001All [Applause] [Music] right, I'm going to call the meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, September 9th, 2025. This meeting is being video and audio recorded for future cable broadcasts. Can you please silence all cell phones for the duration of the meeting? Uh, may I have a motion to open the school committee meeting? So motion >> second. >> We'll do a roll call. >> Mr. Hood. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Cordderero. >> Yes. >> Mr. Ellis. >> Yes. >> And we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. Could you please stand? >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the flag for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. First item is the consent agenda. Everything listed in the consent agenda was distributed in advance of the
002meeting. Does anyone have any requests for something to be removed from the consent agenda and discussed or voted on separately? >> Unfortunately. >> May I have a motion to approve and accept the items listed in the consent agenda, including the minutes for the August 26, 2025 meeting? >> So yes. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes. Unopposed. Uh, Dr. Bailey, do we have anyone signed up for delegation? >> I don't think so. >> No. So, uh, seeing no old business, Dr. Bailey, I'll turn this over to you for new business. >> Okay. So, first I just want to thank the school committee members who, um, attended our convocation at the start of the year. We had, um, Secretary of Education Patrick Tutweiler with us as our keynote.
003Um, and school opening was very smooth in terms of our PD days, the students coming in, the staff arriving. It's been great. Um the first order of business is our title one services coordinated job description. We had a very old um one and we're just updating it and I would just need a vote to accept the changes. So given that, may I have a motion to approve the update to the title one service coordinator job description? So moved. >> Second. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion passes and opposed. >> Next, um I'd like to call to the podium Mrs. Chaznate and Misspetto are AEES principles. Um they are going to be talking about multi-tered system of supports otherwise known as MTSS. Um and this is the focus
004of our of our school year. We're trying to really hone in um and strengthen those services. As you know, we had a reading specialist cut in our last round of cuts last year. So we're really making sure that we're very efficient in this whole process. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and school committee. This evening, we will be discussing the multi-tered system of support at elementary school. So, we're going to be going over the why and how of MTSS, the cycle, and some resources that are available to us, and of course, how it connects to your plan. So MTSS is a framework that makes sure all students gets what they get what they need. It's a combination of academic, social, emotional, and behavioral supports beginning from a core instruction at tier 1, moving from a supplemental instruction
005at tier 2, and finally intensive instruction at tier three, so that everyone can receive the supports that they need. So, we want to make sure as Dr. Bailey had just mentioned um given that we um unfortunately did um lose a reading interventionist that every student gets that correct support that they need. And we do that by starting off with benchmarking. Um that helps to identify those students that need a particular intervention. Um then we decide on what would be the best route to go to provide that specific intervention to those students and then there's progress monitoring involved throughout um at different variables. We have data meetings to help us decide who are the students that we want to target. We don't necessarily talk about every single student that might fall into that category of eligibility,
006but we do have teachers discussing data, looking at benchmarking, looking at progress monitoring, and seeing if their um interventions work. And we're working on tightening it up a little bit this year. So, how are we doing it over at AES? So we do we did have the addition of the math interventionist in 202425. We have the formation of the dyslexia action team with the dyslexia action plan that also brought some focused attention and ear to early identification and intervention. We had grant-f funed interventions such as high dosage tutoring and reading and math. We have improved data tracking systems by refining in-house systems to monitor student progress. This year, we're looking at professional development in early numerousy interventions and MTSS so that teachers really can understand what MTSS is. Families receive student benchmark reports three times
007a year. We're also building a database as well as as a storage system for materials so that teachers can access them. We're committed to researchbased practice and continuously seeking evidence-based instructional materials as well as staff training. And as Miss Chzn spoke, we have five day meetings with teachers in an individual manner, one-on-one so that we can discuss their specific data that of the students that are in front of them. >> Okay. And this slide is just basically a visual of what I was describing before with the benchmarking how then we decide on what the support is and progress monitoring to see if those um those supports are working and then we repeat that process. So MTSS for academic resources tier one is the core instruction. So it's the foundations, the wonders, these um the curriculum
