001Good evening everyone. Welcome to the CHO school committee meeting for Tuesday, December 16th. Thank you all for being here tonight. So, we are going to reconvene open session. I recommend closing and sealing of the minutes tonight's executive session as they pertain to matters which relate to the privacy of students and their records and and of sessions pertaining to collective bargaining or litigation or work sessions pertaining to collective bargaining or litigation. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. So, this is the recognition section of our agenda and we have some school committee members that are going to be um participating in recognition this evening. So, I'm going to start with uh Linda Lyall, please. >> We get the executive session vote votes. >> Oh, I'm sorry.
002Yes, we did. Okay. Yes. Um >> table that. Um so, Laura Chapman will read off the disclosure of the executive session votes. Thank you, Laura. >> Good evening, everybody. There were three votes taken in executive session tonight. The first one was the approval of the executive session minutes from November 18th, 2025. That was unanimous. The second vote was for the approval of homeschool requests. That was also unanimous. And the third vote was return to open session. That was unanimous as well. >> Thank you. >> I can do this. Thank you. Okay. So, I start with the Teraho Middle School. Um, Cher Middle School would like to recognize our science olympiad students and Trisha Whipple, our seventh grade science teacher. On Sunday, December 7th, Cherho students competed in Brown University's science olympiad. Uh, Cherho Middle School
003took fifth place in the area of physiology, anatomy among more than 40 teams. Congratulations to all Teraho students who competed. We'd also like to acknowledge seventh grade teacher Trisha Whipple who received a WCCU teacher grant in the amount of $500 which was which will go to uh Cherho Middle School Science Olympiad extracurricular activities. Congratulations. [applause] This this recognition goes to the Charo High School all state band in chorus. This was shared by teacher Morgan Bob. Please join us in congratulating the following Cheraho High School students who were selected for this year's Rhode Island Music Education Association Allstate Festival. Senior Allstate Chorus, Alyssa Anderson, Lillian Hall, Reagan Noble, Elsie Smith, and Riley Swain. >> [applause] >> Junior All State Chorus was Ocean Blanco, Meer Cousino, Kelly Drake, Llaya Habereck, and Harper McCall. Congratulations. [applause] And the
004junior All State band, Kellen Smith. Additionally, three of our chorus students ranked in the top five for their voice part, which is significant accomplishment as such a competitive audition. They will take part in three intensive rehearsals in February and March with other students from across the state where they will have the opportunity to learn and perform advanced music under the direction of experienced conductors and teachers. We hope you'll be able to attend their final festival performances. Junior all-state concerts will be taking place March 15, 2026. And the senior all-state concerts would be March 22nd, 2026. Congratulations to all. >> Thank you, Linda. And um moving on, we're going to have recognition from Paulie Hopkins for Charo Athletics additional postseason awards. Polly, >> hey. Uh for boys cross country team accomplishment finished second in the southern
005division with a 7-1 record and qualified for the state championship. First team all division Leo Haxton. Second team all division Ben Steer, Isaac Graham, Cam Cogshaw. Third team all division, Kaden L, Luke Baxter, Nathan Wei. Third team all class B, Leo Haxton, Ben Steer, Cam Cogshaw. All academic, Ben Steer, Tony Guglamo, Nick Willis, and coaches award to Grayson Moffett. And I get the honor of reading tennis as well. All academic. Allison Cole, Aubrey Campbell, Ella Murphy, McKenzie Andred, Ali Wood, and team sportsmanship award goes to Olivia Gray. >> Thank you, Polly. And Karen Reynolds will read um the recognition for football. >> Football first team all division, Sawyer Mason, uh Rafi Garcia. Second team all division, Isaac Hag, Aiden Etchel, Logan Smith, Trevor Jenny, uh, West Mags. Third team all division, Cole Carlson, Braden Russo,
006all academic, Luke Felner, Sawyer Mason, Logan Smith. Providence Grid Iron Club, offensive MVP, Sawyer Mason, defensive MVP, Rafie Garcia. Uh, Thanksgiving Day awards, Cher wins 15 to zero for third in a row on Thanksgiving. Special teams player of the game, Wes Mags. Offensive player of the game, Rafie Garcia. Defensive player of the game, Cole Carlson. Lineman of the game, Isaac Hague. And game MVP, Aiden Etchels. Thank you, Karen. And for boys soccer, I'm going to turn this over to our superintendent, Gina Bart. So, this is always exciting um when we have state champions, and we have a lot of them in the room tonight. What I'll do first is I will announce uh with the coach, if you don't mind, Angela, if you could bring the coach the certificates and the coach's certificate, if coach
007Brian Williams could step up to the podium and then uh Mr. Williams. So, Coach Williams, I want to ask for your assistance as I say the names of boys, if you could do me a favor. When he calls your name, you're going to get your certificate and you're going to start lining up so that we can take a lovely photo of all of you before you exit. Stage, right? Probably. I'll have to ask Miss Hall if I got that correct. So, for the the just the your citations say the Tahoe High School varsity boys soccer team and coaches on their Rhode Island Intercolastic League 2025 soccer championship win. And our team roster beginning with Connor Prescott. Elijah Boyce, James Faro, Brandon Resinger, Tucker Mccclindy, Ryan Sheldon, Ethan McCann, Luca Pasaro, Casey Paplowski, Mitchell Kramer, Clive
008Win, Joe Puno, Tim McCormack, Rhden Grand Champ, Sean Dorgan, Carlos Herrera, Reed McCann, Vinnie Ferrara, Wilson Herrera, Colobby Bennett. Some of our boys have winter sports. Angelo Guido, Landon Meyer, Maverick Marone, Brendan Gleon, Liam Marott, Aaron Rice, Antonio Erso, Ryan Kulian, Landon K, Dominic Jano, and Dylan Edinbach. I'd also like to recognize assistant coaches Brittney Far Paragali, Joel Gableson, and Jacob Aruda. [applause] Congratulations to all coach. Would you like to say a few words about your team's uh work this week this year? >> Sure. I have a couple things. >> Um, it's a great privilege to be a part of this community and be coaching here. This is my second year here and uh very proud of the boys. You know, this is a very young team. We only have two seniors and uh you
009know, I walked in and I always kept telling them that the expectation is really high and we want to be the best we can be. And we had a a roller coaster season and as the season ended, we just had a great road and we I kept telling them that if we keep our mind and keep our heads, we can do anything we want to do. And as they all, you can see here, we did everything we could and we won the state championship. You can't be more proud of something like that. Um, yeah, and that's, you know, we've created memories that they're going to last a lifetime. And I think that's the the big thing that's for every high school athlete. There's not many people that can go and say they want a state
010championship. And having that opportunity is something that you'll remember for the rest of your life. So that's it. So, while we get the photo, boys, I'm going to be calling out your um your big wins for the soccer team, for the division. So, um feel just take your photo. You don't have to come over here. I'm just going to let everybody know your awesome accomplishments. First team all conference, Ethan McCann. Second team all conference, Luca Faro. First team all division, Ethan McCann, Luca Fasaro. Second team all division, Colobby Bennett, Reed McCann, Aaron Rice. Third team all division Mitchell Kamer, all academic Ryan Sheldon, distinguished player of the year Ethan McCann. And the all tournament team Connor Prescott MVP Kobby Bennett, Ethan McCann, and Tim McCormack. [applause] Great job all around, gentlemen. And then Mr. O'Brien,
011if you could cue and just get it ready. the FBI. >> While the photo is being taken, Mrs. Susan Prior, if you would join us at the podium. Um, Mrs. Prior is our FBA adviser, which stands for Future Business Leaders of America, and they are here today to share with you some of the wonderful accomplishments and opportunities they had at our FBA national competition trip to Anaheim, California. Good evening, Mrs. Bard, Dr. Camela, Mr. Zenian, Mrs. Dinsmore, and members of the school committee. My name is Susan Prior and I am the business department chair and also the adviser to the future business leaders of America. In June we had seven FBA members, McKenzie Andre, Jackson Davis, Rose Chabkunian, Cara Link, Nicholas Willis, Isaac Graham, and FA Kosigloo uh who placed in the Rhode Island uh
