioned that we have the institutional self-evaluation and this was a result of a t focus monitoring through desi that we had our district leaders review data points um each month and it could be attendance, it could be student performance, it could be discipline referrals, after school help, uh athletics, busing, etc. So we parse out the data and we determine where inequity exists. We self-reflect and then we generate ideas for improvement. New this year als um oh I'm sorry we model responsive classroom approaches with leadership and staff. So during all of our leadership meetings we model what it looks like in the schools so the principles can see. New this year is joint labor management committee and we have four meetings scheduled for this year. I believe we've already had

074three and that's where staff come together from each school with all of the central leadership and principles and we problem solve any issues that come up um and we just talk about ways to make things better. We have our leadership team meetings and institutes which is all of our professional development and then the silt and the staff convocation. We have quite a bit um of PD that day and planning that goes into it. So you can just see some pictures here from the pickle ball from the convocation. This is the first day tour of our new staff in the summertime. We go around the town and do our visits. Um this is some PD where you have staff collaborating and reflecting. Um this was from New Bedford public schools when we had our institute. And

075then each year at the convocation, we we have t-shirts for our staff. We take this group picture um and our one of our teachers actually comes up with a theme every year. This year is nothing but net uh wildcats aiming high. And this is our picture from this past year. So again, this just gives you a little bit of a lot of work that our amazing team in a cushion is doing. I mean it it is a lot but I I can't say enough about the team that I have with me to do this work. Does anybody have any questions? Okay. So I'm going to move on the school calendar. The 2627 school year uh calendar that I gave you last month. I gave you a month to, you know, look it over. Did anybody

076have any concerns or questions or issues with it? I do know that um we did put one calendar just for school committee meetings on a separate one just because it gets to be a lot of things for people and then on our website we list all of our school committee meetings. But if nobody has any issues with next year's calendar, I will be looking for a vote on that tonight so that we can get that out to families. Nothing discussion. Okay. All right. Can I have a motion? Right. Motion to approve the uh 2627 school calendar as presented. doing roll call. All those in favor? Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. >> Okay. And now we're going to go back to the 2526 school year calendar. This year's calendar based on the unprecedented blizzard that

077we had. Um we are up to seven snow days this year. And we've been very fortunate for the past several years. We've had no snow days. So to have seven this year is quite a bit. Nobody wants to be in school at the end of June. It's not always productive. It's hot. Um so we're going to, you know, I do have a recommendation for a change and a discussion item as well before we vote on this. Um but we're up to 7 days. The commissioner did put out some guidance and basically what he said is you have to have the 180 days. you have to make up your days all the way up to June 26th, which if we did the 7 days, we would be at June 26 is now being our last day

078of school. But my recommendation tonight is we currently have um Good Friday off, which is April 3rd. I met with the union. The union met with them and they voted unanimously to support the recommendation of holding school on Good Friday. So my recommendation today is to at least get one day back which is April 3rd on the Good Friday if you are in agreement with that. So that was the first thing. So that is my recommendation. And then the other point of conversation that I wanted to just throw out there is the only other option and it's not necessarily my recommendation is on April 28th we have a professional development day. The reason why we schedule that professional development day is because it's town elections and we have elections happening here at the elementary school

079gym. So we will have people here um PD while we have elections and that's we've done that in the past to make up that day. We could have the students come that day during elections and the teachers would have to make up the day at the end whereas the students would have another day less in June. So by doing Good Friday, we're we're up to the 25th, June 25th, and now there's a possibility of just throwing it out for conversation. It's not ideal. And my recommendation would be that if if you did want to look into that, we would definitely have to, you know, have high security in the gymnasium area, make some changes. Um, we've done it one other time before that I know of. And you know, unless the town I don't think

080they'll can do this, but unless they can change the election location, and I know we've had a change in town administration, so I don't think the new one's there yet. I did try to put a call to uh Chairman WAR to have that discussion. So, I'd be interested in hearing a what you think about Good Friday, my recommendation to have school on that day, and b how you feel about the town elections. And again, I'm not necessarily recommending that. I'm just letting you know that's the only other day in this year's calendar that is even a possibility to make up and we would not be eligible for a waiver because the seven days we go to the 26. So, it's only if you go after the 26. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Well, you know how