008that you've been hearing from Mr. Roger all these years and vision envisions math. Tier two would be your supplemental and those are evidence-based instructional strategies along with resources selected that are based specifically on student needs, continuing to align them with the resources in the tier 1 core. Um, same thing with the tier three intensive and again they're evidence-based instructional strategies. Moving on to our social emotional tiers, um, social emotional learning tiers. We as you know um the elementary school got trained last year in responsive classroom and we are continuing to intensify our efforts by working together in our staff meetings in our CSTs to strengthen that core instruction which includes a daily morning meeting academic choice and other um take a break type of um interventions. We also have additional um little less intensive than
009say working with a school adjustment counselor, but individual behavior plans or sticker charts, things like that, agreements, additional modelings, you know, all of these coming out of that next level or tier with responsive classroom. And then of course our intensive would be that one-on-one um interaction with the school adjustment counselor whatever the services that your the students need. All of these align to the Aushnet public schools strategic plan with specifically achieving academic excellence for all students, implementing the consistent instructional model, aligning curriculum assessments, and more specifically MTSS is specifically articulated into our strategic plan. So, it's it's written right into that strategic plan as well as creating thriving social emotional experiences with uh supportive school environments, aligning resources, and finally strengthening community partnerships and in specifically with embedding parent participation. >> There any questions for
010us? >> Not a question, but just a comment. Um, I just like how it's all-encompassing everything. You know, in the district that I came from, it's like ELA is a push and that's the only thing they focused on. >> So, seeing it in all different areas is >> well, it makes a difference because if struggling social emotionally, then they're going to have such a hard time doing that. >> It's just really nice to see. So, thank you. >> Any other? >> Thank you, ladies. >> Okay. Um, next I want to talk about a backpack donation from W Care. And if you remember last year we had that organization show up at a school committee meeting. Um, they were unable to make it today, but I do have a picture of them delivering their backpacks from
011the summertime. Um they usually pack between 20 and 25 backpacks and they're stuffed and it's all they take all of our teachers list and they get exactly what the kids need and and we have families that was very appreciative. We're sending a thank you to them again. But I just wanted you to know that we continue that partnership um with why not a pair. Do you have any questions on that? No, but we certainly appreciate it and know that the families appreciate that. So, that's fantastic. >> Yeah, immensely. So, >> and then the last the last thing I have is um obviously tonight we're not going to talk about the high school tuition agreements, but since we have two members absent, I will be sending out some choices for dates for a workshop and we
012will discuss the high school tuition agreements at our next workshop and I'll be adding that to the schedule so that we can talk about I just would echo I think Dr. Bill and I spoke and thought just given um you know the importance and the magnitude probably best to have a workshop where we could have the dedicated session to having that as opposed to trying to fit it in a meeting when we have other things here. So it just gives us maybe a little bit uh more flexibility to have a lengthier discussion. So >> yeah, I think it'll be really helpful for putting together a more kind of like a cohesive plan moving forward that's well laid out and people know what to expect. totally a timeline I think and you know all those things
013because there's a lot even that has to happen once we make a decision in terms of negotiations and those kinds of things so kind of knowing what to expect and timing will be good >> sounds good >> and that's all I have for tonight >> um so do we um I know Mr. Mistler couldn't make the meeting that's great do we have um Mr. Katrina >> actually I just want to highlight from Mr. missile's report. He wanted me to thank all the staff and administration and also a special thank you to his tech team for continuing to do an outstanding job, especially at the start of the year. It was quite a heavy lift. >> Um he wanted everyone to know that we have a lot of families signing up for Chromebook insurance and it's