012competitions. We traveled to Anaheim, California to represent Shaho at the National FBLA Leadership Conference attended by 15,000 members. Students participated in competitions, workshops, conference events, as well as experienced local Anaheim attractions. It was an amazing experience for all. This is Rose. Um, we are truly grateful for your continued support of our organization. Tonight, our members are participating in sports and regret that they could not be here to express their appreciation in person. We have created this video uh to share their gratitude with you. competitors. We want to say thank you for all of your support and allowed us to compete last summer at the NLC. It was a fantastic opportunity to see what it's like to compete in a national competition. It also allowed us to network with others within our state other Hi, I'm
013Cara. I'm a senior at Jericho and Anaheim was actually my second national conference and just like the year before, I gained a whole new and much deeper perspective on business, which furthered my knowledge that will help me throughout the next stages in my life. The connections I made with not only peers, but mentors along with experiences I came from nationals will be ones I forever and we are so incredibly grateful that we could attend this conference. >> Hi, my name is Runian. I'm a junior at Cher Hill High School and I also am an member that attended the nationals in Anaheim, California. This was my take on the conference that we went to. Attending the conference presentations gave us better understanding of real world businesses strategies and what it takes to be a future business
014owner. This sessions shared helpful strategies on how to manage and grow company grow a company while also improving our knowledge of leadership, entrepreneurship and professional skills. These experts helped us prepare for future careers by strengthening our critical thinking, communication, and decision making. Thank you for letting everyone accomplish going to nationals and helping us out. >> So, thank you once again for your continued support. We look forward to competing at the state level again this year and hopefully representing the trio chapter on the national level in San Antonio. >> Nicely done. Thank you again so much. >> Thank you, Miss >> That was great. Okay. So, we are on to our public forum section of the agenda. So, um those of you who signed up to speak will be asked to come to the podium and
015state your name and town that you reside. I have it. Um you're welcome to speak during public forum about items not on the agenda. Per our public forum policy, the speaker has um who makes a public statement has the responsibility to be accurate, present facts, present information based on personal knowledge, not hearsay, be considerate, and allow others to speak without interruption. Please direct your comments to the chair. And as the chair of the school committee, it's my responsibility to ensure decorum and be mindful of time management. Um with that being said, we have several speakers signed up this evening. So each of you will have three minutes to offer your remarks and um our vice chair Laura Chapman will be keeping time. So I'm going to ask the community members um in the audience to
016refrain from cheering, clapping, booing, shouting or disrupting the speaker who has the floor. And we have a number of speakers tonight as I mentioned. And I believe um I'm going to hold you to three minutes. And our first speaker is from uh Hopkin and that's Jasmine Roy. Jasmine. >> Good evening everyone. Jasmine Roy from Hopkin. Um I'm coming tonight to address the school committee. Um I recent meetings you guys did a overall of the rycast scores again. I watched from home and uh then I got in the mail, you know, the the thing they send out and tells you where your child is and all this stuff. And at the end of grade four, I decided to take my son out of the public school system. For grades three and four, I was told that
017he was a grade level behind in reading. And I I was very, you know, I was upset. uh you know I didn't want to see my son not being at uh meeting the level so um I decided to change things up and my question he one semester at his new school and my son has an 84 in reading so I don't understand how it could go from the summer to a whole another school and he has now an 84 where he was a grade level behind in reading as I was told by his report cards in third and fourth grade. I don't know where the disconnect is. I don't And now, mind you, he has 25 kids in his class. This is not a small classroom that he is in. So, it's not like he
018has wanted more one-on-one time or more, you know, time. I don't know what the disconnect is here, but the other children, I don't know if they're accurately tested or if their scores are accurate because how could my son go from being a grade [snorts] level behind in reading to an 84 in one semester? Um, also, uh, I I don't think I have anything else. I've been really sick. So, they pumped me full of steroids. So, I'm like, you know, kind of shaky today. But I did want to make that a point that, you know, I I just want I just I want the kids to learn. I don't know what the problem is. And grades one through three are so essential for them to learn the core skills and values of reading. So, I just
019want I wanted to bring this to the attention of the committee to find out if there is anything different that the community could do because now I found that I made the right decision. I made the right decision by putting my son in a private Catholic school even though that is not my religion. He is getting a better education, but it's also put an undue burden on my family financially. Not only are we forced to pay taxes on the property that we live on, and 80% of that goes to the school system, but I also have to pay $900 a month to send my child to a different school so he can get a quality education. I know that you say that's your choice. That's your choice. No, it was not a choice. My son's
020education is not a choice. So, I will continue to struggle to pay for my son's education. Thank you. >> Thanks, Jasmine. Amy St. Pierre from Hopkin. My name is Amy St. Pierre. I'm from Hopington. I am here today as a parent who is deeply concerned about my daughter's safety in the school and the response to a serious act of violence upon my child. On November 25th, the day before the holiday break, my daughter was physically assaulted by a male classmate. This was not a minor incident or a mutual conflict. My daughter was faced with a visibly angry, aggressive male student charging at her with no way to defend herself. And in fear, she curled up in the fetal position on the ground, placing her hands on her head to protect herself. While she was on
021the ground, the student started yelling, pulling her hair, repeatedly kicking her in the back and in her tailbone. This male student had to be physically removed off of my daughter by staff, at which time the male assaulted the two staff members. Equally concerning is the lack of response that followed. According to the school's handbook, in incidents involving physical assault require specific action. This is referenced on page 19. Despite the severity of the incident, law enforcement was never notified of this incident on the day of the assault by administration or any day following this incident. When acts of violence on a student occur and an established safety protocols are not followed, it sends a dangerous message to students, parents, and the community that these actions can be minimized or handled quietly rather than addressed with the
022seriousness they demand. My daughter is now looking over her shoulder. She's not confident and safe at school. A safety plan was in place for this male student to stay away from my daughter prior to the assault. If this was actually implemented, it would have prevented this harm from my child. Any further safety plan, I have no trust in the school and using their available resources to keep my child safe from the offender. Policies exist for a reason, to protect children when they are most vulnerable. Ignoring these policies put all students at risk, all kids all the time. Even more alarming is this was not an isolated incident. 10 days following the assault on my daughter, there was an incident involving a female student being assaulted by a male student at the school dance at the
023middle school that was also not addressed with an incident or phone call to law enforcement. This demonstrates a troubling pattern and raises serious concern for student safety. I want accountability, transparency, and immediate corrective action. I want to know why policy was not followed, why law enforcement was not notified, why the offender was allowed back in school the following school day after Thanksgiving break, and what concrete steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again. Our children deserve a safe, distraction-free learning environment and a system that responds decisively with safety in mind for something violated. My daughter is 10 years old. She's a little girl who was playing a game in the gym with her peers. The whole fifth grade class witnessed this, the assault on my daughter where she had to physically cover
