001[Music] good evening everyone all right welcome to the March 10th School Committee meeting we are going to start off with our official public hearing and then we will go into our regular meeting so I will do the Pledge of Allegiance now before we formally get started so can you rise thank you everyone for coming all right so our first order of business will be to hear have a public hearing on the FY 21 school department budget so I will hand it over to Mrs Flynn and dr. Bailey thank you mr. Oliver is that is it gonna show up on here okay okay so for the past three and a half months our staff has been having ongoing conversations and dialogue regarding the budget I along with Mrs Flynn the business manager has spoken to the
002principals and all department heads and the principals and department heads have spoken to people in their buildings or departments about what is needed in the budget so none of this budget I have to stress is ever done in isolation this is a team effort and everything that we're talking about tonight is aligned to our strategic plan so when we talk about certain needs in the district everything's aligned to the strategy that we discussed we've been discussing all year so the process as I said we asked all the stakeholders for their request and then the business manager and myself we meet with all the administrators including the principals and department heads to review their requests based on the needs and we ask questions they tell us their thoughts and then after that's finished we then go
003to the budget subcommittee and it's an opportunity for all of those administrators to present what their needs are to the budget subcommittee so it's a very similar process so right now our preliminary budget for next year is almost fifteen point five million dollars and that's an increase of over 800,000 over last year's budget for the first round were up five point six nine percent over FYI 20 and what this budget discusses is it maintains level services we are asking for three new full-time positions and one new part-time position which we will discuss as we get further in the presentation so the components of the budget is just another way to look at it you will see majority of the budget comprises of all the salaries that takes up 57% of the budget the tuition that's
00427 percent and then Student Services is 8 percent instruction 4 percent facilities 3 percent and administration 1 percent and this is very similar to how it looked last year there is no big difference there ok so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna break about the budget components that dr. Bailey just spoke of but before I do that I just want to you know review what you have in front of you you have a copy of the slides you also have the budget it's a yellow piece of paper you have the increases and decreases broken out of blue and you have the requested new positions as well as some of the capital requests that were asking that way you know what you're looking at okay so the first component of the budget the largest component
005as one would expect is our human resources so it's salary so this is all of the salaries of the people that are employed by a cushion public schools the next component is tuition and this is approximately 27 percent of our budget for 4.1 million dollars and this is tuitions to high school both special ed in regular edie and also to our out of district placements which are collaborative and private placements so in any school choice tuitions so Bristol Aggie New Bedford high in for Haven High would be our high schools and then also any school choice tuitions the third largest component is student services and in that part of the budget is the medical and health services the nursing department transportation the school buses of course any small amount for the intramural athletics and student
006activities and also our residency department the next component is instructional services for just under six hundred thousand and we're gonna get into this in more detail as we go along but this is just a big overview right now facilities is makes up 3% for four hundred and fifty five thousand and district administration makes up one percent for 128 thousand 175 and that's the School Committee the superintendent the business office legal and advertising okay so we're gonna take a look at each one of those components in more detail now so salaries make up the largest component of the budget by 2100 all the salaries total eight eight million eight hundred and thirty nine thousand eight hundred and ninety one dollars now we have a total staff of 1.1 hundred and forty two point two five FTE
007so what that means is there are some people who might work fifty percent some people work a point two or 0.8 but all told it's a hundred and forty two point two five FTE now in the budget with that we're talking about our operating budget we we pay for one hundred and twenty seven point oh five of those and then the remainder fifteen point two come from any grants and funds so we have a special education IDE a grant title one preschool revolving in school lunch revolving yes but you explain full-time equivalency so someone who works full-time say a teacher or an administrator year-round custodian they would have an FTE of one someone who works like a part-time secretary would have an FTE of sometimes point four maybe 0.5 the school lunch people have a
008smaller ft because they work a lesser amount of hours okay so thank you yep okay so and that is comprised of if we go through the salary's district leadership and administration and you can see how many is the FTE how many full-time equivalency make up that part of the budget and what the dollar amount assigned to it is so we go through district administration and leadership instructional leadership classroom teachers the bulk of course is our classroom teachers they make up the bulk of our employees and again from there we have 2.5 paid by grants and funds paid by a title 1 grant and also a priest the preschool revolving fund ok therapists so that would be our speech therapist and our OTS substitute teachers miss this expenses up slightly from last year we'll go through
009that a little bit as we get on but these this is to pay our substitutes for our teachers and Paras paraprofessionals six of them are paid by grants and funds the 240 grant and the preschool revolving fund we are budgeting 45.0 guidance and adjustment counselors one psychologist there's a small stipend for our attendants and residency officer medical and Health Services is our nursing staff in addition our contracted salary with the school physician food service we have 6.0 FTE but you see zero coming through from the local operating budget what that is is that entire program is supported by the school lunch revolving fund but yeah it's important when we have the total of our employees to recognize them Student Activity stipends these are stipends for any into after-school clubs athletics anything like that school security
010this is our school resource officer and also an amount budgeted for any details that we might have to pay the police department for example for graduation okay custodial and maintenance there are seven employees 7 FTE we have three custodians in each building for a total of six custodians all full-time in one facilities director okay so that rounds out salaries the second largest component is our tuitions to other schools a four million one hundred and sixty nine thousand two hundred and thirteen so you can see here for FY twenty-one we are budgeting for ten students at Bristol County Agricultural and that's the total tuition it's a very small tuition because there is an assessment to the town from the county so we just pay a small portion of it in our school department budget New Bedford
011High School we're anticipating twenty five students and that's a figure budgeted Fair Haven High two hundred and sixty students and school choice eighteen students now just a little bit of background on how we come up with the numbers of students and the amounts so the numbers of students we take however many students we have currently enrolled at the school's new bedford high in Fairhaven high in grades nine through eleven because we know they're gonna move up next year then we also work with the guidance staff here at ford middle school to see of all of our eighth graders where our eighth grade students are going new bedford high for Haven High Bristol Agee some may go to Bishop Stang some may go to Old Colony Old Colony isn't in the school department budget it's in
012the town's budget so that's why it's not we're not discussing it but so here we can see looking at next year's numbers like I said 25 at new bedford high and that's up quite a bit from the past few years Fairhaven high is 260 and school choices 18 students now school choice is usually a flat assessment from the state of five thousand per student but then some students may have a special education component to or some other component that changes their fee a little bit so right now all told we are budgeting for three hundred and thirteen students to be at these high school placements and school choice it could be elementary or middle as well it's not just high school okay out of district tuition this is our special education tuition collaborative tuitions are
013total six hundred and eighty three thousand eight hundred eighty-four next year private tuitions 214 thousand three hundred and forty two now that's offset by a circuit breaker revenue carryover so what that is is you know you may have heard me discuss this in previous years is it's a reimbursement for the state for costs in excess of the foundation that they will assess you know the the number that they come up with anything above that the state will reimburse for eligible special education costs roughly between seventy and seventy five percent so for example if the foundation it hovers right around forty five if you have a special ed cost of fifty thousand for our student you would get reimbursed at seventy five percent of five thousand so that money comes to us after the special education
014department files a claim for it it comes to as the following year and we can carry over up one full year and that's what allows us to know how much to put in the budget because this is this is certain funds that the state has already said this is what you're getting and we use it to offset what we need for for tuition you can see we didn't budget anything to use out of the special ed revolving fund because right now we don't anticipate needing to use it however as we go down the road in the budget process if we need to balance the budget or get to a certain number and we there's nothing else that we can really move around we could tap into that special ed revolving fund but that's as you
015as you know a rainy day savings account that you try not to use but it's there last year we had budgeted I believe fifty thousand but this year right now we're not budgeting anything okay so you can see the graph here is just our out of district special education tuitions for the past ten years and as you can see you know it's it's gone down it's gone up a little bit gone down and it's pretty much holding holding steady and it went down a little bit from last year this is a figure that changes it can change greatly based on the impact of move-ins move out to private placement so this is just you know shows how much variation there is in this budget figure and that brings us to our third largest component in
016the budget which is Student Services and we are at 1 million three hundred four thousand six hundred ninety five dollars and what that consists of is attendance and residency a small amount there for travel reimbursement for our residency Officer the medical health services that's our nursing office supplies so that's $3,000 that's budgeted our athletics student activities in food service seven thousand dollars and this is really the budgeted amount that we put aside for contract services and supplies for our athletes for the athletic program it could be referees buses any supplies that are needed and then a small amount for food service and then student transportation which is almost 1.3 million and then student transportation we're going to break that down because that's quite a large number almost 1.3 million the regular day bus which is
017over just over six hundred fifty thousand dollars that's our big yellow buses that arrive here each and every day special education that's our out of district transportation the placement transportation and as we've talked about in the past we always try to cost share when we can I believe right now we are cost sharing with Fair Haven so if we have a student who goes to the same placement we split the cost of the bus so we try to do that whenever possible mckinney-vento Vento that is our homeless that's for homeless students and we set aside $34,000 for that currently I don't believe we have any this year but that could change at any moment's notice same thing with foster students this year I believe we had one foster transportation and in the past though we