014been a great turnout this year. Um the window is still open until October 1st. So, I just want to encourage families if you haven't done so yet, please check out our website um to sign up. And with our security updates, um Mr. Mistell was hoping to roll out the vector single sign on um by the end of this month, but they've already completed it um with an automatic sync with our Aspen system. And again, it's just much more efficient with the edit valve system as well as tying that into Aspen. So, um, he continues to do great work in the district, >> but that is he's sorry he couldn't make it tonight. He had a family illness. So, >> yeah. Well, we certainly appreciate the efforts of all of the staff. Um, and know that
015for Patrick and his team, the technology at the start of a year is a big lift. So, we appreciate all the work that that that team is doing as well. So, thanks. >> Excellent. >> And ahead of schedule. >> Yes. >> Good as always. >> Yes. So, do we have business manager? Floor is yours. >> Good evening. Um, I have quite a few things on my list, so I'll kind of go quickly through them. Didn't want to take up entire night, but basically FY25 budget is closed. The town has closed out the budget and as we spoke before, as we're closing it out, you know, we balance off against, you know, trying to use up all of our grant funds and um all of our other sources of funds to our budget. In doing so,
016um, we had some turnbacks to the town that went back to them. Uh, basically, we had a sped supplement that was requested back beginning of the year that, um, due to changes in the year, we didn't need at all. So, that went back to them 186,000. Um, unused high school tuitions, there's agreement that whatever we don't use, we turn back on those. There was another 81,000. And then between personnel changes um, and some vacancies, we turned back another 190,000. So, we turned back quite a bit of money this year. to the town which eventually will become free cash um on the town side. So that um helps both of us out in the on the future budgets. The um now that that's done, I'll be working on the end of year report which is what
017Department of Ed requires from us. They want it by September 30th. It's a tough deadline to meet, but um we basically try and get all our data to them um in time that that basically explains all of our spending across all of our categories that they then use to compare us to all the other school districts in the state. So, working on that. Uh I created a what I call my FY26 budget monitoring tool. So, I have a tool that I go in and I look across the entire budget, look for any line items that are either close to being overspent or or or might be overspent. go and see if something maybe was was classified so that while the year is going, we can move it back and put it back in place where
018it should be and keep an eye on everyone's budget to make sure that we um go through the year without any issues. So, I do that on a monthly basis. Um grant update, we got pretty much the same amount of money as we did last year. I have a page on that that shows that we still get um the early childhood, the ECSE grant, the uh IDEIDA grant, which is our largest. That's for the special ed students, 307,000. Last year was 311. The year before that was 325. So, it goes up and down. They look at our population when they approve these grants. Um, title one uh we actually increased a little this year at 131,000 from 109. So, that helps us out um quite a bit for our students. And same thing with title
0192 and title 4. Uh they're roughly about the same amount of money. So, um we're doing well on the on the grants. The FY23 audit was completed finally by our outside audit firm of um Robert Brown Company. So there's 10 or 11 items on there that they they question all audit firms question why is this charge this account? Why you know about they suggest there should be moved from one account to another. So I'll respond to all of those. I actually um had a conversation with Patrick McIntyre since that was all from under him so he could um tell me why some of it was done. So that'll be um submitted shortly to them and department of ed. They're currently doing the FY24 budget. They're a little behind because they should be completed with it
020by now, but we just sent them off some more documents today on the FY24. So hopefully they'll get that underway and I don't anticipate any real um anything new material in the audit. Our books are pretty clean. The October one is coming up. That's where we'll see how we end up uh enrollment this year to enrollment last year. That'll, you know, plays on our funding on our uh student expenses. So, I'm monitoring that, making sure that hopefully uh we pick up every possible student we can and they're categorized correctly as to whether or not they're English language learner, whether they're low income, whether they're special ed because every one of those categories brings in more funds to the district. uh busing update. The um busing has started off well. It's continuing well. We're still doing