024herself and were in fear for her own safety. The student was removed by two staff members who were assaulted. Thank you for your time. >> Thanks, Mrs. St. Pierre. Thank you. Next is Tim St. Pierre from Hopkin. My name is Tim St. Pierre. I'm from Hopington. Uh, in addition to what Amy just spoke about, in an effort for me to understand exactly what the policy and procedure is on how a situation like the one our daughter was involved in gets resolved. I referred to the student handbook and I noticed uh that there is a definition for assault and I'm sure you everybody is familiar with the student handbook but the consequences also state uh 5 to 10 days of out of school suspension. This child was at the school the next day when my wife
025arrived for a meeting uh with the principal. Um, other items on this consequence list is possible uh SS assignment, um, police contact, referral to the superintendent and or school committee for additional discipline and intervention. It goes on and on. From what I understand, the school committee did not was not aware of this uh, incident. I don't know why. I don't know why the police were not involved. at the beginning for the standards of the student handbook for the Cheraho Regional Middle School. It states, "Our goal is to change the inappropriate behaviors." Just paraphrasing here, um in addition, therefore, focusing on reshaping behavior and not punitive nature of issuing consequences uh for some reason it but it also states that uh administering consistent uh and equal enforcement for all. I don't know how you can do
026that if you're not following a standardized list that's in your handbook for any number of consequences. for any number of actions that could possibly occur. Uh it it says here that it's intended to follow the policies of the school committee. Any changes or differences decreed at state or federal levels would take precedence over the char middle school behavior. I understand that. Okay. Um but there's another troubling uh final sentence in here. It says any modifications to this is in bold by the way. Any modifications of the code in issuing consequences will be done at the discretion of the administration and consultation with the teachers for whom the disciplinary disciplinary referral uh originated. I don't know who the administration is. There are definitions in here of items uh of what that defines certain things. Administration is
027not one of them. It seems as though that it is gives it yields power back to the school to just do whatever they want regardless of what is in the student handbook for outlined consequences. Any number of them require possible or police contact. We we asked the police all we wanted was documentation from the school that this incident occurred and how it occurred and what the nature of the circumstances were. So we had something in writing for ourselves. That's what we wanted. And then come to find out there is no documentation. There is no incident report that the school generates or anything like that. However, the police department has we have a school resource officer at the school who was not notified of this who would be the perfect disinterested third party to understand the
028facts and circumstances as it relates to what happened. Provide an impartial report. And what do we do when uh the due process every student says here is uh is uh has the right to a fair and impartial investigation? Well, what if what do we do when we don't know if that is a fair and impartial investigation that's happening into the offender or to the to the of uh of an assault? You know, there there is no recourse. I'm just looking at this. This came off the website today. It's uh was last revised in 2023. It's been updated yearly at least since 2008. However, um there has been no updates to this for 2024 or 25. So, I'm curious, does anybody review this? Is this when was the last time anybody looked at this? In the
029code of conduct, it states um for the Cheraho schools and school committee uh that the they must act in the best interest of Cheraho Regional School District. How can you act in the best interest of the regional school district when you don't have the best interest of the students in mind who get assaulted and offended or get attacked? The the only the regional school district is the kids. If you're not acting in, doesn't they should just change that to the children of Teraho School District. That's what that should say. >> Thank you, Mr. St. Pierre. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate your feedback. >> Justin Bentley. >> Hi. Good evening. I apologize again for having something prepared, but it's the window to uh that I'm reading rather than speaking. I want to talk tonight about hateful
030rhetoric and the real world consequences it can have, especially in school communities. In the wake of the recent tragedy at Brown University, it's impossible to ignore how often schools and educators are portrayed as threats rather than protectors. We see this play out daily on social media. Claims that students are being indoctrinated, suggestions that social emotional learning is dangerous, accusations that teachers have hidden agendas. When repeated often enough, this harmful political language depicts schools as something to fear rather than something to protect. Our students hear this, our teachers hear this, our families hear this. And an era when threats against schools are increasing, we should be asking ourselves whether our language is helping to create safe, supportive environments, whether it's adding fuel to fear and division. The word indoctrination is thrown in a lot, and I
031find that especially dangerous. It suggests malicious intent. It implies harm and it fundamentally risk misrepresents what is actually happening in our classrooms. Teaching students how to think critically, how to manage emotions, how to treat others with respect and how to exist in a diverse society is not indoctrination. It's education. It is also a key component of keeping students safe and supported. Every member of the school committee holds a public platform and with that platform comes real influence. What you choose to post, share, respond to, or even leave unchallenged or unanswered sends a message. When harmful claims are amplified, or when extreme rhetoric is entertained without push back, it signals what is acceptable in our community. That matters, especially when the subject of our schools and the safety of the people inside of them. The end
032of the day, we're all here for the same reason. We want students to be safe, supported, and able to learn without fear. We want educators to feel respected, and backed by the leadership. I urge each of you to use your platform both in this room and online. Please to lift up this school community to reject fear-based narratives and to model the kind of leaderships our students expect and most definitely deserve, especially in moments like this. Thank you. >> Thank you, Greg Abdian from Hopkin. >> Okay, thank you. Tracy Sylvia from Richmond. Hi, good evening. >> Good evening. I too am going to read um from this. I I also want to state that I commend and agree with everything Mr. Bentley just said. Um and I also I didn't realize this was on the agenda,
033but hopefully I'm okay because it's about the recognitions that just happened. I was going to bring up the science Olympiad because I took part in that last Sunday. Is that okay to still discuss? Okay. In the recognitions, it mentioned that uh CMS Science Olympiad brought home an award. They actually brought home two awards. And I wanted to note that CMS competed against a few public schools. Bington was there of course um and uh North Cumberland and I believe another Rhode Island um public school. The majority of the other 30 to 40 schools were private charter, magnet, um, other private religious schools and several top of the nationmies from New York, New Jersey, etc. And CMS won two of the awards out of the 30 categories. Imagine what they could do with more funding. And it
034also just shows how strong our science department is in Teraho with the little funding that they receive. More importantly, that team spent almost 12 hours at Brown University. Several hours in the building where last this weekend's tragedy occurred. Some students in the same lecture hall. One of the victims was the event coordinator for the tournament last weekend. The toll this took on the Brown students, faculty, and staff cannot be understated, as well as all students at all Rhode Island schools and universities. I hope this committee will take a moment to recognize this impact and reflect how much in common we share as parents and community members when it comes to truly supporting all students. Thank you. >> Thank you, Tracy. >> Katherine Justie from Hope Valley. Thank you. I wanted to thank you for supporting
035the SEAL mini grant. At the last meeting, when Mrs. Martin visited, she was asked a very basic question. and what do you need? She didn't give a complicated answer and she didn't present a wish list. She said plainly, we need more adults in the room. Voting for this grant was the obvious choice. Voting for it showed a focus on students, not on whatever the outrage of the week is on social media. The noise around social emotional learning or seal has become absurd. Social and emotional learning is not new, shouldn't be controversial, and not some undercover political project. It's the same basic skill building every one of us grew up with. The only thing that's changed is that some people discovered they could twist the term, blow it up, and use it to frighten the public.