018didn't track that whereas we've been tracking on mckinney-vento so just to go back to mckinney-vento the last three years we've been spending around forty four thousand twelve thousand and thirty oh just over thirty five thousand so that's why that 34 is in there from McKinney Vento just in case foster foster care lasya transportation just below $16,000 so we've we've put in $14,000 and then the late bus is our two days a week at Ford middle school late bus we have two buses and that's for the majority of the school year at Ford middle ok instructional services that this is our fourth largest component in the budget five hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred nineteen dollars so the first line is school leadership when we break that down and that is the expenses in the principal's
019accounts that the office supplies this includes the elementary school the middle school special education department any dues and subscriptions for any of those departments the next one is therapeutic services which is physical therapy our applied behavioral analysis analysts position but that those are contracted services that include PT ot speech and ABA professional development this is again for the district AES FMS special education any tuition reimbursements PD consultants conferences any travel reimbursements textbooks I think that one's pretty self-explanatory instructional equipment that is if teachers or principals feel they need special equipment I know we recently ordered kidney-shaped tables risers for the music program last year we ordered science lab tables that were needed student desks things like that library books supplies and publications that's a very small amount typically any replacements for library books and we
020just felt like we're we didn't have someone at this point on staff in the library we would wait to get some direction if we can get a person ok general classroom supplies as again for the whole district that is basically the glue sticks the pencils the crayons the rulers the the notebooks in all departments instructional technology that could be things like computer replacements supplies batteries cords things like that guidance supplies again a small amount for what they need in their office and psychological services that is testing we are now moving to an online component for psychological testing we're going to talk more about that as the presentation goes on but the reason why this is so high this year is because of the the Wyatt testing startup for the online component that we want to
021do but our psychologist will be doing this in-house so it's definitely worth it to do it in this way and we'll talk more about that in a few minutes and one thing to add to the instructional technology it also includes our internet access oh yeah in any of our contract services for any of our licenses for all the software any outsourcing of any networking that we need any sometimes if we need to call in vertical which oversees the phones things like that so that's included in that so that's kind of a big number so but it's um you know there's a lot of expenses to that especially you know the internet access and then all the contract services for fall repairs the next one facilities maintenance I'll let Mrs Flynn take over from here okay
022so this is our fifth largest component at four hundred and fifty five thousand one hundred and eighty seven and in here and again these are all operating expenses these are exclusive of salaries so these are all your operating expenses custodial services which would be supplies custodial supplies and services 51,000 heating of buildings to the oil for both buildings 130 mm utility services which would be electricity propane water and telephone and also maintenance that would be any of the maintenance supplies any of the maintenance services like the generator service a fire sprinkler tests the the fire extinguishers anything like that that we have a specialized company come in to do any preventative maintenance or check on that so that's that's what you see in that budget hay district administration this is the smallest component at one
023hundred twenty eight thousand one hundred seventy five the first how that breaks down is the first section is school committee and that's twelve thousand dollars this includes our mas C policies as you remember we signed on for three years to update all of our policies through mas C so we pay for a portion of that for three years so we will now be in year two mas C dues for our school committee conferences for school committee members that's what that line is superintendent's office that's office supplies conferences travel Jews such as mas s the enca program the new superintendent's induction program that again is a three year program at around ten thousand dollars and next year we have it budgeted for 3900 I'm sorry that's for a year three yeah that will be next I
024can't believe I've been here for three years next year Wow how did that happen okay and then conferences you know the same type of thing curriculum and consulting just almost $27,000 and that's we're using consulting services of teaches 21 right now that agency is working with Floyd Middle School on response to intervention we also have utilized dr. Roy she's done things like the curriculum audit some trainings I'm working with staff consulting our business office similar to the superintendent's office office supplies travel conferences registration Jews such as Maz Bo the audit that's required amount for our end-of-the-year report and legal we kept that level funded so those the fees for legal right now so it's just over fifty six thousand dollars okay so that's an overview of all of the major component Eyre school budget broken
025down by components the next part of the presentation is we're going to talk about how those have changed like what has what has changed from last year to this year what makes up that eight hundred and almost thirty five thousand dollar increase because that sounds like a big number it really does so we're gonna break it down you can follow along on the slides and also you can reference the sheet that has the blue highlights okay so the increase and we're gonna go through each component salaries tuition transportation facilities professional development supplies utilities and contracted services so we'll go through all those ok the budget adjustments for salary increases we are looking at four hundred eighty three thousand nine hundred eighty six dollars and obviously this includes fixed costs such as the step increases in
026the salary increases per the contracts so that's that first line and then I'm going to talk about some new positions that the principals and department heads brought forth that we've been talking about that are aligned with our district strategy so the first one is a library media specialist and this proposed position is to be shared as you recall last year a library para was eliminated with the plan of adding a certified librarian librarian media media specialists and again this is to help our students with 21st century skills research everything that this person would do would be aligned with the core subject areas with our classrooms and we have the space in both buildings knowing that a lot of our supplies in the rooms are outdated but until we get a person on we would then
027look to that person's expertise and recommendations but we definitely want to add more of 21st century skills with that position the second one is a reading specialist this was requested by the Ford middle school staff principal and this is because right now we have a very strong structure put in place at the elementary school where we have interventionists where students who are challenged or struggling with reading they have people there to service our children and the infrastructure at the middle school is not set up for that at this time and the data is showing us that we have many children many students at the middle school level who are not reading at grade level and just to give you an idea 37% of our 5th graders are reading below grade level these are current statistics
02855% of our sixth graders are reading below grade level seventh grades seventy-two percent of our students are reading below grade level and eighth grade sixty-two percent of students are currently reading below grade level when you get to middle school they're really reading to learn and if these students are struggling to read to know how to read we just feel strongly that a reading specialist is needed to work with those students who are still behind with their reading skills the next one is a special education teacher and that was put forth by our director of student services and that's always these positions are always based on the number of students as well as the caseload of our teachers and at this time for next year based on the projections she feels that we need one additional
029special education teacher to be shared between the elementary and middle school so again that one is very important as well because that's based on the students in front of us projected for next year the next one is a part-time maintenance craftsman this this will be partially to offset will be offset by the building red fees and just to let you know in two weeks we do have a scheduled meeting to discuss this further with with all parties the next one is school instructional leadership stipends this is the school instructional leadership team that has been established at the Ford middle school and these are stipends for teachers who are working together to really lead the RTI which is response to intervention efforts and again we have this structure at the elementary school we do not have
030the structure at the middle school so it's going to take us some time to get that into place so these teachers will be working monthly with the principals as well as the teachers 21 consultant and then the director of cable and School Department media that's a focus on the educational programming training teaching staff working with teachers and students to produce projects such as videos if they were working on something and they wanted to make a video and they would just serve as the operational director for the TV studio as well as the town cable operations and this would be a shared cost with the town so that rounds out all the salary increases again it's just under five hundred thousand and it's broken up into pretty much almost 5050 between any step in contractual increases
031and any new positions that were asking for so the next largest increase is in tuition high school tuition increase was two hundred and forty nine thousand eight hundred and sixty-four now this is a factor of that number of students increased we have more students that will be in grades nine to twelve next year than we have this year and there's also an increase in the tuitions to our high schools New Bedford tuition went down slightly fair haven highs tuition went up so how we come about for the tuition fees we have agreements with both schools that state you know a number of items one of which is what is charged for tuition and they both run on the same formula that's based on the school choice increment that's publicized by the state so we take
032that increment they assign a school choice figure that's the baseline and per the formulas that we've negotiated with each school it's multiplied by nine percent to to factor in that it's now a high school tuition the difference between a elementary secondary into high school and then in Fairhaven it's multiplied its multiplied by 1.0 3% as part of the agreement that we had in Fairhaven several years ago that stabilized the tuition so it's a declining you know increase percent increase so that's how that works so this year and so again the tuition is first based on a baseline from the state fair havens went up it's a calculation new Bedford's went down the Moke the bulk of our students are at Fair Haven so part of this two hundred and fifty thousand dollar increase is reflective
033of this two hundred and sixty students times a I think just under $300 per student increase so that adds up fast and then we also have more students and then that also includes any special education high school tuition so some students receive special education services in their high school placements and that might vary based on their needs so some students receive a little bit extra some students depending on their needs receive more so the average tuition is right around ten thousand dollars for each school but then the special education might go up to twenty thousand depending on their needs so that's how high school tuition works we also have a decrease in school choice tuition again we had three less students and that's a factor of it's a five thousand dollar assessment from the state
034and then there may be some additional costs based on any additional services that the student receives we had a decrease in our out of district special education tuition so the first part we're going to take the second line down is a collaborative tuition decrease so the amount that mrs. Betancourt is projecting for collaborative tuition for next year decreased and these are our students that go to placements in the smack programs reads program South Coast programs okay some of those programs take place in our buildings some take place in other schools in around the county there's also a private tuition increase so we have some students attending private placements so that increased and then you can see I'll take the first part which is a circuit breaker revenue increase so circuit breaker as we mentioned is