021a lot of work. We're getting a lot of calls um on people who are moving, asking if buses can come to their homes or not. And so Bonnie and my office have been working morning, noon, and night trying to get everyone um in a good place. She looks at the map. She sees where there's no sidewalks um where kids have to be picked up, but we're trying to make sure that everyone's safe at the same time, you know, keep the bus routes moving. So, um, there's been nothing that we haven't been able to solve to this point. Um, the boilers are both put all put back together and they're up and running. We're doing a little more maintenance, the one in the middle school, but they should have that done in probably another week. Um,
022but that went well. We had a repair that we did this summer, so that went well. So, that's looking good. The um the summer Yes. program, the the youth uh employment services where we received the students uh the students the the young kids from from the town. That was a great success for us. Um we we took everyone that would that they would give us the town paid for them which is great. Uh we had them clearing the the the walkways that lead to the soccer fields. They painted all the yellow curbing. They painted the white crosswalk lines. They even paid painted the uh elementary school office. Um, which was great cuz usually we'll go out to bid and have someone do that for us. They came to that. They did classroom moves. They did
023some grass cutting, some weeding, paper shredding. They cleared those big, what they called conx boxes, those big storage boxes we had. They were renting by the month. We went through, cleared them out, got rid of whatever was trash um, and consolidated and removed them from our property. So, we're not paying rent and they're not unsightly. The two that are left are ours. They belong to us. We're going to move them towards the back of the bus uh parking lot to get them out of kind of out of sight. Those become our permanent storage for things like the ride and lawn mower and things like that. Anything that's pretty much gasoline or whatnot, those will be put out there. So, that'll make the the campus look um nicer, better, we'll have, you know, the lawn growing
024in. Well, um fire inspections, the walkthrough of the buildings were completed by the chief. They come in on the 24th and I assume in the morning cuz they're going to basically set off the alarms and make sure the alarm panels are all working correctly. They'll do that while there's no students in the school. We don't anticipate any problem with that. That seems to be going well. The traffic lights out on the street, they're up and running. Uh we had some hiccups at the beginning, but Patrick must have stepped in and reprogram the program and it's working perfect now. But they go on at the right time. They blink and they tell the cars the speed as they're going by so that they know basically they need to slow it down to 20 mph. Um starting
025to research and learn about a 5-year capital plan that we're going to need. So I'll at some point be asking people for what they might think needs to be put on that. I'd like to put that together cuz I think that's something that we need to um literally present to the town and show them that um aside from needing, you know, some uh HBAC systems in the schools, we need other items. So, uh speaking of the HBAC system, there was a meeting with state delegation to try and help us to see what we can do for funding for those. They're uh all parties agreed and they're all interested in helping. They're all going to support the the situation. Um I myself and um um the chair of the finance committee um met with a contractor
026who built the school in Carver and went through and evaluated and says that the train proposal is actually pretty good. So now we're looking at how to move that forward. I spoke to the town's investment bankers uh on the project, gave them all the parameters. I give them some of my um input and they're now going to try and prepare for us a a funding schedule that we can afford that will work for us. So they know the town, they know the bonds we have outstanding so they can put something together that should hopefully work for us and that'll help us uh move the project forward. >> Aldo, not to interrupt you, but just curious, do you have an estimated timing of when you expect to get something back from them? >> Next week. >>
027Perfect. Thank you. >> I asked very quickly. So I also asked Train to update their numbers cuz their numbers are from a year ago. And if we're talking doing this project, it's another year from now. So they're talking about a 2-year lag. So and I asked the investment bankers to basically increase the amount we're talking about so that um if if they do it before I get the trained updated numbers, we'll at least be on the ballpark, have something move forward for the town to evaluate. Um the bid went out and the walkthrough was done for the water infiltration of the the gym closet, the elementary school. The bids are due tomorrow for that project. Uh at the same time as we open the bids, we'll take the lowest bidder and submit an article to