081I feel about them. You know, I'll let you >> Well, I mean, tell us. Yeah, tell us. >> It's a It's a No. I don't think I don't think we can have enough safety to have all these people from the town coming into our building and protecting our kids. So, I'm all for I want them to make the case. So, but when it comes to safety, I really feel like election day is not one of the days that we should have the kids back. But Friday, absolutely. But that's just where I stand. I don't know how anyone else feels, but >> I I can say coming from the the standpoint of mental health too. Just in seeing some of the clients that I do see and knowing the mental health stability too, I just worry

082put into a situation what might happen or something upset in the situation. I do think because of what has happened in schools in the past, I just I safety, right? Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, ultimately, assuming we have no further cancellations, which I mean, stranger things have happened. We've had we've had March snowstorms. We could theoretically have some sort of catastrophic thing where the schools lose power after March 31st, which I think is the cut off date for um like not having to make up additional days. you know, you never know what's going to happen. I mean, ultimately, if if we say we're going to, you know, have the kids come to school on the 25th of June, which I believe is a Thursday, it's a Thursday. Yeah. >> Um, we might very well be

083forced back into this situation later on in the year. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but it is what it is. Um, as far as having elections while school is in session, um, I don't I'm not partial to that approach. Uh, just because there's too many unknowns. Um, it's not that I don't trust the community, but just there's a lot of folks coming into the building that we don't have eyes on ultimately, bathrooms, um, even with additional police details, which do cost money to them. Um, I don't know if the town would pay for that or if we would, but with the additional expense, the additional risk, and even to Ebony's point, you know, disruption of routine for kids who maybe are more sensitive to that because they have maybe some additional needs. It it doesn't strike

084me as a very good plan. Um, it it to my mind it does bring up the need to have further conversations with the town about potentially exploring other venues for town elections. Um, obviously these are the biggest buildings in town. Um, we've been using them for elections for a long time. >> There may not be other facilities in town that can easily host them. Um, but there I mean we're talking about annual impacts to our school calendar and restricting our ability to make up days in extreme circumstances like this. Um, it's worth having that conversation. >> Yeah, I I'll echo the sentiments of my committee members. So, I'm all in on Good Friday. I have almost no interest in having a school day during an election and that has nothing to do with not trusting

085the community. This is just too much traffic of people coming in and out of a school with kids in school. And I think this I'll get to my I have something to say about safety and security later, but previous iterations of this committee have spent a lot of time talking about safety and security. I think we should have a conversation about that, too. But um it just doesn't really line up, I think, with some of those previous conversations and how I think this committee probably feels about safety and security. night. So, I'm up for that, but I'm with Jesse. I think Miss Ellis, I think we could have a conversation with the town and it's not to put them in a tough spot. We could talk about what the other solutions are, give plenty of

086noted, try to figure out a solution to because I do think it's what it sort of needed on the school calendar. It's something we need to talk about to say, "Are there other options that would better serve us and serve the community because nobody probably wants except for school wants their kids in school to the 26th." till the >> very last day >> I might want it wasn't necessarily my recommendation but to be fair that was the only other day >> that I would offer up as a point of discussion so I'm not surprised by the discussion um so >> yeah so precincts too >> we bring that separated by precinct so there were different spots to go >> yeah I know I voted at council on aging before >> unfortunately there's not really any

087other buildings in town like town hall isn't set up to host elections. Parting ways really isn't set up to host elections. Um and we can't really do it in one of the emergency facilities like police, fire, EMS. So options are pretty limited. But I think it still is important to um at least see if anything else can be done, especially around like dismissal time. Like I don't I really don't like seeing all the additional traffic for folks who maybe only have to come to the schools once a year or twice a year to vote trying to navigate dismissals and and buses leaving and um arriving. It's just not. >> So my recommendation would be to have school to schedule a school day now on April 3rd. We have our staff in agreement with it. Um,

088and then what I would do is let our families know tomorrow, but then I never let them know the final thing until April because we could have another snow day. You just don't know during this month. It's just although it seems like we've turned the corner with weather. So, I'm so happy that it's finally. >> Yeah. >> Uh, so do we need a vote? So, we need a motion. We're going to have school on Good Friday and the last day of school is going to be June 25th. >> Correct. >> Do I have a motion? >> As of right now. Yeah, as of right now. >> Yeah. I' I'd motion to hold school on Good Friday with a projected final uh school day of June 25th. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Any