035reimbursement from the state and it's based on your costs so this year we know that we're going to get fifty thousand three hundred and seventy one dollars more in revenue from the state so that's a good thing but really it's based on the fact that our costs went up so as our costs go up our revenue goes up but that offsets our total tuition in the budget and then we also last year we had a fifty thousand dollar use of the special ed revolving fund this year we're using zero so that's part of the whole change from last year to this year so all told special education out of district tuition is decreasing by fifty seven thousand five hundred and fifty three dollars can I ask a question um there's no fluff in these numbers
036correct so for an example if there's a student who's in school choice but then transfers over to Fair Haven High in the middle of the year we have the adjustment and then we have to come up with out of our budget correct or vice versa so they've told guidance I'm interested in going to Old Colony that number is assessed to the town it's not in our budget now they've decided they want to go to Fair Haven and from putting four kids through the district I know how many of my kids friends were like oh I'm going to this school and then I'm like wait they in the Nocona that's cool that most certainly can and does happen so you know and we we work with the high schools to figure out okay you know who
037is this student have they proven residency number one when we get the roster from free Haven and New Bedford I work with our residency officer to make sure that she has that they all have proven residency and then number two why are they on our enrollment if they're not coming out of eighth grade into ninth grade are they a move in are they moving from Old Colony to Fairhaven as you said mrs. too far so if students that change from Old Colony to Fair Haven High we would have budgeted zero for those students say they're in ninth grade right now all of a sudden over the summer they decide I'm gonna go to Fair Haven High so now we've already set the budget that's a $10,000 roundabout hit to us same thing for a school
038choice not as bad because it's $5,000 that we would have budgeted for them but now if they decide to go from say Orr or Dartmouth or Freetown Lakeville Berkeley that's where we have a lot of our students all those schools they're from I think primarily old Rochester if they decide they're gonna come back - to Fair Haven High or New Bedford High then that's also a hit for us as well so we budget for what we know now but that can and does change and for anyone who attends these presentations throughout the year you know that's one of the things that I'm constantly talking about is how that number fluctuates right so there's no padding of the budget with adding kids we it's just what we know at this point in time and it could
039change next month and the following month right and that's a part that I've always felt was a little unfair to the school department because we're going to the town and we're fighting with the town for you know what we can get and then we find out okay you know three students moved into town or in they're in eighth grade I mean we can't you know a families move in all the time they may have an eighth grader who moves who moves in over the summer and then we have to find that money within the budget somewhere to pay for that student and if that you know if a student changes from old colony which would have been town assessed and now it's going to be on the school department again we have to find that
040money in our budget and especially if they're you know you know it's but you know they have special you know special services that they need so the trader has been very supportive and we keep constant communication on those types of situations with last year when we had several move in I know that Mrs Flynn and myself were constantly meeting with the town administrator about the situation and really just working together to get get us to where we needed to be with the budget so that's what I anticipate would happen moving forward if that situation happens Mrs Flynn does an excellent job I'm hiding the money when she needs to it's just so it's always it's it's hard from a you know from a person who does my own budget it would be really nice if
041we could afford to at least add two extra story but I know we don't have the extra money to do that but it just physically would seem appropriate Bob okay thank you okay so our next budget adjustment comes in smooth transportation so transportation changed it increased by a hundred and one thousand three hundred and eighty two so that's broken up by the regular day which we call the big yellow bus and that includes the late bus so last year if you recall we had to take the late bus out of the budget to balance the budget and so this year we were able to add it back because of some anticipated savings in some special ed costs that we didn't know that we knew about pretty much in September and October when some placements had
042changed so we were able to bring the late bus back and so we'd like to keep it for next year so it's currently in the budget as it stands for two buses two days a week and the two buses one cover is the north part of the town and one covers the south part of the town you know you may see something think those buses are somewhat busy sometimes but if they were to go on one bus it would increase the the time on the bus for the students so we try to keep that as as you know short as possible but that's something that we may have to look at you know in the coming weeks and months but right now the late bus is in the budget and then there break that the
043other part of that increase for regular day is just simply the increase in our transportation contract that's a fixed cost step we know will not change special education this has gone up and this is based on our out-of-district roots that we have if a student attends an out of district district placement we have to get them there and sometimes these are all these are always through we don't own our own vehicle so this is always who are contracted out with the small of the end service and sometimes where we can we'll have a several students on the van if they're going to the same placement sometimes it's just not possible and then again as dr. Bailey said we try to share with other school districts where we can I know right now as she mentioned
044we are sharing with Fair Haven in the past we've had cost shares with at one time Dartmouth Marion I believe Somerset so we share where we can sometimes it doesn't always work out for our timing or student needs but we do our best because these routes are expensive they are upwards of 200 to 250 dollars per route per day so over 180 days for one route you can imagine how much that cost is so that's that's that portion of our budget okay other budget adjustments so the rest of it that comes up is just these ones here that you see facilities is increasing by 44,000 and these again this is operating expenses so how we came up with this increases seems like kind of a lot right but we took a look at what we're
045actually spending for equipment repair parts any facilities custodial supplies anything like that over the past three years and we found that every year we don't ever have enough budgeted because it's always the first thing that we have to cut when we have to cut our budget so in this round of the budget this is reflective of our actual expenditures over an average of the past three years so we're trying to get it to where it should be and so when you see some of these increases like that that's what we're trying to do we're trying to get the budget reflective of what we're actually spending sometimes it doesn't always pan out and we have to cut it to balance the budget when we get closer to town meeting but this is our first draft so
046we are increasing it to where it should be professional development that is increasing so these are conferences and seminars for the central office for the elementary school including administrators and teachers Ford middle school same thing student services this is dues and subscriptions for anything that you know that you would belong to for example for myself the mass Association of School Business officials the mass Association of people transport so things like that are included travel reimbursement and also any person PD consultants as dr. Bailey mentioned teachers 21 dr. Roy anybody that we might have come in to do professional development on one of our PD days so that's what makes up that increase for the professional development supplies that's just increases in any of our supplies that the principals directors have asked for and the offices
047so that could be anything from general classroom supplies to office supplies to nursing supplies any any supplies other than safe facilities would go there small increase in utilities again that one is based on what we've actually been expending I think I increased propane and water because we noticed that we had been spending more and those over now over the past three years and finally a decrease in contract services and this is a result of the fact that we are going we anticipate contracting out less for psychological services were able to do that in-house so that so that decrease is reflective here so that offsets the other increases so that's you know a summary of all of our budget adjustments mostly increases offset by you know a decrease and this is our entire budget by cost
048Center it's just another way to look at everything we've been talking about tonight you'll see that the elementary school and Ford middle school are pretty similar they take up you know similar amount in the budget 23% at the elementary school 20% at Floyd middle school central administration consists of this super into it's office the business office the School Committee that's 3% the district that's mostly technology transportation tuition health services our school resource officer a residency officer director of curriculum instruction and assessment the teacher salaries tuition reimbursements guidance counselor's the guidance counselor position that's shared at Fair Haven High School so that takes up 28% and the special education that is 26% and that's the high school tuitions for the special ed component of the tuitions also the private and collaborative tuitions contracted services Trent special
049education transportation Paris conferences for special education teachers special education class supplies psychologists the testing supplies so anything that's in special education is in that portion of the budget and this is just another way to look at it by the numbers so this summarizes how we got to our fifteen point four million dollar budget and the breakdown with central office the elementary school the middle school and special education in the district okay so this slide shows our budget from 2011 all through all through 2021 the dollar figure and the amount that it increased or decreased in in one year you can see in the percentage increase so you can see it goes from from 2010 to 2011 we had a 0% increase 2012 it actually went down by 0.36 percent started to come up a tiny
050bit in 2013-2014 we had a two point three eight percent increase 2015 a three point six two percent increase 2016 two point three eight 17 was very small increase of 0.7 to 2018 three point one eight 2019 2.49 2020 we had a three point two oh five percent and this year at the budget that we just discussed represents a five point six nine percent increase so that's just kind of a history of where what our budget has done over the years just to clarify that's not in 2018 1920 all those years that's not where we started right now correct that's that was where we landed so now we're asking so I remember last year it was around four point seven five right we landed at that three we realized that five point six percent right
051now is where we're starting okay you know this is people to know this is what we need this is the needs expressed by all of the stakeholders within the district and we will push for what we can get but we also understand that we have to work with the town to come up with what we can come up with what we can fiscally afford in the town so this is our first go at it we will be presenting this tomorrow evening at the joint meeting of the Finance Committee the Board of Selectmen as well as the School Committee but yeah this is where we're at right now I wish left it's not the final right if money wasn't an issue in the town this is the what we would want and I do want to