028the town. It'll come from myself or the superintendent requesting to be on the fall agenda and the amount of money we're going to need. Uh hoping the town approves it. I already talked to the contractor that I want to start immediately. So, if we can start I thought the time meeting would be early October, but looks like it's at the end of October. So, we'll be starting um probably if all goes well, the beginning of November. So, we'll push them to get it done by Thanksgiving because they said they need about two weeks to do it. So, I'm hoping the weather is still good at that point, but we should hopefully once and for all clear that problem up. >> Yeah. And I and I don't know this happened not that long ago to get
029support for that. So, I don't know that we've talked about that in the school committee meeting, but I think that um because the school did also return a fair amount of money this year that we were able to work with the town, I think to get alignment that we would fix the gym project. So, that's a positive thing. Hopefully, that's coming sooner rather than later. >> Correct. That's correct. From the money we try and they said that you're able to give it to us. So, um I think correcting that water problem will be a big improvement. Um along those same lines, um I've spoken to the facility staff here and we are going to go room by room through the elementary school and start ourselves on the interior looking at for you know the tiles
030that have a lot of damage, opening them up, taking a look, seeing what could possibly be leaking. Um if there anything we can do to repair it from within, if there's something that's um you know, if it's just a humidity issue, something we can correct and then put new ceiling towels back in. Uh in the same respect, um we have a company that's going to come and seal any leaks that we have on the exterior on the roof of the buildings. Uh they were evaluated a few months back and from their um from their photos, you can see areas that basically need patching. They need new glue. So they're going to come in, they're going to do that. We have them do both schools and the most of the elementary is under warranty. So anything
031under warranty we're not going to touch because we'll contact that contractor if necessary. Uh, the only thing I saw under the warranty was that there was some I don't know if it was some nails or fasteners coming back up through the roof, which probably isn't covered by the warranty, but we'll discuss that with them. But trying to make the the roofs watertight, make that closet, gym closet watertight, at least eliminate more water coming in. Then as we go classroom by classroom through the school, we should hopefully be able to um fix a lot of the the issues that people feel they have. And then if everything goes well with the train contract, um, we should be in great shape. And so, as I explained, we had a meeting with the with the state, with the
032town that went very well. And we have moved the refrigeration project for the cafeterias to the spring once school gets out. Been talking with the contractors on that. They're going to create quite a bit of dust. um when they open that up and we can't get a period of time where there's no school students having lunch. So we talked to them about moving it out to the spring. So basically I want to schedule it now for the day after school ends um for them to come out and they'll finish that project. Probably take them three or four weeks to do it. But it'll be great cuz we can move all the equipment out of there. They can come in and basically demolish what's there, bring everything in new. We can clean it, put everything back.
033Otherwise, we'd be looking at working at night, cleaning in the morning, working at night, cleaning. it's it's not a smart way to do the project. So, and finally, um uh every year like they have a breakfast count. Um we started out last year at this time serving about 300 breakfasts a day in the first 5 days, the first week of school. This year we had 552. Quite a bit in the breakfast. Same thing with the lunches. Um, I'm sorry. That was I'm sorry. Breakfast was 220 um last year in the middle school and 300 in the elementary. And those both went up to uh 552 and 325. So quite a bit. And the lunches we were at a,000 at the elementary school,92 went up to 1273. So we're up on the lunches. And the same
034thing with lunch in the middle school,85 to 1427. >> So increased quite a bit. And that's good for us because the more that we feed the students, the more government reimbursements that we get, the better the commodities we get, the larger the orders are. And the money that comes in that's profit allows us now to start replacing a lot of equipment that's in our our kitchens. They're 30, 40 years old, a lot of equipment. Um I know that before I came they replaced um many of the ovens but there are rice cookers, there are um all kinds of utensils in there so we can begin and replacing all that getting new equipment in there as we generate more funding through the food the lunch program. So we're hoping to again push that and get it