089opposed? Seeing none, motion pass. >> Thank you. >> Next, um I mentioned previously the Ford family um wants to build a school store and possibly name it for Judith and we'll bring that up. We want to follow our policy. So, we're going to bring that up. I don't think you have an issue with necessarily naming the school store, but we will do things appropriately for the policy subcommittee. Um, does anybody have any questions about that? >> I think it's a great idea. I mean, we just had we used to have >> had an art store and they were very um loved the idea of establishing a store >> in our school and there's lots of things and ideas that we have that students can be involved in it, the community can be involved in it.

090So, we're really super excited about that. So, I would need a vote on that to accept the donation of $20,000 from a family. >> So, move second. >> All those in favor? >> Any oppose? If that motion passes, I would just say thank you. It's a tremendous generous donation. >> They've also That's the same family that donated $25,000 in scholarship money and we've been working great with them. Also, uh, I need a vote to accept a donation of a clarinet from Carla and Donnie Williams. Do >> I have a motion? So, motion second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. >> Opposed, I would thank uh Carla and Donnie Williams for the donation. >> We appreciate all those donations. Very important. It gives another student um an opportunity to play

091an instrument. And that's all I have for this evening. Thank you. >> Before we move on, I just I just wanted to make a point question with regards to the school calendar. Um for for future years, I know we've already approved the 2627 calendar. Uh and I don't anticipate that we're going to have blizzards like this annually or even again in my lifetime. Um, but I think it might be worth discussing for future school years potentially 27 28 um adopting Desi's recommendation of adjusting our scheduled school vacations. um potentially eliminating February vacation in favor of a a March uh break instead, which hopefully would avoid the perfect storm that we got this year of, you know, a gigantic blizzard falling immediately after scheduled school vacation and causing an extended uh period of time out of

092school. Uh I know that you know there are families that had some logistical challenges as a result of that especially I got um well a friend of mine has a special needs student and that was pretty disruptive to their um routine which is very important for them. So I think it's it's a tough discussion because it would be a big change in the way that we schedule our time as a district um and it would take a lot of discussion with teachers association as well but I think it's an important one. I got to a conversation and I think intuitively we I I said this 6 years ago and I the union almost there's something happening here but um you get through the December break and then you're like February vacation and then April like

093why don't we just split the difference in March. So intuitively it makes sense but there's some logistics and things we would have to work out but I think it's worth a conversation actually. >> Thank you. Uh here we go. Good evening school committee members. Dr. B. I have some uh fun updates. Uh Desi Sims certification. We recently uh completed and certified our DESI SIMS report. Uh this is a state reporting process we use to ensure our student information. It's accurate for enrollment services and state reporting. Um, a strong focus on quality data is extremely important because it supports our reporting, our funding, uh, ensures that our students are properly accounted for. Um, I want to thank our admin, our admin assistants for their attention to detail on this. And I'd like to give a special

094thank you to Kathleen Bourne, our district data coordinator, for all of her hard work. Um, MCCAST preparation, MCCAST is right around the corner. I'm happy to report that our technology systems um, have been fully tested uh, and are ready. This includes device readiness, network capacity, and uh the testing platform uh validation. For parents listening, uh if your child is experiencing any issues with their Chromebook, uh please let us know as soon as you can because we want to have that resolved before the testing. And then also, uh please just make sure their Chromebooks are fully charged before the testing window occurs. All right. Um and as many of you know, the MCAST testing platform has changed so many times. I just want to give a huge thank you to our admin, our teachers, our staff.

095Everybody's done a great job adapting to this and it's been wild. Just from a tech director's perspective, it's been nuts on how much we've changed for such a critical platform, if you will. Um, quick recap. Last month, and I just wanted to bring this up. I wanted to briefly recap for families and community members. Last month, I submitted a tech update regarding sign significant process uh progress, excuse me, modernizing our district's core infrastructure. The district has now has been approved for -ate cap 2 um funding to support the purchase of the new district firewall. Uh this is our final major piece for our core modernization project. The bidding process um is completed through our federal rate program. That's our form 471. We have selected a vendor whose proposal came in at the lowest. So I