036We all had seal as kids. It was learning to raise your hand, learning to stand in line, learning not to shove the kid next to you, learning to respect adults. SEAL teaches children how to act like human beings in a community. It teaches restraint, empathy, and boundaries, the same expectations every workplace and every adult environment has. At its core, SEAL is simply teaching the golden rule. The panic being pushed about SEAL is not coming from the classrooms. It's coming from people who see an opportunity and fear. People who think that if they shout indoctrination loudly enough, no one will notice that what they're describing is literally kindergarten behavior expectations. And too often that fear works. It drowns out facts. It distracts from the real issues. And it pulls attention away from students and turns every
037conversation into a culture war skirmish. So, let's call this what it is. Isn't the problem misrepresent misrepresentation is manufactured outrage is and choosing to attack kindness because it fits a narrative isn't the boogeyman waiting in the closet to come and indoctrinate your kids. Allowing yourself to be led by misinformation and then doubling down on it absolutely weakens our schools and our community. So, thank you for fighting against that by voting for the mini grant. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine and Laura Chapman from Charles Town. Hey everybody, Laura Chapman, Charle Town. Um, I'm here tonight. I uh received some messages, emails from some some of the constituents in Charletown and I would like to share what was sent to me and then provided for the minutes. Um this is titled a letter from concerned par from
038concerned Cheroo parents and guardians. I am writing as a concerned member of the CHRO community to express my deep concern regarding the recent and unexpected turnover of longtime administrators within our district. In the span of just six months, three respected and experienced administrators have chosen to leave. This level of attrition, especially among individuals who have been pillars of leadership and stability, raises significant questions about the current climate within our district. These administrators were not only essential to the daily operation of their schools, but they have also carried years of institutional knowledge, strong relationships with staff and students and families, and a proven commitment to the success of the Cherokee community. Their departures have left many parents, teachers, and students feeling unsettled and worried about the direction in which the district is moving. As parents and
039community members, we deserve transparency and reassurance. We would like to understand the following. What factors contributed to the loss of three long ter longtime administrators in such a short period of time? What steps are being taken to ensure the remaining staff feel supported and valued enough to stay? What is being done to address the internal issues that may be impacting staff morale, retention or confidence in district leadership? We want all Cher We want We all want Cheroo to remain a strong, stable, and student centered district. Administrator turnover of this magnitude is not something that can be overlooked or brushed aside. The community needs clarity, accountability, and a proactive plan to prevent further loss of essential leaders. I respectfully request that the school committee address this matter publicly and provide honest, transparent communication regarding the situation
040and the steps that are being taken moving forward. Our students deserve consistent leadership and our community deserves answers. Thank you for your time and your attention to this important issue. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. We appreciate the input from the community tonight. Thank you. The business portion of our agenda is going to start with the fiscal 25 annual district audit. I believe we have Miss Hey here. Oh, there she is. How are you? >> I'm good. I'm Mary Sahadi. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, no problem. >> Yes. Um well, thank you and welcome. >> Thank you. Um so we have your financial statements are all in front of you for this evening and I will give you um an over of those statements and if anyone has any questions I would be happy to um
041address them here this evening or get back to you with the answers to um any specific questions. First, I would like to say that um again this year um the district has what's referred to as an unmodified report, which basically means that you have no findings um with regard to the financial data that's included in the report itself and no findings in what's referred to as the yellowbook report, which is also included in this report as part of the document. And it's a report on internal controls. So in addition to reporting on the financial data, we also report on the internal controls and that report is in the document itself and can be found on pages 116 and 117. Um the financial statements are set up in the same format that they have been set
042up in prior years. Um the first part of the document itself is referred to as the management discussion and analysis. And that part of the financial statements is unodudited and is the area of the financial statements where the district has the ability to write in layman's terms a summary of the financial statements themselves in the outcome of the fiscal year June 30 2025 as well as as of June 30 2025. So what I mean there is there are balances specific to June 30 and there are other areas within the document itself which talks about um the year of 2025. So that would be June 30 or July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. The financial statements continue into the next section and the next section of the financial statements is referred to as the basic
043financial statements. So here you're going to have um basically two sets of documents. You're going to have what's referred to as the governmentwide financial statements as well as the fund financial statements. So what you receive on a regular basis um from your finance department generally speaking are the fund financial statements. So, you're receiving the budget to actual information that's referred to um in this document in the um required supplementary information, but the government so the generally accepted governmental standards require you to report on acrruel basis accounting and that acrruel basis of accounting is where you will find the governmentwide. So, in summary, what that really means is in your governmentwide financial statements, you have your fixed assets as well as any long-term liabilities. So, here in the district, um you have capital assets. They're detailed
044in note five um on page 40, but in essence, the capital assets less the accumulated depreciation is $21 million. In addition, in terms of liabilities here, um you have a net pension liability of $34 million. Of that $34 million, 33 of it is from the teacher plan and 944 is from the municipal employee plan. Um you have a net op liability. That is your other postmployment liability. That's for your health insurance for your retirees. That liability as of June 30 is $632,000. And in addition to that, you have approximately $17,000 of other long-term liabilities. And those are detailed on page 42 of the document. Um, if you were interested in the details of the liabilities, what is generally interesting to most um, communities, whether it be school districts or cities and towns, are the pages
045that begin with the general governmental fund balance sheet. And so here the district has two major funds. They have the general fund, which is your unrestricted school fund, and they have the debt service fund, syncing fund. In addition, the The remaining funds are referred to as non- major governmental funds and they can be found starting on page 81. They represent all of your grants which are included in the category called special revenue funds. It includes your um capital project funds. You have two capital projects funds here at the district. You have the housing aid capital project fund as well as the town members capital project fund. And in addition, excuse me, um you have this small debt service fund that is also considered part of your non- major governmental funds. Um you're going bringing you
046back to your general fund. If you're on page 17 of the document, um I think the area that is most important to all is what is the results as of June 30, 2025. And here the area that you want to bring yourself to is the fund balance area. So fund balance based on the governmental standards is broken down into um four categories. It would be nonspendable, um restricted, committed and unassigned. The non-spendable for the district here is $ 1.5 million. That basically represents the 1.485 485 um million dollar that you are um included or is being held by your health insurance and the 37 or $38,000 in prepaid. So what that means is the district doesn't have those monies available to spend at the moment because they're being held for particular purposes. The restricted um