052add that when we talked about the needs there are many more needs when principals and department heads had many things on their list but we really did sit down and prioritize what we believe are the priorities in the district so this this percentage could actually be much higher but we're also being realistic so we asked them you know what do you need to do to improve your school so as dr. Bailey said you know it could be much higher but these are the things that you know somewhat realistically that we all came up with and as she said the list could go on and on okay so a little bit about how the budget is funded chapter 70 is the state aid to schools and every year a cushion is scheduled every school depart every
053city in town is scheduled to receive a certain amount from the state aid and it's based on a very complicated formula so a cushion it is scheduled to receive six million four hundred thousand two hundred and fifty two dollars and FY 21 and as in many many years past our increase is the minimum $30 per pupil increase so the increase from last year to this year from the state is thirty eight thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars so it's a little bit but it's not it's not a lot and I just want to add that when we get into the budget tonight we will be talking about the student Opportunity Act plan that coincides with this chapter 70 aid we have to now show the state how we are spending that additional thirty eight thousand
054seven hundred sixty dollars and have a three year plan which again was not done in isolation we met with department heads and again they know what their teachers are doing so we think it's realistic for us to continue and it's not a lot of money that we're receiving compared to many of these other big districts that are getting millions of dollars extra so I just wanted to let you know that you'll be hearing about that tonight as well so for our 15 million four hundred and ninety seven thousand eighty dollar budget 41.3% is funded by the state by that 6.4 million that we just talked about so what the town contribution if this budget stands would be nine million ninety six thousand eight hundred and twenty eight roughly fifty nine percent of the budget so
055this has varied over the years but unfortunately as in most school districts the budget has grown more than state has of now we're starting to see you know a big divergence between the state aid and the town contribution when I first started here it was roughly 50/50 but unfortunately as you know all educators know the the state aid the foundation budget just has not kept up with the actual cost to run district and so some schools have received more aid but these are your bigger urban districts so according to the steam formula a cushion is already receiving from them what more than what they believe based on the formula we need to run our district and it's just you know we're in the same boat as many other districts and it just simply isn't adequate
056but that's again you know how it breaks up I think this is kind of important because 15 million five hundred sounds like a lot of money for the town of a cush net but there is some relief from the state you know not as much as we like but we're not floating the whole cost either from that so that's why we include that ok the next section is capital requests and like last year we are putting forth requests in the amount of four hundred eighty four thousand nine hundred dollars and this is separate from the budget this is separate and on top of so we're asking for the 15 million dollar budget but then also asking for some funds for all of these special projects can I ask one quick question to go back to
057that last slide so that I'm not confusing to anyone when we're at town meaning and someone will say your level service you're above level service funding or there there's always that so hope that someone was spending and that school spending is what the state says that's the district has to expend in order to provide an adequate education and that's again based on a formula that hasn't kept up with real economic indicator such as the cost of you know and everything's included even though we don't pay for in our budget still attributed and comes into play health insurance for employees so the the the money that's in the formula for health insurance hasn't kept up with actual health insurance costs similar to some special education costs or as costs for PLL students or other students so
058sometimes that is said that well we're above net schools but again net school spending is what the state says the minimum you need to spend you have to spend because we repor our budget what we spent back out to the state after it's done and if we're below net school spending then we're in trouble so but it's the minimum you must spend to have an adequate education and I don't think anyone here agrees that adequate is what we're striving for right right okay thank you so back to the Capitol request this is roughly around the same amount that we requested last year we did meet with staff to prioritize our list out of that entire list we have four on here that are very high priority being the curriculum upgrade Wi-Fi in the district which
059I'll talk about in a minute replacing the gymnasium in cafeteria wall at Floyd middle school and the preventative maintenance of the roof everything else is very important as well and this list could have gone on and on and we took some things off for example last year we talked about every year having a 25 thousand dollar capital improvement for technology we decided to take that one off knowing that we were asking for Chromebook carts at the elementary school but it it was just prioritizing the needs of the district so curriculum goes along with our strategy we are in the process of hiring a curriculum director and all of our curriculum basically in the district is outdated so we know as we adopt new curriculum programs they're very expensive they have a software component to them
060usually but we know that money will go quickly so this is adding on to what we had applied for last year so that's very important upgrading the Wi-Fi and I'm going to skip around a little bit because I know Mrs Flynn wants to talk about some some of hers but upgrading the district Wi-Fi very very important it's really inappropriate for us to have students sitting on a floor in a hallway and that has happened once or twice to get a Wi-Fi signal we need to have access - Wi-Fi in all of our classrooms strong signals this is what we use each and every day that is a very high-priority Chromebook carts oh no I don't want to talk about that when I want to talk about I'll let mrs. Flint talk about the wall and
061then the roof and then we'll get into the other ones because I really want to highlight these four first before we talk about the other ones okay so the next thing that we really have a high priority on is our roof preventive maintenance and so as you know we've discussed over the past year or so we are going to be replacing a portion of our elementary school roof the oldest section through the math school building Authority we're in the plan right now so we are but in the meantime leaks do pop up we just had one over the past weekend so we need to address those leaks so we still need some money to address any leaks that pop up before we can get our roof replaced and also in any other areas of the
062newer sections of the roof so that's a continuing article from last year to this year as is the curriculum you know some of these things were going to just because they're so important and needed we're gonna ask for every year and again last year when we asked for some of these funds the town was very supportive of our requests but sometimes it's everything is just not possible so you might see by the time this comes to the end to town meeting that these numbers may change a little bit so that's the roof preventative maintenance last year we also asked for some funds to replace the FMS wall between the cafeteria and the gym it's in bad shape it's a little dingy it's ripped it's going on 20 years old it gets a lot of use
063and you know it's just more difficult for our staff to open and close it as needed so we had put in an article last year to replace this unfortunately it's a cement it's a big large wall it's mechanical it's gonna be electronically controlled it is a lot of money the quote we received last year was 880 thousand dollars so we've increased that slightly just in case the cost has gone up this year so that's one of our higher priorities as well so I talked about the district Wi-Fi the Chromebook carts we're having a lot of success with using Chromebook carts at the middle school and many of our teachers would like them to utilize at the elementary school a lot of the instruction now uses technology so we're going to try for grades K through
064three understanding that that might be something that may need to be modified depending on how many we can get through but we would start with the upper grades first okay so last year we replace the roof top condensers of the elementary school that cool that run our coolers and freezers for the cafeteria so we would like to continue with that this year at Florida middle school they're approximately ten thousand dollars each and we are looking to do three at the Ford middle school this year so that's the rooftop condensers and again you know we find if we're not going to replace those than the cost the repairs that are needed that come throughout the year for that equipment goes up so it's you know you either pay to repair it or you pay to replace
065it driveway repair this is an ongoing article that we are looking forward to continue to do any ceiling and replacement of the of the roadways in the parking lots in the district we have some funds from last year that we hope this spring we're going to continue on with repaving the area behind for in Middle School where the central offices as you come around the corner near the buses and go all the way up to where the sewer pump station is and then if there's anything left over we'll do some crack sealing and potholes and so we would continue on with that as much as we could next year for the driveway repair we would also are seeking to upgrade some of our security cameras some of our analog cameras to digital cameras so that's
066some funds in that for that we also are looking to install dark fiber from our buildings here on middle road all the way down to the police station in EMS so that'll help out with several town departments including the library the police and fire and EMS departments so that is something that we're looking to do perhaps in collaboration with some town departments last year we replace some tile in some classrooms at the elementary school I believe we did three classrooms and there's many more that can be done so we put in a small amount to replace tiles and classrooms there the tiles are starting to lift up so to continue on with that and maybe do some carpet replacements the carpets in the main office especially here at the middle school are in pretty bad
067shape so we put in some funds for that now you see $31,000 coming off the top and those are funds that from previous articles from previous years that we haven't fully expended and we know we're not going to fully expend so for example two years ago we had put in an article for some restroom repairs at the elementary school for 20,000 it turned out we didn't have to use that so that's just sitting there right now unfortunately it's so specific that we can't use it for anything but that but we're saying you know we're not going to use that so can we put it towards other things and the other part that makes that up is we had asked for funds for the AES condensers and when the quotes came in they came in a
068lot less than we anticipated so there's some money left over there so we're hoping to again reappropriation this fear and finally this will be the third year in a row I believe that we are funding or seeking to fund the special education Stabilization Fund and I talked about a little bit earlier but what that is is it's basically a savings account for unexpected special education costs so say for example we don't budget for a student who moves into town that we are responsible for that now has a very costly private placement now what are we gonna do we don't we can't you know put money together from the budget it's just too much money we have this fund that we would have to that we could go to it would require approval of the Board
069of Selectmen and the School Committee to to access but it's there for unexpected cost so it's a good practice to try to keep adding to that as we go along so those are our capital requests and again those are separate and in addition to the local budget so I believe that concludes our discussion of the budget I don't have the committee members have any questions we can certainly take them I have just two really quick um one are we taking all of our and all of our state testing is done online now okay and regarding the roof maintenance you had mentioned that we're still in the process though right so we're not it's not even though we're gonna do the you need the maintenance money it's not a hundred percent yet they were gonna be