096know you guys would be happy with that. But also they were they were perfect with uh meeting our requirements. Um our goal is to receive the equipment uh in the next couple months and implement that before the start of the new school year. Uh this upgrade will further strengthen our cyber security yada yada yada. Um, but what it really does is, um, it ensures us for the next 10 plus years, like I've been doing with our 10-year plan. Uh, so important to note though, just like everything we've been doing since I've been here, the technology department takes everything inhouse. So, we we configure, we migrate, um, and we do not outsource this work. So, in many cases, districts will pay vendors 10 to $15,000 plus to do this kind of work. We do it all

097inhouse. So everything that we've actually uh migrated over to a new platform we've handled internally uh by performing this work. It means we save money. Um it's a great training process for our techs and then we maintain full control. So it's really good for us and I just want to say thank you to our tech team for this cuz I know I've I've thrown a lot at them for these three years. Um and that's it. Anything any questions? Anything I can answer? >> Great work. >> Thank you guys. Have a good day. come back to college. >> He always is. >> And you know your subject. >> Yes. Um so my finance report for this month um begins with what I put every month is the budget to actual. So we've gone through eight periods

098so far from July and February. So my report reflects the financial the periods and I compare this year to last year. And what I really look closely at always is the salaries cuz that's our biggest line item. So it looks like we're a little under spent compared to last year which is good. Um the professional salaries um that's how we want to be going strong. I made all of my adjustments back on those salaries that I need through the grants. You'll see down under other salaries which is primarily par professionals. We look like we spent a little more on this cuz I still have about a half dozen or more salaries to move over to grants. I was waiting for the town hall to finish setting up the new accounts for that. Overall, we're right

099on par with where we should be this time of year. We're in very tight. Um, which I was hoping, you know, to do a little better so that we can have some funds to maybe move forward to next year, but we'll see as the the next few months pan out. But overall, um, everyone's staying within their budgets, within their line items, and, um, I've got nothing else, no issues to report on that. Um, we've talked a lot about facilities tonight. Um, as you know, they did a great job through the storm. Um, the Ford F150 we have was no match for the storm. >> Um, when they called me, I was on my I was home. When they called me, they said they couldn't even get in the parking lot. in the snow. So, we

100have to wait for the DW to make a path for us. But by the time they made the path and they came in, there was no place to put the snow. So, that's when DW got us um um heating company and they were able to remove snow lick it up and move it. And by as you saw, by the time they were done, the piles were so high that we thought we said the buses can't see. You can't that's how high. So, we asked them to remove the tops of the bank. It all got put to the side and our back, which is now melting. But that's how much snow there was. Um, snowblowers all worked. Uh, we just sent them out this morning uh uh to get tuned up again just in case there's

101another snow comes in. But, um, guys went up roof, make sure the roofs were okay. Spoke to an engineer and the amount of snow out there wasn't a concern. But, I am going to give him the um the designs of our roof. We just found him and he'll put together for me a chart so we'll know when there's so many inches on our roof and if it rains we have to get up there and actually shovel them off cuz it was a school in Kingston I think when the roof came down in the gym. So um I'll be getting that on. I just don't have a pretty scanner to stand up plan. So I'm working on that um to get done. Like I said they they worked tirelessly throughout the uh throughout the week. Um,

102and the water drainage was good on all the roofs. We didn't get any any new leaks. We sealed the roofs back in October. I had a company come up and sprayed them and sealed some patches. Our guys did some patches with that Flex Seal. We want to try it and it held out. So, we went great without any issues. Like I said, the drains were great. Um, >> yes, closet completed. It's all brand new. It's in great shape. So, we're moving along there with our co-op student. As the superintendent said, we're replacing a lot of the actuators and motors that open and close and allow water flow through different classrooms and whatnot. Some are frozen open. That's why classrooms are being freeze and some frozen closed and they would manually turn them with a wrench

103to get some water. So, now we're working on replacing them. These kids are coming in. Great. I'm hoping to depending on our budget actually had to find um a source maybe someone will will um will willing to donate the money to pay their salary. Uh we pay a minimum wage basically but um so we get again two students back they do 68 rotations so they're all the time they break we go through boiler every morning to make sure everything's working properly. Um, and I said the boilers will have a long discussion on because you know those are an item that are there from 1971. >> Mhm. >> And they useful life as far as we um food service has been um doing well with the breakfast. Just a couple weeks ago they started doing a