047is generally the debt service syncing fund as well as any restricted funds in your non- major funds for the committed area. Um those are the vote that this council or this this committee actually took. So of that committed $3 million that you see here 3 million50 um 2 million5 of it is the money that you set aside for your 2526 budget and unassigned is 3.6 6 million. So when we look at the unassigned as as an auditor and as a financial analyst, you're looking at that and you're saying how much of that really relates to or what percentage of that is of your budget. And so here the district is is quite conservative. When you look at the GFOA, they're saying that that amount should really represent somewhere between seven and 10% of your [clears
048throat] total budget for the year. So your total budget this past year was $66.4 million. Um if we look at the $3.6 uh million that is approximately 5.4%. If we look at it in combination with the committed amount since 2.5 of it is really set aside for your 2526 budget um we're really looking at just under 10%. So, um, realistically, if you everything breaks out even for fiscal 26, you will have expended $2.5 million of that in your 26 budget. So, that's conservative. Um, but on the flip side of it, if you have anything extraordinary that comes along that is going to demand resources of this district, you're really um don't have a lot left, if you will, when you're really looking at 5.4% of unassigned monies. So, you just want to keep that in
049mind um going forward. And we'll talk a little bit about the budget and actual um when we get to um that page within the document and you can stop me, you know, at any point. Um >> um sorry, can I said that it was 2.05 and the the carryover? Did you I thought you said it was 2 million. >> 2.5 million. >> 2.5 not. Okay. >> 2.5 million. Um and that detail can actually be found on page 47 of this document. Thank you. >> Um the debt service bond fund. Um you've had that for a number of years. You've got two years left for that um fund at this particular point. Um the debt that will be due on that will be 8.569 million. Um and the interest that you have put aside on that
050so far is $790,000. Um, again, as I indicated, the non- major governmental funds can be found starting on page 81. Um, what I want to point out here, this year, um, in fiscal year 2025, there were no funds or no funds that had any fund deficits. So, um, the what's what's good is that in the prior year, although they were a minimal amount of funds that had deficits, there were a couple, this year, there are no governmental funds that have a deficit. And we'll talk a little bit about the proprietary funds in a second, but there [clears throat] are no governmental funds that have a deficit this year. So, um, those deficits, um, are actually shown on page 37. So you did have some fund balances where this year the um expenditures actually exceeded the
051revenue but you had a fund balance and so at the end of the year there's no deficits. So that's really kudos to the district for making sure that you don't end up at year end with any deficits. [clears throat] Page 19 of the document is where you're going to find the revenues and expenses for the same funds that we just spoke about. So on the general fund, um the budget [clears throat] and actual can be found on page 68. Uh we'll talk a little bit about that. Um but the difference between what you see on page 68 and what we refer to here as the fund financial statements is $3.4 million. And that's the money the state sets aside for the onbehalf pension payments for the teachers. So, there's a concept called on behalf payments,
052and that's what you're seeing um when you look at the difference of um the 60 [clears throat] $65 million that you're going to see in the budget and actual and you're seeing $68 million here. And and that's also described um on page 68. So, the reader can see the difference between the two sets of of numbers, so to speak. Um, in terms of your revenue, um, the only difference that I would I would suggest, well, I guess there are a few differences. Um, last year, if you remember, you had $779,000 that came back from the health trust fund um, as excess money. This year, you only had 41,000. [clears throat] So, there's a significant difference there. Um, the intergovernmental this year is 3.6 6 million as it compares to 3.2 million last year. The Medicaid
053is the largest difference. Um there was an increase in the Medicaid of 289 this year. Um everything else was about the same. Um as you know, you vote the um member participants. So you already know of course what the contributions are from the towns. Um Richmond and Hopkin had the largest increases this past year. Um but again obviously based on the number of students etc. So not a significant change there. Um the interest income um is actually down a little bit over the prior year but as you know the rates are starting to drop slightly. So you're going to continue to see the interest income pretty much continue to drop down and go back to where it was um before the rates were really and I'll use the word inflated but they were pretty high
054there for a while. Um and thankfully everyone that had the ability to set aside monies and and invest as best as they could um you know became winners with that interest income. So yes it it has decreased slightly over the prior year and and that will probably continue um as time goes on. Uh next in the financial statements um is the um proprietary funds and those proprietary funds. You have major and non- major proprietary funds just like you have for the governmental funds. So the lunch fund is your major um proprietary fund. um it had [clears throat] it had a um small deficit again this year and so you want to keep an eye on that propri on that lunch fund because it is starting to decrease the fund balance that it has or fund
055equity. Um but it's still it's not the fund is still strong but you want to keep an eye on that. And then your non- major funds they're they're pointed out in the back of the document as well. Um and you can see the detail of those and we'll just talk briefly on one or two of those as we get to the um proprietary funds or the detail following the basic financial statements are the notes to the financial statements. And I won't bore you with all of the detail because as you can see from the notes they go on and on and on. Um um but page 37, if you want to just quickly go to page 37, um you can see where um it details what I just spoke about with regard to the current
056year having no fund balance deficits um with the exception of one in the proprietary funds. So if you look at the proprietary funds, they're made up of the night school remedi remedial fund, the adult education fund, the athletics fund, and the CTC program. The only fund with a deficit in the fiscal year 25 is the athletics fund. And that is because you had a one-time expense of the scoreboard. Is that correct? of the scoreboard in fiscal 25 that was a capital item that was purchased um that is expensed for purposes of this document. So you you saw um that deficit that you know theoretically you shouldn't have in in years to come. Following that note note two are notes on the cash um notes on the investments um page 40 will give you the details
057of the capital assets that we spoke about a second ago when we were talking about the governmentalwide financial statements. And here you can see the at least the categories for which the assets um reside and the accumulate accumulated depreciation that goes along with them. Um on page 41, the right to use asset. That's a capital asset. Um it's now referred to as a right to use asset, but it's a capital asset. That 54,000 um I believe is the Apple um lease that you have. Um the long-term debt is on page 42. Um 42, as you can see, you've got the two um construction revenue bonds that are part of the bond syncing fund. So, as we spoke with regard to the bond syncing fund, you have two more years on that and then those payments