070able to do the roof so that will be above and beyond like the Capitol request so it'd be an actual separate so with the roof we are in the what they call the pipeline for our project to be approved from the maskel Building Authority we have been in the process for a year now and the next hurdle the next step is to get approval from the board the maskel Building Authority board at an upcoming meeting and prior to that we need to have submit submitted the schematic design package and that right now is in the hands of the architect and the owners project manager we recently signed contracts with them through the town so once they come up with all the required documents they will submit it to the MSBA and then we will be
071put on the next board meeting for approval for the project you know I would anticipate approval we've made it this far so as long as we have the town support and we have the documents in I would think that we would be approved for reimbursement under this program and under the program you have two years to complete construction so even if we don't do it this summer if we're to if we cannot get everything in by the summertime then including appropriation of funds notwithstanding schematic design appropriation bidding and all that then we have next summer to complete it as well so right now I would say that it's more likely that construction on the roof will be done next summer and not this summer so when do they need to know if out if if
072the town because if the town doesn't vote to pass our portion of it then it's a null and void right that we don't get the money from MSP a they they want to know that we're that the town is supporting their portion of the project so is that does that have to be put onto this Town Meeting it it would be helpful if it does if it could will we make it right so that's what we need we need the we need a figure from the architect okay so that's so we need a cost estimate and how much this project is going to cost and then we could put it on the Town Meeting warrant we still have a little bit of time the most but if not then it would have to be appropriated
073a separate meeting okay so okay or if the town would consider appropriating it in advance of MSBA approval so we're working with the town administrator on that as well okay what's the deadline for the articles the deadline for the articles is I don't have that here oh I believe Oh No today but we leave given the Articles that we have to the Town Administrator we've discussed it with her I believe when dr. Bailey spoke with her they said that they would be coming up with the wording as they have in years past so they're aware of what of all these requests that were asking for and we'll be discussing this tomorrow at the joint meeting as well if we potentially have a fall town meeting like let's say they put that back on the books
074and we do have the schematics in the amount for the roof then we could potentially go to town meeting in the fall that would be I would prefer to either if we can't do it this spring to do it in the fall because really if we did it this spring and got approved at Tom meeting on May 11th to then turn around go out to bid select a vendor do all the required advertising the time that you have to have the bid out the selection of the contractor and have that ready to go by what June 15th would be the first day it's a quick quick turnaround for a large complicated project so did you say that we have two years we do we do so if it doesn't work out for this summer which
075it probably will not mm-hmm we if we can get it appropriated either this town meeting or next or perhaps if there is a fall down meaning that would give us plenty of time over the winter and early spring to do to do the proper bidding and all of that well let's say there's not a fall meaning and then we're waiting for next spring all right be in that same it would be in that same no I wonder if we're I don't know where the discussions will go with the town but if the discussions go with the town where it's like well we can put it on this spring but not do the project until the summer they would give you all year and get my fear is that we don't we don't have a Fall
076Meeting and now we're waiting so next I'm meeting which is kind of a quick turnaround for you know we really need okay and then a fall town meeting would be I mean in for us I believe it would be preferable I don't know what's involved in that for the town but for us it would certainly be what we would prefer or you know a Spring Town Meeting which is not preferable I just remember being at town mean last year and we were talking about leaks and buckets and disruptions to the kids and I think when you're not thinking about those issues it's easy to forget that our roof is really the roof that section that we're repairing is I believe 40 years old more than that actually so it's original to the elementary school and
077projects are funded by the state more than 20 years old for roofs so the newer section this roof here and next door it's not quite there yeah but certainly we couldn't wait for the older section of the roof so it's held up well for its age it's just really starting to show its age right now well what was the last conversation that we had with the architects and all that right now there are just the last correspondence I had with them was probably in the last week or two and they're just completing the the design the schematic design the design of the roof deadline first I don't have a date yet what was unfortunate I'm meeting they're coming next week actually to do another site visit so we'll be with them next week during the
078day and so but what really unfortunately was a delay was getting those contracts signed and returned to the architect and the OPM thank you during this time does anyone have any questions if so we will do our best to answer them if regarding the budget if not if we can't answer them right away then we can go ahead and ask Mrs Flynn to get back to us with a response but does anyone have any questions if you come up to the microphone hi there good evening my question is when the budget is pushed back from the town how do you guys come together to pick and choose what piece of the budget moves on and what piece unfortunately is left behind it's great question question so again nothing is done in isolation there's not one
079person sitting here who would make those decisions they're done collaboratively we meet with the department has the principles we talked about it's really focused on the needs of our students as well as our district strategy so they're always tough decisions nobody wants to cut anything but we try to prioritize for example of something we've put forth if somebody feels that that's more important that something else is already existing in the budget they take that into consideration as well so it's a lot of dialogue around these these needs of our students can you go to the podium so we can you know does the integrity of the salaries come first versus maybe you know like the Wi-Fi I understand is important but do we prioritize the budget so salaries are fixed cost yeah we sure do
080well the the added like the janitorial I think it was craftsmen I'm assuming that would be dropped off before maybe you know a special ed teacher correct like that's something that Lee goes right so there are some costs that we have to keep in the budget so no matter what we know how much we have to pay for the bus for next year right for any tuitions for salary so sure of unfortunately cutting positions there's nothing we can do in those areas for salaries and tuitions but what we would do and what we typically do in because every year we've had to cut the budget right we start out with what we'd love to have writer and then we have to you know adjust so in typically what we would do you know you heard
081me reference okay we put some lines up to where they should be a lot of supplies so some of those they're just gonna get cut back to level funded right so unfortunately that makes up such a small the discretionary portion of our budget that we really can't pick up a lot against you know any area that we're trying to balance so then at that point we would look at perhaps any of the the new programs you know for example but one of the things that we talked about was the special ed teacher based on the classroom size and the numbers that is something that is very important to add so that would you know that would be something that would maintain a higher priority and again as dr. Bailey said last year in in years
082past like last year I believe we had to cut more than three hundred thousand so we met with the principals the director of technology the student services director to really look at okay what what must we keep what do we really want to keep versus what we can say you know what we'll try again next year and some of the things that you see year after year like the reading specialist the library media specialist was a discussion last year as well those don't make the final cut but we try to bring them back to life the next year so so it's I hope that answers your question we treat the collaborative decision exactly right absolutely and also the budget subcommittee is involved in all of this transactions and you know as school committee members myself
083and mrs. downing are part of that budget subcommittee we always try to you know we always say you know whatever the students students come first right so that's pretty much how we we cut things back just like the other the administration does so we do our best with what we have but it's great having the support here and hopefully tomorrow at 7 o'clock we'll have support as well you know in front of the selectmen and the finance people to show that what we're asking for is truly important to our students mm-hmm thank you does anyone have any other questions hi could you say who you are for the record summer Thank You Jonathan tabs okay thank you I had a couple questions this guy threw me off he said you need some buckets over in
084the elementary school although the is it so like the the increase here is I think 9.6 percent like this kind of an aggressive budget I [Music] [Applause] think I was alright so the part that we're asking for from the town though right because there's a part there's that part that comes from this the state and then like the the amount that you're asking for from the town I think is like probably a nine point six percent increase right well the total is the five point six nine four and then part of it is funded from the state and part of it is funded from the town so okay you know I'm not sure you know I just didn't know how they'd feel right again this is what we are wishing for looking for we hope
085that the budget stands but we know in in all reality and based on you know years past that it probably won't and you're right that is a large increase when you saw the chart of our increases over the past many years it's one of the larger ones it is the largest one but as I believe mrs. Olmstead that every year it starts out at a higher a higher amount again last year we cut over three hundred thousand from the budget so we would anticipate that if we have to get to say a two and a half or a three percent increase more in line with what we had then we would have to make some cuts okay other thing is you get contract I think contract discussions open with probably a couple parties Parra's custodians
086right how do you how do you account for that in the budget because I would imagine that they would need to get some sort of increases right so we budget for what we anticipate what we might anticipate having to pay but because negotiations are ongoing don't discuss it any further you could just imagine like trying to set a budget on something that could potentially happen so you can see the whole schematics of doing all of this so again it's not a science we do the best we can with what we have okay we know what our increases for some of our units so that we can certainly you know attach that percentage to that and then we make an assumption on other units okay there were also positions that were open was wondering if they
087felt the facilities manager that film we're gonna discuss that tonight during our personnel report curriculum coordinator hasn't what I heard with final interviews are Friday okay was there and there was nothing in the budget to to account for curriculum if that position wasn't filled for example right so the position is funded in the budget I'm saying I'm saying as far as curriculum right so so whatever that Duty is right hasn't been fulfilled like where is that resource coming so some of that is offset by the consultants that dr. Bailey talked about dr. Roy who does some consulting for us and also teachers 21 so we've had them both in the building's this year and so that's how we're funding them this year through that unexpended salary of the curriculum director but we hope that we
088will have the position felt right you also have everybody doing a little bit our principals our department heads we're constantly meeting to make sure that we don't leave things uncovered in terms of the curriculum because it is a big need in the district I'm not trying to take up to my time too much time but I have a couple more questions the is it accurate to say that the technology positions in the town cover the school and the town is that accurate or not they are shared positions so what what percentage of that expense put on the school budget just curious you know it's approximately 80% that's put on the school budget and in terms of you know that's how we've been able the town in the school have been able to afford the services