104hot uh breakfast in the mornings. We do a croissant with egg and cheese. It's a big hit. So, um we're we're looking at possibly with depending on the cash flow, we're going to do the new service the new uh the new stations serving stations. Um you know, again, because those hold water and they heat up, they wear out over time. Those are we from 1971. So, we'll be updating you on what we do with those. Um if everything else goes well with our contracts, we'll be looking at doing new freezers literally from the last day of school and knock out the ones we have put new ones in. Um it's about six week projects. We have a couple of school openings. Transportation is the same. Transportation is our system today. Um we've got no real

105issues. We got a lot of changes and cost repairs in uh our office handles that um no major issues with that. The solar array that we talked about goes over the parking lot. The selectman and the school may have signed off on that. Select signed off on it. I got my copy this morning. So that's all set in place. So we're going to begin planning to put that array in. Last week, probably Wednesday or Thursday, I got a phone call from them that said, "Hey, there was a grant for what they call a battery system. It goes on your solar array. You didn't qualify before because they look at your poverty ratings, but because not enough people applied, there's there's millions of dollars. They've opened it up to you, but we need it by next

106Friday." So, I finished my portion application this morning. Uh, select is going to finish it. 90% funding on $2.5 million for the battery backup system. The other portion select will make up because they want to be the owners of the batteries. They own the solar panels own the batteries. So I said to them, well this is just an application. I'll discuss it with the school committee and then eventually the town. But I don't see that being an issue. There's no financial impact to the the budget of the town. >> And and what's great about it is it holds enough power for 2 weeks. >> Wow. So opposed to us having to draw power when there's no sun or when there's snow, we'll have a two week drawing power. >> So we can do again we

107we can do some some pretty good savings and the way they're going to pay for it is by changing our model um that we've set up which again that would be great. We have solar backup plans I think and talking with Patrick that would help a technology um department is what would it do? >> Sure. So we have aging uh battery backup systems and and you have that in most IT worlds. Um if we get this and we were talking with Pat Mck before essentially what it does it replaces so we don't have to pay for that 40,000 or 50,000 and it simply stays with the solar company which is fantastic for us. You know they'll maintain it. The other part is it just what that does for IT systems and any kind of emergency

108system is it just keeps it from having that power off hard power off and hard power on power on. So uh it just saves the life of our equipment which is great. You just put brand new. >> Exactly. Exactly. For sure. So, I'll get as much information on that to you as soon as it comes in. Like I said, I did my portion today. I know that um they're looking to get their portion in tomorrow. So, by the end of the week, hopefully I'll have something on that. And we're in great shape because in applying for this grant, one of the questions was, is, are you a shelter? Yes, we are. >> You currently have a generator? Yes. How old is it? It's original. >> Right. So those two factors alone should help our application

109process get through and hope we receive this grant. Do we have any school member reports? Uh the only thing I I wanted to say cuz it as you were talking Dr. Bailey with an update on your goals. I know I I might have said this at a meeting or two ago. I'd like to maybe in our next meeting in exact session depending on what's on the agenda. I'd like to have a conversation about safety and security and I'd like to do that before we get uh for that part along with the budget. So that way if there's anything that we discuss as a committee that we feel like needs to be incorporated, we don't miss out on the budget um on the next agenda. >> Yeah. And maybe what we could do, we had an

110audit. I know it was a couple of years ago, but it might be good to start with that, look at the things that we did as a result of that and the things that maybe we didn't do and see if that's a just some things that we should talk about. >> Do we currently have a um committee point you to the safety and public committee? >> Um no, we don't. But I think at times we've opened that up and said if somebody anyone can feel free to step in and try that she's not able to be with us tonight but do they will facilitate that committee but definitely >> okay uh any questions on any of the communication and information that was included in the packet? No. Okay. So we will and we're coming back,

111right? >> Exact session on. Okay. So we're going to adjourn the meeting to enter into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 38 section 2182 to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-UN personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non non-UN personnel without reason to return to open session in business manager. Do I have a motion? >> So motion. >> Second. >> Roll call. >> Mr. Ellis. >> Yes. >> Made. >> Yes. >> Mr. Yes. Mr. >> Yes.