058will be due. And then for the other two bonds that you have, the revenue bond and the refunding revenue bond, um the payments were made um respectively to 610,000 on the first and then 580 to continue to bring down those balances. Um other than that um I think the only other um note that is I won't say of interest to everyone because everyone has interest in a lot of these notes but will be the um note nine which will give you the detail of all the restricted funds which primarily are all of your special revenue funds and then um the committed as we talked about earlier. Um that 3,ion50 in the general fund, the 2.485 or $2.5 million as I referred to it earlier is the reappropriation to the 2526 budget. The h 100,000 that
059you voted was the administrative contract payout and then any potential contingencies was voted at 467437. So that's where your total of 3 million 050 351 comes from. Note 10 is basically from the state and that is the um defined benefit plan for the teachers. Um note 10 will also include the retirement plan for the municipal employees. So, as I indicated earlier, $33 million of the $34 million liability relates to the teachers plan and $900,000 or so, $940 some odd,000 represents the municipal [clears throat] plan. The um other postemployment benefit again and these are all done by the actuaries, right? So the actuary for the state does the state plans and then the actuary for the district does the other post-employment plan and that liability as of June 30 25 was 631,998 [clears throat] that can
060be found on page 63 and that is an increase um over the prior year balance of 590. Some of that has to do with the employee, the number of employees and the age of employees and whether or not the employees have a single or a family plan. So that too is done by the actuary and it's done based on the assumptions. I don't believe the district had any changes in the assumptions in fiscal year 25. Um so the liability change basically based on um a combination of [clears throat] excuse me um the service costs as well as the other components that go into um the calculation for the other postemployment benefits. Note 13 just gives you an idea um of what you have incurred in terms of claims for health insurance because you're self-insured. Um
061so this this past year um you had claims of $8.2 million um and you had deposits net into the plan of $7.9 million and that can be found on page 65. Thank you. Um, page 66 includes um your commitments and contingencies and um and I know you all are aware of this because I believe you're actually working on it, but you've got a couple of um bids or a couple of contracts. So, we'll need to go out for bid this year. Um um your health your Chwell for your school nutrition um I believe is expiring as well as your Ocean State Transit. So, um those are expiring this year [clears throat] and so that note will be updated again next year when um those contracts are renewed or replaced with new contracts. Page 68 is
062generally I hate to put it this way, but when I'm talking to most people, it's the page that everyone's interested in versus um the rest of the document. But this is where um the budget and actual is. And again, because the district does a really great job on their finances on a monthly basis, um there are no changes to what you've seen when you get monthly reports to what you're seeing here. Basically, what that means is we didn't make any audit adjustments. So um the biggest turnback is the employee compensation and you can see that you budgeted three $37 million, you expended $36.6 million. Um, and as I understand it, when having a discussion with because we always look at where the differences are and have conversations with the client as to what what caused
063that and here in this district, it was caused really by vacant positions. So, you can't look at [clears throat] that particular amount and think you're going to have that from year to year. Um after that is the required supplementary information and you'll see again all of the details with regard to the employee the teachers plan the ERS plan as well as the MS plan as well as the um OPED starting on page you'll see the summary of the aggregate of the non-mor governmental funds. The special revenue funds actually start on 83. But what I can tell you, even though you have a number of funds, you have the CTC funds um that represent approximately $296,000. You've got a donation fund of $101,000 and you have the student activity funds of 260,000. So that's 657,000 of
064the 835 you see here. So I'm looking on page 81 and I'm looking at the restricted fund balance. So of the restricted fund balance, basically there are three funds that make up the majority of it. Um the capital project funds can be found starting on page 105. Here you've got um a committed amount at year end of 1,ion547 1 million4 of it is the housing aid fund and 142 is that members capital project fund that I spoke about. Other than that um the proprietary funds um we talked a little bit about the proprietary funds earlier. The detail of those are found um on page starting on page 107 and again the athletic fund has um the only deficit of 9 and I mean 9,684,000 and on page 108 you can really see the activities. So,
065um, realistically, the night school fund had no revenue in the past year, but some a few amount of expenses, six mill $6,000 worth of expenses. The adult ed had 14750 of revenue and $29,000 worth of expenses. Um, the CTC had 52 million worth of revenue and 55 of expenses. and the before school program broke even at of revenue and 27743 of expenses. Um and the detail of all of those revenues and expenses, you know, can be found in the underlying detail um at the district's finance department. Other than that, um, the remaining supplementary information that's included in here is required by the state. It's referred to as the MPT2. That's the information that the district sends off to the state for certification. Once it gets verified, it comes back to the district and it's required
066to be included in this document. So, that's what you see on those pages. And then as I indicated earlier, the what's referred to as the yellowbook report or the report on internal controls is on page 116 and 117. And here you had no findings at all. So you have um a very clean document. >> Thank you. You're always very thorough, >> Mr. Haiti. Thank you. You're always very thorough, >> Mrs. Hattie. Sorry. [laughter] >> You did it again. You did it. [laughter] >> Well, congratulations to Greg and Gina and the team in the finance office superintendent. No findings again this year. Great job. >> Right. >> Does anyone have any questions for our presenter? >> I got water this. >> Thanks a drop. Just let us know. >> Thank you. I was away for a
067few days and I just came back very late last night so I could do this today for you. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Any questions from any members of the school committee? >> Now, just quickly, you have another document in front of you. It's called the single audit report. Um, again here, very clean report, no findings. Um, this year we tested as um required by the federal government, the nutrition program and the sped program and there were no findings. Um, there aren't going to be any significant changes. There is a change in the uniform guidance for next year where um they're changing the limits, but the district is always is already well above. So right now, if you have under $750,000 of federal money, you don't have to have the details of
068this audit prepared. Next year, it's going to a million, but your revenue is 4.4 million or 4.3 million. So your this report will still be required in years going forward. >> Okay. So I have a question. I don't know if it's for our presenter or for Mr. Zenyan. So, um, the comment that you made earlier about the reimbursement of the prior year for health and dental expenses. >> So, for 2024 it was about 780,000 >> and then for 2025 it was just over 41,000. >> Why is why such a huge difference? Because what happens is the the trust [clears throat] holds the money for you and it requires the deposits to be um included annually to cover a certain amount of claims. And maybe Greg could describe that better, but certain amount of claims and
069the trust was holding more money than it needed to based on the estimated claims that would go forward in the future years. And so that those excess monies were refunded. >> Okay. And on page 68, which you said, that's the page that everybody looks at. Um, so where it says the reho regional school district budget and actual for the unrestricted fund as of June 30th, 2025. So when you look at revenues versus expenses, so the the variance was just over just over a million dollars for expenditures and the excess of revenues over expenditures was 1.3 million. >> So are you saying that there was a um a balance if you will because there were in your opinion there were number of positions like vacant positions. Is that the reason why there was a balance of