089of these individuals that's very important to to both because let's face it I mean everything in school runs on technology and everything in the town is now running on technology so a lot of times in some towns and cities you will see some shared positions it might be technology it might be facilities you know it might be areas that maybe you know this came about because we couldn't fund a full department in our budget and the town needed to fund some people but they couldn't fund it either so we came together and in it split so although it's not perfectly ideal it allows us to be able to run these departments pretty well I would say okay I make my last question in in the budget there was a $6,000 probably stipend for residency officers
090just curious the effectiveness of that position as far as you know out of district people attending a cushion of schools are worse adding to the tuition costs how are we managing that so that's an important position and we do we have one person who's doing all the residency checks how that works is a if someone has an idea that there are students here that don't live in a cushion it there's a form that they need to fill out and funnel through the principal's office and then it gets funneled through the central office and the residency officer will do an investigation how effective is that you have a sense for them I don't have the exact numbers but we've had several families or students asked to go to their neighborhood districts this year I don't know
091the exact numbers okay but we sent once we conclude the investigation we determine that they are in fact not living in a question-it we send a letter home we give them a final date that they can remain in a cushion it usually it's a week's time but we let them know they have to register and then our people call the neighboring school district to let them know that such-and-such family will be calling you to register but we've had a few this year that have gone back to neighborhood schools you know I recall I don't recall the specific number but I know last year I remember discussing at a school committee meeting when we were talking about high school tuition budget during the course of the year that I believe I can check back but there
092was about six students that were removed from our high school tuition rolls so that's very effective the high schools of the residency is the residency being tested by the high schools it sounded like you're kind of delegating that responsibility to them No so how that works is say we get a tip for lack of a better word that you know Suzie Q is not living in a cushion it I'll be find that she's not she's dropped off at a bus stop right we go through the process and she has some older siblings that are attending for Haven a new bedford high it goes through the same process and we contact the school in fact you know i can say right now one of our high schools there are several students who appeared on our roster
093that we do not have residency proven for that we have refused to pay for until those students prove residency and i can say with certainty this year there's three students right now and we have removed students from high school placements in the past so in terms of effectiveness the high school students obviously are the most effective because they're costing us ten thousand dollars of students so when we were able to remove those students you know if it was around six six students that's sixty thousand dollars that the town is not paying so you know again with a lot of things we do the best we can with what we have so right now we are receiving tips I know that sometimes staff may be frustrated because there are students that they believe that don't live
094in a cush net but we have to go through the dupe process and you know maintain everyone's rights follow the guidelines follow the law and then even when we seek to remove students they do end up coming back because there's some special circumstance that we've actually appealed all the way up to the Department of Ed or vice-versa they've appealed our determination and gotten it reversed so I know it's frustrating I know it's a hot topic but it's it's something that's not that's very difficult that all school departments struggle with I attended a meeting our annual meeting handfull session with attorneys talking about how difficult it is to indeed remove students and even you know if there are students who have just a small portion of their house in a cushion it but a larger portion
095in New Bedford is very difficult to even remove those students the Department of Education wants students in school ultimately but we also know it's on the backs of taxpayers so we do not ignore anything that comes to our attention and we've done our due diligence with any tip that we've received and I know mr. Oliver you had some information to share I had one more comment I'm sorry I would I was at some sort of parent discussion a couple weeks ago a week ago and I would just suggest like on the restroom appears I think there was a budget that was going back that was specifically allocated for a restroom appears there were there were people saying that there there there were a certain bathroom stalls that want to walk their kids would be like
096oh the right one always runs like it never stops washing oh don't use that faucet it's scorching in the face when you turn it on like yep so a couple of things on that the article for the restaurant repairs that's going back so to speak that was to repair the pipes underground we built we had thought based on some you know investigation that we did that there was a hole in the pipe it turned out when we put a camera down there we've jetted it out it cleared it so we didn't need that so unfortunately we've tried our best yeah we haven't been able to but then in terms of the the sinks and the that run or this or that we have had a licensed plumber in over the past couple of non school
097days and he's repaired a lot of the the sinks that when you push it it squirts out the top so they've replaced the stems in all of those and that that we know of and also any toilet so we're running continuously so again you know when we have someone on board they can be they are able to do that if they are a licensed plumber or we have to wait sometimes until there's a no school day to get into those bathrooms because it's it's not as unfortunately it's not as easy as repairing your own bathroom when you can just kick out a brother or your sister I just think we would want working with all that yeah and washing I know so one of the other things that we talked to our principals about is
098making sure that in those emergency situations they call right over we know that we put the request through the school dude the computer system but for emergencies we want to get notified right away so we can get those repairs done immediately and I would think that escorting sink would be one of those emergencies so all right well thank you very much and thank you for asking questions thank you all right I'm going to take a five-minute recess before we go into our actual meeting I need to use the restroom myself and so can I have a motion to go into recess so moved all right thank you everyone for those of you who have stayed we will try to move this along as quickly as possible so my fault I did not realize that we
099needed to make we needed to take a vote excuse me okay okay sorry can I have a motion to return back into open - well I'll make a motion to turn back into the budget hearing do you want me to finish that one off yes so moved second second all those in favor I was injured roll call mrs. zoning yes it's gone yes mr. Sumner yes this is a terror yes okay all right so we're back into public caring so we can make a vote on the 2021 School Committee budget as proposed to move it forward so it's not our actual certified budget but it's to move it forward can I have a motion motion a second second all those in favor why don't you roll call I'm not no okay all right so we
100will officially adjourn the public here in session and open up the regular School Committee meeting of March 10th 2020 can I have a motion motion second all those in favor okay all right so we already did the Pledge of Allegiance so approval a minute payroll in warrants those were in front of us and we've had an opportunity to review them can I have a motion to approve the minutes of February 11th 2020 motion to approve have a second second all those in favor can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the executive session of February 11th 2020 motion to approve second second all those in favor aye aye motion to approve the executive session minutes of February 14 2020 so moved second all those in favor and lastly a motion to approve the
101payroll and warrants motion second second all those in favor aye okay so at this portion of the meaning is when I would ask for delegation if anyone would like to say anything I do give anyone an opportunity to come up I do limit it to about three minutes it does anyone have anything that they would like to say tonight no okay all right there's no old business all right so new business is superintendents report dr. Bailey and you have a few matters under that okay first one is personnel report and you can refer to that report in your packet we have since our last meeting we've hired four new staff members two of them a long-term substitute kindergarten teachers one of them is a pre-k to two resource room teacher and then we've also hired
102our facilities director and he is slated to start March 23rd I don't know if Mrs Flynn would like to discuss but what we will do is when he starts we will have him attend a school committee meeting but the good news is he's a licensed plumber and he's got school experience many years of school experience if you want to add to that or that you know that about sums it up it's great that he has worked in a neighboring school department in the maintenance department for over 20 years and again he's their primary plumber and he is a licensed plumber and that's one thing that we know that here in the schools a lot of our repairs are plumbing repairs especially with all of our older fixtures we're just seeing more and more especially as
103mr. Tubbs stated the faucets that just squirt out because the stems have gone you know just different parts needing replacing so that will definitely be a help to us and so we're excited to to have him come on board and as you men we'll certainly have him come and introduce him to the committee we don't have any resignations or retirements we do have one termination of a teacher do you have any questions on the personnel report yep okay the next one is not of state field trip requests and I think this would be probably an appropriate time to talk about coronavirus I've been spending a lot of my time really getting updates and guidance around the state of affairs in the state as well as the country and globally but just to get the field
104trip itself out of the way as of this date we've only been advised that international trips should be canceled and we really don't have that issue in a cushion it because we don't have a high school and we don't have any international trips planned we the School Committee did approve an out of state field trip to the paw Sox recently and this one before you is Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut it's for June what I would recommend at this time before I get into my update on coronavirus is approve the field trip at this date knowing that we will see where we are at for both of those and and quite frankly for all field trips at this point so just in case the situation changes in the next couple of months at least we will
105have it on record that it was approved that's my recommendation but I've already told the principal's we will wait and see with all of our field trips as they come up we assess the situation we are getting guidance but I'll talk about that in a minute so if we could you know have the committee approve this with the understanding that it may be canceled I would appreciate it everyone had anything to say before you go to a vote on that all right I'm comfortable with that decision if everyone else is so can I have a motion to approve the out-of-state field trip request as presented so moved second second all those in favor okay so we have an evolving situation with coronavirus as you know and I get daily updates and guidance from a number
106of sources the CDC the Department of Public Health the depository and secondary education guidance from ma SS which is the Massachusetts Association for school superintendents we get updates from mas a the math Association of school committee's I've spoken to our person in town the Board of Health and again really trying to make decisions to keep our staff and students safe and everything all the decisions we do are in their best interest and for their well-being so I first sent out a letter to all families students and staff on February 28th that basically you probably saw that that's actually in your packet tonight as some information that went out but we went over some good hygiene practices again these are all things that are being shared with everybody so the other thing is I met with