035even higher numbers. >> That's it. >> I I may have a couple questions and a comment and any um I just want to confirm. So for the FY23 audit findings, you there were 10 or 11 items. You're not anticipating any of those were material findings at this point. >> In terms of the boiler, cuz you talked about boiler repair. How old are those boilers? And do we have an assessment of of what do we anticipate as the life of those of those boilers? >> The builders were built in 1971. Um the boilers, I'm told, have about a 40year useful life. So, I don't know if they were ever upgraded or repaired since 1971, but the company that came in and looked at them, um, said to Jake, our facilities director, that they feel there's maybe
0362, 3, 4 years left them with the way we're running them. So, the HVAC project, if it comes in to fruition, the boilers would be used as a backup, which means they could probably go 10 more years at that rate if we we can go that route. Otherwise, um Jake asked one of the companies to give us a written evaluation on them. So, we're waiting for that to come through. So, um one will be what the life will be and if the tool will be what it cost to replace them cuz at least I know I looked at at the middle school. These boilers will fit out the double doors. The elementary school, I think they were built in the building before the boards. We have to cut open the wall probably to get them
037out. So, I'm hoping that we can extend their life and go with the the new HBAC system and the buildings, >> but but otherwise then I would imagine part of your 5-year capital plan would include how we're going to address that. Yes. When we're there. >> Exactly. It would. >> And I think it's going to be on the top of the list >> along with HVAC. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Here's my comment. And I saw that the police chief is um I think retiring, so we're going to have somebody new. I I suggest maybe we look at an upcoming meeting to have another conversation as we do most years about security >> and whether we need to have additional conversations with the with the police chief um you know with a new incoming police
038chief. But here's an observation I have about the traffic lights because there's a long run from one end to the other end. I don't have empirical data. I'm not sitting out there um monitoring speed with my gun. Um, but it feels like because you go through one side and it's a long run that people are going quite fast still there. So, I think it's something we need to look at addressing moving forward. That's my observation. >> Okay. I do have a meeting with the new chief. >> So, I will let him know that we can definitely plan an executive session with the school committee. Um, and I'm sure he'll be very open to that. >> I just done that. I did see them post over the last week. >> Yeah. And I it's I I'm
039sure they do. I I just because I happen to live close by, I think I observe it quite often. And even even myself sometimes because there's a long run, you have to be conscious of like you're still in the school zone and so I think it's something we need to look at. But >> thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um I know we're, you know, you're pretty early in the process of even assembling a 5-year capital plan. We know that the HBAC system and the boilers are going to be um items on there for sure. Are there any others that you anticipate at first glance including? >> Um nothing substantial. Um the roofs I mean I know one roof's brand new. This roof here I think from what I saw from photographs it
040looks pretty good but that might be on there as part of the 5year plan. The exterior of the buildings I didn't see any cracks. I walked around. I did see some um issues by the entrance of the middle school where it looks like the uh plaster on the exterior is falling off. So, it looks like water get in. There's some bubble type um lights on the roof there. Um panels and water must be infiltrating through there and causing it all to fall apart. So, that I think is a pretty good repair that's going to need to be done. >> Um aside from that, I mean the floor tiles look like they're in great shape in the buildings. the uh mechanicals. From what I've seen, I've done a couple of walkthroughs of the buildings. They look
041the buildings look like they're in pretty good shape. >> So hopefully it's just going to be those items that you know have useful life like >> the UNIV beds and the classrooms definitely so much for use for life, but the HAC system and that's a big repair that's done there, but even the parking lot seem to be in pretty good shape. So >> very good. Thank you. Uh are there any school committee member report? >> So uh there was some some communication and information there air quality report for August. Uh superintendent welcome back email AES newsletter FMS welcome back district newsletter. Any questions or comments on any of the communications? No. Okay. So there's no executive session tonight. I think that's it. Right. Well, no other item. So, as we mentioned, we will look for
042an opportunity to have a workshop here relative to the high school decision, but we will uh adjourn. Our next school committee meeting is on Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the FMS library. May I have a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? >> So, motion. >> Second. >> And we'll do a roll call. >> Mr. >> Yes. Okay. Thank you. [Music]