070like 1.3 million? >> Well, let's look at the million dollars first. So, we're looking at the expenditure side. So, the expenditures were a million70. So, under the budget, >> right? 55 588 or 589 related to the positions, right? So, that's the and then $400,000 um related to other purchase services. >> Okay. >> And then that was the majority of it. You can see, you know, looking down the rest of it, you had 180 over, but then you had 260 under the benefits happen to be over. Um, I'm not sure whether it was as it relates to health insurance or not. I'm guessing it probably did. Um, but I shouldn't guess, so I guess I could look that up for you. >> Okay. Yeah. And on that just on that page, too, where it says um
071variable favor variance favorable. So there was about $430,000 unspent for other purchase services. >> That's correct. >> So what would other purchase services mean? >> Can you give us an example? >> I don't have the detail of that. >> Okay. Other purchase services like specialized services. >> So other purchase services could be a contract for special education for like for example Rhode Island School of the Deaf. >> We we have to sometimes get um interpreters or to translate things. So things that require re review, we can get you um some examples and I can make sure it's part of the budget presentation so it's clearer. >> Okay. Any other questions from the members? So do we need a motion to accept the audit or was this just a presentation? Do we do we are we
072that formal in accepting the audit? >> Do you know? >> I think you do accept the audit. >> Okay. Okay. So can I get a motion to accept the fiscal year 25 annual district audit? So move. >> Okay. From Polly, seconded by >> by Jess. Okay. >> All in favor? >> Unanimous. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. >> Thank you. >> Your thorough presentation as always. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Happy holidays. >> You too. >> Thank you. Next item of business, bus monitor variance request. So this is a request that we do every year. This is just for the main campus. This says that our middle schoolers and high schoolers don't require because we have grade five at the middle school. We ask for the variance and we do this every
073year around this time. >> Okay. >> Variance request. >> So we have a motion and a second. Any discussion on this? Seeing no hands raised. All in favor? Unanimous. You budget transfers. I recommend approval of the budget transfers as submitted. >> So moved. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second by Linda. Any discussion? Seeing no hands raised. All in favor? >> Unanimous. So this is the transportation resolution that uh Chair Dinsmore asked about the timing of this and whether uh we should do it in December or January. I thought it was, you know, very timely. I was thinking of maybe holding off, but after her and I discussed it, we thought with January and the budget coming up, it may be in our best interest because we have our meeting on January 9th
074with our legislative team to just re reinstitute the fact that we would like to see that the general assembly and the governor fully fund regional transportation. >> Okay. So, we have a motion by Karen, seconded by Diane. >> Any discussion on this? Yes. >> I would just my question is should we wait to send it until we have the number for the law until it's introduced? So like I could amend the motion to say >> conversation, >> you know, approve this once there's a number, put it in the blank, then submit it. Because right now it just has a blank because the new year hasn't >> the new budget. >> We we actually had the same conversation, but we figured we'd get it in front of you and just put the number in once we
075have it. Okay. Yeah. Do do you want me do we need to amend the motion to say that or just Okay. >> We're gonna hold this >> once we have the number. I'll add the number and then Angela will send it to all the school committees and the regional districts and all the legislators. >> Okay. >> We'll have it um before probably January 1. So my question is, do we need to put this back on the agenda or do we just can because you're approving the resolution to your ask is not about the the the exact dollar amount because that can shift based on even numbers for per per people enrollment and how much we do. So what this is is just you're saying that we want to give the resolution to support fully funding
076regional transportation regardless of whatever number it is. >> So do we need to resend the motion and reintroduce it? No, you're good. Okay. All right. Any discussion? Any more discussion on this? Okay. All in favor? Unanimous. Terrific. Okay. Moving on. Budget subcommittee update. >> Karen, I'm going to um Yes. Hand that over to you. >> What exactly are we? >> Yeah. I mean, I think I just wanted to um know I think Jess brought it up a couple months ago that if any members had any suggestions for the way the budget is presented to the members. Um could it be more could it be organized in a different way? Could it be um you know more concise? I know that last year there were lots of questions around different line items and some of those
077line items, you know, the superintendent would say that's underfunded or an unfunded mandate. So, and it seemed like those questions, similar questions came up over and over again about, you know, the same line items. So, I was just wondering if there could be some sort of a denotion of or a notation on that 56 page budget of items that are, you know, unfunded mandates or stuff like that. [snorts] >> Sorry. >> Yeah, go ahead. So part of our conversation was defining what's an unfunded mandate because there's a lot of things that are in the budget that while we are not, you know, they're not mandates, we are required to to pay for them. Um, and we do receive state aid and for the past three years we've received more than previously. So we are being
078funded. So, I'm not sure what an unfunded mandate is. I don't think the state is going to fully fund everything that's required, but we are receiving state aid. >> Okay, >> that's And what about line items that are required by law? Can that be noted on the any part of the budget? I guess it's not that simple because um for example like heat and oil is that required by law? Are we required to heat the buildings? >> Of course. >> Yeah. But it's not necessarily something it's a basic need. So >> So that's where So what we were thinking is um that my budget presentation we would sort of highlight sort of the larger sort of e-codes and where these things fall so you sort of know where that direction is. So for example like
079the science curriculum law that goes into place in 2026. I asked Dr. Camila, you know, to pull out that that dollar amount so you can say this is above that work, but this is this is required by law. But again, I'm one of those people that gets semantic sometimes. I can get in the weeds because then when you think about it is but we have in our contract that our teachers are a part of that process and ch and choose those um those opportunities and be a part of that work. So, we may not necessarily um like that one program, it may not be mandated by law because it's our choice. So, let let's say it's almost like an RFP for like services, you know, the least most responsible bidder. It may not be the
080least, but we believe it's the most responsible for what our kids need. So, this is where it gets tricky, but I'm hoping maybe in my presentation I can highlight things like that that make it cleaner and clearer because you know that we went back and forth like is that the is that the all the transportation like we transportate based on our policy we transport every kid >> but that's a policy decision not a required decision where some districts you'll see like they give you mileage um if you live further than a mile you get this and we do that with certain um certain uh like basically a walking distance for our bus stops, but we don't say we don't transport. That's a difference. So, that's a school committee decision. So, um yes, by law we
081offer transportation, but you all have the ability to increase or go lower. So, we thought maybe kind of highlighting things like that where you can say, well, do we want to change that policy? Another good example is around classroom size. You know, our contract is higher than what we typically like to do. I typically do not recommend we go to class size. None of our elementary schools are at class size. Um we have Ashway is always the closest. Ashway always has the largest class sizes. Um and there are five fivestar school and and they and they do well. Um but then we have like this year Charleston has a bump in their grade four. Um as does I think Richmond a little bit less based on our Hope Valley move when we close the school.