107our leadership team at that time that week sometime and we talked about at this point in time what are the things that we can do to be sure that our students are safe and healthy as possible so we thought it was really important to do an educational component at both schools so at the Ford middle school we have our health teacher meeting with all classes about hand-washing and the appropriate way to sneeze and cough into the elbow with the intent of disease prevention we are getting that information out to students also at the elementary school we've also purchased additional materials and supplies that are needed such as masks gloves for our health offices also we're checking on our inventory of supplies for a fever reduction or dehydration anything that our custodians need so Mrs Flynn
108has been in constant contact with our custodians the head custodians about what they need we want to make sure that all the equipment is up and running and the last part of our planning is we wanted to make sure that our schools were being disinfected on a daily basis so in addition to all of the daily cleaning and emptying the trash and wiping down the cafeteria tables and all those tasks that our custodians do is really important to us that they disinfect all of the touch point the main touch areas in our schools such as door handles keyboards tables student desks in all mean Erie's toilets faucets all those things that anybody can grab the handle and this is done at night when is no one in the building they've been trained on this but
109we have equipment and chemicals that have been approved that disinfects disease actually so that again we're following all the recommended guidelines and I cannot stress enough that we remain so committed to our students and our staff to make sure that we stay safe now today Oh since we don't have a maintenance person are the principal's responsible for making sure that things have been cleaned throughout the night or whose yeah so they would be responsible for their building anyway so if they see or they this is so important that the principals and department head should be checking the areas to make sure that those areas have been disinfected I know that Mrs Flynn has met several times with the lead custodians to be sure that this is in fact happening in our schools every day we
110also contact the bus company because they have their own protocols in place and we felt like it was really important that you know they might do something monthly let's say we felt like it should be done daily because coronavirus lives on surfaces for four days so we are highly recommending to the bus company and we've been in touch with them about doing a daily disinfecting of those buses each and every day which would be the seats thank you yep so today I did send out a letter to staff again with an update we are now considered in a state of emergency in the state of Massachusetts and again I had a conference call with the Commissioner of Education as well as TPH on last Friday I have another one this Thursday and we would just
111notify today that these will be weekly conference calls for all superintendents as we continue to deal with this evolving situation but in addition to the things that I talked about we are keeping a very close eye on all field trips they may be canceled for obvious reasons because you know one of the recommendations at this point is they're recommending that people don't go into large crowds as you probably probably have heard that several events in the area have been cancelled due to corona virus outbreak the other thing we're asking all of our staff we're requiring them to share with us their travel plans immediately effective immediately so that we know where they're going if they come back and they show signs and symptoms of corona virus which are just like flu symptoms we have the
112right to have them be quarantined for 14 days so that it doesn't spread while we have the right to ask our staff to do this we are also going to be asking our families this a letter will go home tomorrow to our families but I also understand it's more voluntary if they choose to share with us but we're strongly recommending it so that we can keep all of the children and families in a cushion it safe and healthy we're asking teachers at the end of each day to be sure that students clear off their desks they don't leave supplies and materials on their desks or tabletops and that the areas be relatively free and clear so that when the custodians come in at night because they are doing these extra things we want to make
113sure that every desk gets sanitized so again we'll have an updated letter to go home tomorrow for families and mrs. Benavides in my office will be in charge of gathering that information I don't anticipate it will be many people at this point but it's just nice to know that you know if people go out of the country and perhaps they come back and they could show signs several days later it's it's in the best interest of all of us our staff and our students to know this information so that we can act on it quickly and if you've been following this it changes by the day the hour I know that the number of cases in Massachusetts has doubled we're concerned but we're not panicking at this point in a cushion it we are doing
114everything that has come through in terms of the guidelines I do anticipate that they will tighten up the protocols for schools moving forward I think that's going to come out from DPH that moving forward because of what's going on in the state that we will have stricter guidelines but this is as I know things I've been communicating with our staff but we're committed to keeping everyone healthy and safe and to the best possible way that we can if people have questions they can certainly contact my office but this meeting was already posted when we decided that it was important to do an update on coronavirus but I figured it pertained because we were talking about an out of state field trip and also we listed that I had some information go out under number 7
115communication and information so I just want to let you know that I am dealing with coronavirus on a daily basis and the other conference call on Thursday but superintendents are sharing things constantly in the state because everyone has a little bit of a different situation based on things that are going on in their districts so at this point we don't have anyone in our district who we've been told about but we're keeping a close eye on things to keep everyone healthy and safe do you have any questions about that does anyone have any questions welcome the next thing is the student Opportunity Act we talked about this last month and as we alluded to earlier in the budget presentation the chapter 78 we get it $30 per student which comes out to a little more
116than 38,000 dollars which is basically the same increase that we would normally get in a year's time but now we are required by the state to put together a three a plan so if you look at the shorter form it starts out with a cushion at public schools student Opportunity plan the 2021 through 2023 this outlines everything that we're saying we're going to continue doing now because we're only getting $38,000 it's not realistic to think we can bring on extra staff and things like that so these are things that in talking again with collaborating with the principals department heads we talked about things that were already doing that align with our strategy so one of the things we really have been focused on this past year and and you know before that is math at
117the middle school level which starts quite frankly the foundation starts at the elementary school so we are utilizing symphony math which is a program that basically allows students to have interventions and adjust the instruction based on where the students are at so we want to continue doing that we've made a commitment through this plan and through our budget process to buy into this for the next three years because we're doing it anyway so you see that the budget under commitment number two is outlined so for three years unlimited access which is a discount because you know we basically said we don't want to pay for each school we want to be considered you know a tiny district a baby district so give us the price for one school so it's sixteen thousand nine hundred dollars
118for three years so we're working on that we also thought it was important to make sure that our students have enough Chromebooks in our math labs because those who use each and every day for this particular intervention software Symphony math if you go to commitment three on the second page it talks about the metrics and how we are going to be sure that our students are making progress and what we've noticed so far is that the teachers who are utilizing this with fidelity the scores and the success rates are increased so we will be looking at symphony math benchmark assessments Galileo district benchmark assess as well as the student growth percentiles for M casts to really see how we're doing over the next three years with this but we're really trying to get everyone to
119utilize it with fidelity because this is part of the SOA plan that we must present to the department of second element elementary and secondary education and the last section in this plan is engaging all families so you know we're really focused on our high needs students which includes students with disabilities and those who are economically disadvantaged we plan to do a math night at a math and technology night so that we can have the person from Symphony math come and show our families exactly what is Symphony math how can students utilize this at home what does it look like what a student's doing with it so to really inform our families about Symphony math and then basically we have to basically vote on this this committee needs to vote on this tonight and then what
120happens is this needs to be sent through to deci as approved by April first but if it gets approved tonight I will send it through the portal tomorrow because it's it's essentially done the date of the vote would be tonight and then the outcome I'll just fill it in so again I can't stress this enough this isn't anything really new that we're doing this is a continuation of the work that has been started with just more of a greater focus on really it's gonna hold us accountable to make sure that we're looking at this data and making sure that our students are making progress does anybody have any questions nope can I have a vote to approve the Acushnet student Opportunity Act plan as presented thank you so much okay the next thing I have
121is the fYI 2021 district calendar this is not an easy task by any stretch to put a calendar together we consult with the town on the election days so that we want to be closed down on those days or or at least be having professional development days so students aren't in session on those election days we consult with our principals our department heads the teachers association to make sure that all of the dates are the best that we can do in terms of the open house dates the parent-teacher conferences the professional development days and we have a lot of conflicting things that we have to work around so I want to give mrs. Benavidez credit because she really put a lot of time into this calendar but the first thing you'll notice is that the
122calendar looks different this year the calendar that we had before was fine except that at least for me I had to keep checking what was Appy what was orange what was blue what were all the codes so what we tried to do different this year was month to month put it right next to that month what each day off meant we have a key on the top so the first day that staff report is highlighted around the box the shaded days are no school days the days that our professional development days are highlighted and then any early release days you can see that there's a full would slash inside the box and then it's highlighted to show when it's a professional development day so for example November 25th you see that's a slash with no
123highlight around because that's an early release for everybody for Thanksgiving versus October 8th that's a professional development day it's an early release for students but staff must remain for PD one thing that is different on this calendar and I know you've reviewed this but I want to make sure that you understand some of the rationale usually in the past we would come we would report have teachers report the first day for orientation and then our students would start the very next day well the way this worked out this year is that very Nexus J is actually an election day so we're going to have the same first day orientation and then a PD day or vice versa it doesn't matter but we have two days in a row with teachers and then students will start
124we will do screening that week for our little ones and then the following week our kindergarten and preschool will report on the 8th of September so August and September these you see that's a combined month they're on the calendar just to keep things easy to read but I know that you've all had a chance to review this I'm hoping that the new format is a little easier to understand and then you know we've got the number of days in each month and it just adds on because we what we have to do is show 180 days we also require to build in five snow days into this calendar so if you look on the month of June we have June 17th right now is an early release day which would be the 180th last day
125of school if no days are lost due to cancellations but we also have to show where would the 185th day be by building in those five days and that would be the following week on June 24th and there's a note there but again if we don't have any cancellation we go up to 180 which as of right now would be June 17th there's some information on the bottom right if if the vote is taken tonight and approved we will get this calendar right up on the website for families we will get it out to staff but we're ready we believe this is a good copy after many iterations of the calendar so does anybody have any questions about this calendar draft no questions I love the new format I guess in the past I've had
126people come up to me to say that our open houses land on the same days as for Haven open houses mhm do you know if that's gonna be an issue again do not know we can check on that it's really hard obviously the district to get our DS wondering no I was just wondering some of our PDS are aligned with Fair Haven and some of them aren't just because we couldn't do it and they have some different needs but we can certainly just check that out you that the open house dates we've gone through three meetings about open house dates and we've consulted with the Association the Teachers Association those dates were very hard to book because the elementary school in the middle school have very different needs and I think we learned something this
127year that we really want to be in the same room together when we plan this calendar because it was the elementary folks suggesting a date the middle school suggesting but then we had elections to consider and other things so we have an idea for next year but this is where we're at with it right now thank you mm-hmm so without any other questions can I have a motion to accept the or approve the 2020 2021 district calendar as presented so moved second second all those in favor okay thank you business managers report mrs. Flint okay you have the budget summary for fiscal 20 which shows we're at with the budget I know I did not include the School Committee budget update that one-pager that says how we're doing right before the meeting the the I
128turned in the materials to mrs. Benavides we had some changes in our New Bedford High School tuitions and also some of our out of district tuitions so I need to update that I didn't want to give you what was what I currently had without those important updates because it would just be already out of the information so that will follow you know I can tell you that we as you heard earlier some of the new bedford high school tuitions were removed from the invoice as a result of failure to prove residency so that's going to impact some of our anticipated amounts and also we do have some several three actually new out of district placements so that'll impact the other way so as soon as I can get that out to you I will and
129will most certainly be discussing it at our next meeting as well and the other component of my update this this month is Alice training I know we've been updating you on what we've been doing with that throughout the past couple months so at the professional development days last week our staff reach receive training from school resource officer Cathcart and they're now in the process of using the Alice training institute materials to develop the student lessons and we will also be training custodians cafeteria workers and bus drivers at upcoming PD or other times that the bus drivers can can be informed about the Alice training so it is ongoing but we we are we keep we keep progressing with it just to clarify on that it has not been rolled out to students yet no not
130yet nope nope I'm not sure when the lesson of the lesson starting to go out to the students to them that would be ma would the thought that in June we would have a trial run but we have made a commitment to our families that we will be a completely transparent for the drill for the drilled yeah but we will also be letting the families know when we start those lessons okay so there's newsletters that the principals are sending out and they're doing those updates with their weekly emails that go out but we want to let families know that this is coming okay yeah and it will be age-appropriate done by the teachers home thank you thank you alright we're almost done we're gonna do the superintendent evaluation and then the last piece which is
131that communication and information it was just things that were handed out to us if anybody wants to bring anything up we can but I think well probably close the meeting with the superintendent's evaluation so the way the superintendent's evaluation works is that each school committee member is given the just the goals dr. Bailey's goals any input that she's given us throughout the year regarding her goals and where she's been at and where she is at with the goals and and that's happened if you've been to our meetings you've been hearing dr. Bailey give us updates throughout her goals and where she's at we also had an opportunity so we we had the goals in front of us we had the state rubric and each of us individually on our own read the rubric and scored
132dr. Bailey where we each felt she fell if we had any questions or we needed additional information about something we weren't clear on we were able to go to dr. Bailey and say can you give us more information on where you are with this particular goal so what's pretty simple missus Benavides was able to calculate we sent them directly to her she calculated them all together and we have her our summary so rather than say every comment that's on in each section what I'm gonna what I'm I thought was is I would just go over each step I would say like professional practice goal and whether or not it was met or not men proficient etc and then I would say a couple of comments and if anybody wants to a library or say anything
133different you have everything in front of you I just figured I wasn't going to read through every absolutely it's public record yet we do in an open public session meeting and it's a public it's a public record all right so the superintendent summative evaluation report for dr. paula bailey step one was to assess the progress towards goals so the professional practice goal we and this was consensus so if you know if there was three and two or two and one three whatever it came together so it was met for comments it says it appears that dr. Bailey has done an outstanding job hurting her learning and development to practice it is clear that new procedures are being tried or explored to improve the district that weren't taking place prior to her tenure dr. Bailey continued
134to be extremely dedicated to the superintendent's induction program while giving in-depth updates on her training and the utilization of it within the district does anyone have anything like two adders no okay so for the student learning goal the rating was overall met dr. Bailey has made significant progress towards her student learning goals in the midst of a challenging district culture the teachers contract was recently ratified oversight and execution of the contract as well as a continued effort to create a positive culture and one district approach will be key to student success right so district improvement goal rating was met step to assess performance on standards standard one instructional leadership was proficient [Music] the right plans are in place we just need to get off the ground we're moving in the right direction I am pleased
135with our continuous progress standard to management and operations proficient I think dr. Bailey is doing an excellent job here I have appreciated her commitment to accountability and transparency her vision for one district is key and I hope we can continue to build on that momentum standard three family and community engagement her rating was proficient they have made huge improvements in district-wide communication let's keep up consistency across all of our modes of communication communication is better standard for professional culture proficient culture is created by the efforts of many not just one dr. Bailey is doing a tremendous job of turning things around and has a new leader in the district this makes things even more challenging we'll get there and I'm appreciative of her vision perseverance and dedication to making a Christian at public schools the
136best it can be gone are the days of well we're just the cushion and as dr. Bob Bailey says we are cushion it I am grateful of her leadership step three overall Summoner performance summative performance rating as proficient with that said the district would not be moving forward we have a lot of work to do but we moving in the right direction grateful for dr. Bailey's vision and grit value her experience and skills that she has brought to our district and I know we will achieve our goals onward okay anybody I know instead of just deciding to read through does anybody wanna say anything differently than what I read off for I think you know this reflects the work of many people I've caught in the district and many many people are working hard in
137all areas cafeteria custodians our teachers our paraprofessionals the central office leadership team the support staff everyone has a part in moving our district forward and I've always said since I arrived in the district that we have to go slow to go fast so sometimes we might have moved a little too fast and we had to reevaluate and one example of that is the RTI at Floyd middle school so we took a step back and now we're doing things a little more thoughtfully and involving more people for it to be a collaborative process but this evaluation reflects the work of many and I have a great team behind me to do this wonderful work and I'm honored to work here I know pushing it thank you and you are correct from a school community perspective as
138people may not know it's not always easy we hire and fire the superintendent we made policy and we go over a budget and as a school community member that's where our power starts and ends so if there's so the only person the only person we really can evaluate is you on our end of things so I think for me in doing this there were some parts that I was struggling with because I was like well do I think the district as a whole ensures that that's a tough word ensures that and I had to go back and read it and it was true it's what are we and what are you showing me that you're you're doing in your you know showing the staff it may not be that we may not all be there
139but I have to say okay are you moving in that direction so I think for me I just from I just try to remind people when you're a school committee member those are your those are your functions from the math Association of school committee's and it's easy to say well you do this and you do that and no those are our goals so we can only evaluate where the district is going for you you're the only one that we have a direct report with and that's why it's do have an issue at the building level contact the bill and principal dr. Bailey don't necessarily call School Committee because we have to I appreciate the ongoing collaboration and support from the committee members I feel like we've worked together on policy for example and you know
140I'm looking forward to continuing in that manner so thank you and I appreciate the transparency as always so thank you I think we've done a great job does anybody have anything else to say no all right well I think we did a great job so if we'll make a motion to approve dr. Bailey's summative evaluation or accept dr. Bailey's summative evaluation report as presented so moved second all right does anybody have anything else so the Community Preservation Committee did meet today at 4 o'clock for our little toy article that I presented and it wasn't voted forward to the Town Meeting so town meeting on May 11th there'll be a vote for the $80,000 for the little toy project so I am very happy with that and I think everybody that attended that meeting in support
141of us and including the the CPC that voted it voted it in for us and hopefully we will see a project very soon for our elementary school yes we want to encourage attendance at Town Meeting yes again in support of that project but also the the Capitol request that we talked about earlier yes in the school budget and it's ours a hole so thank you very much yeah anything else all right you have a motion to adjourn we do not need an executive session thank you motion to adjourn question 2 returns I came all right all those in favor hi thank you everyone [Music]