082So that bump actually leaves where their kindergartens are at 15 14. Um so I think overall but that's our decision. So this committee can certainly advise me to increase class sizes to class capacity. I would not recommend but that's an example of it's contractual but we try to balance our student needs so that I mean you hear that our teachers are looking uh for us to be thoughtful especially on our opportunities. So, um, that's where I think we're sort of trying to make sure we balance the differences and hoping that maybe my my presentation, my recommendation would be that, um, throughout this process, now that you've all been through like nobody is sort of a freshman anymore, as you will, that we sort of talk through the presentation and, um, see how Mr. Denny and
083myself, Dr. Camila put that forward to you and then think about the budget as it ex extends and then maybe talk about the feedback like hey this would be great about having this in the budget for next year doing it this way just to give some context the budget subcommittee what um what we've shared in the previous in the past was that it's really important that we know any changes you want to the budget book before October 1st because then we what we do is we create those documents and then the principles have to provide me the information in that format. >> Okay. So, I think it would be a good idea for all of us if you've kept your 56 page budget book from last year just to maybe take a look at it
084before they print them and if there's anything that you have some feedback on to I would say email Greg and and Gina collectively. >> Well, we can't change the book. >> No, no, no. Because we that's how we we've set up the budget that way. The budget one. But >> Gotcha. But um I think it's important to note that the decision for the the way that the budget is designed is when um when Tyler started the budget subcommittee, Andrew, I think Karen, do you want to add? Okay. >> Yeah. Um so when we first started this subcommittee, we looked at all of the columns and I actually brought one of the older books to show. So if people are interested to see what the um 2023 budget book looked like and how small the print
085is and how many columns there are. I have that available. Okay. Versus last year's book which was much easier to read and to process through. Um so it was actually Tyler's recommendation to move um some of the columns uh to make it easier to read. and he recommended removal of the adjusted budget column and only see the actuals as this is all that is needed. Um and this should include all of the transfers. Um so removing those would give uh more space was his was his comment. >> Okay. Also, um the superintendent said October 1st, but please keep in mind on October 1st, we are rolling out the budget like what they're going to do on October 31st, all the schools are required to have their budget in. Um I asked the subcommittee to have
086a meeting in April and give uh if you really want changes to this budget book, um >> that's something we would need in April, May, probably June the latest. >> Okay? because it has to all be prepared and then given to all the schools. They get in on October 1st with a very quick turnaround. They have to have it back to us by October 30th and then they have to defend it in the month of November >> if it's a major change. >> Right. I don't almost any change though because if you move one column it and if you start playing with the columns you're going to see how small the print gets and then people are going to say we can't read this. What are you trying to hide? The budgets are available. All
087the old pack um if you go on our website for the budget packets, they're always there. All the budget books, we we don't remove them so that people can go back and and you know, for full transparency. Um but yes, we've received critiques and feedbacks um and and actually if you review a district's websites, you're not going to see the level of detail that the school committee gets. And I think that that may also be part of our concern that maybe it's so much it's like hard to sort of unpack. So the the more that we can make it more efficient and really palpitable um to understand, you know, that's where we really want to make sure you get what you need and that it makes sense. >> Lauri, you had your hand raised. So
088the if that stuff needed to be in by April or before then I guess my confusion is that I don't I mean when was that question proposed where you Karen and Jess I think Jess you mentioned at one of the meetings the school committee meetings you said if anybody has any suggestions on what they would like to see in the on the budget books or formatting whatever the case is then why was it brought up then and not back in April? Jess and Karen. >> So, to answer your question, um I didn't mean like budget book. I just meant in general concerns, but I would like to go over like the budget the update, you know, and go over some of the history. That was why I had my hand raised. But if you have
089more questions. >> Yeah. No, I just was wondering why the because it seemed like the timing on it seems a little bit off because the budgets get approved in March. Correct. Isn't that when we do the vote? >> No, April. April. >> Oh, you're talking are you talking about your vote or you talking about the um you approve the the budget in March so that we the taxpayers have 30 days to review and then August is the public vote >> April. >> And so Greg what you're saying is that the committee wants to make any changes to the formatting or anything like that because I had brought a couple of suggestions to the subcommittee from feedback that I had received from other members of the committee and then brought it to the subcommittee for that.
090But at that point, it seems like you're saying that it was already kind of too late because now it would be a massive like thing for you guys to have to adjust that because it has to be done one at a time. Like you don't have like a template basically is what you're saying. >> So that's am I understanding that right? We we have we have a template but um the template can only fit so much um and when you start moving it everything has to be rearranged and then it all has it all has to be printed. So I have said since I started um right when the budget is approved by this committee we should have recommendations on what you want differently be I have said since I've gotten in this position April
091is too late >> and you know he's only been here for one year so I think what I would like to add is that um what Mr. Ian is saying is the the I think what he's trying to suggest is the earlier he knows the best case scenario is if we know in April by the time the bud the budget's voted on that we get your feedback during budget season. That's probably the easiest because then we can really prepare in the summertime when it when the students aren't in session. However, realistically, can we make some changes? Yes. But but to his point, that's where sometimes when it's down to the wire, you can make mistakes. So we like to make sure we're all very much you know a type cross our tees and dot dot
092our eyes. So it would be helpful especially as the school year starts it gets busy and I think all of us know that we try really hard to do our best. So what I think Mr. Zen is trying to get across is if he can know by April he really would appreciate that. It would be like um I think a relief for our staff in in the office to make sure that they could do their due diligence and give you what you need. However, can we make changes? We can. We just prefer to know ahead of time, especially if there's something in the midst of it that seems like it's just not working for you. >> Karen, you had your hand raised. >> I'm not sure if Jess was done that. >> Yeah, I could
093still um I just to go back to the purpose of the budget subcommittee when we formed it. It wasn't just to change the budget book. Um it was in 2023. The goals were to debrief the budget process just to so go over this kind of discussion you have about how things went, what you could have changed, explore recommendations to make to the school committee, ongoing review of the budget, and to work on future budgets. That year, Tyler Champlan was appointed as chair and several initiatives and motions move forward. Moving transfers and bills out of consent and into business. That's something that has been running on our agenda for a while. um adding a sheet that shows a running transfer total in addition to the new transfers and the budget memo which I think was part
094of it but all of that has been in the um business part of the agenda for a couple years. We hosted a discussion with state legislative officials. So in addition to the omnibus which is an opportunity to do that we thought that was really helpful. Talked about things like categorical goals transportation aid and concerns that might be addressed through legislation. We hosted a data presentation from Ry to highlight their budget dashboard, YUKA and other data analysis features which we then requested that to be delivered to the full school committee and it was in October 2024. Um final motions were made about the formation of the budget book removing adjusted and year-to-ate columns to give space and clarity to the upcoming fiscal year and adding a column showing the percentage increase or decrease. I know that's
095something a lot of us brought up um on numerous occasions. I think that's a helpful column. So in 2024 there were attempts for the subcommittee to meet um from the administration and some of the members but no meetings were held. In 2025 you know there just also highlight some of the other budgetary changes that have happened without the subcommittee. So we voted as a school committee to add budget workshops back to the budget process. Uh we reconvened in March with a revised membership and Karen Reynolds was appointed as chair. At this first meeting, we did address concerns about unfunded mandates, but as we said before, um the discussion revealed difficulty with this classification since the district received state aid. Um that's not specified on how it should be spent and we but we also do
096receive data that is specified on how it should be spent. Categorical transportation aid, um housing aid, there was an attempt to separate the budget into school locations, but we shared away from this. We didn't think it was in the spirit of cherho and that many staff work in different buildings. At subsequent meetings, three subsequent meetings, we received updates from the finance team about budget formation through meetings with school administrators and I we requested that school committee members shared their goals and concerns about the budget and process. We discussed changes to the district purchasing policy that was approved by the school committee and another budgetary change that happened through the year. Um, at our last meeting, which Laura was not available for, you know, Karen and I discussed with Greg, moving transfers and budget update back
097to consent because it is part of the agenda, but we don't always discuss it in business. So, we thought moving it back to consent um might be something we could do because then we could just approve go through business more quickly, streamline it. Um, so in addition to working through the FY26 budget process, I just wanted to also point out some of the votes that the school committee has taken um, regarding the budget. So, numerous needs that require transfers and allocation of resources like the approval of the certified educator contract, ex extra expenses related to the closure of Hope Valley Elementary School, retention of world language instruction, and funding for a new playground at Richmond Elementary. Those topics to me just um illustrate that the budget is a living document that requires a year-long process
098while we also consider the long-term impact. So, a lot of the work we do is not just during the budget season. It really is year long and it's not just on the budget subcommittee. Um, additional concerns that have been expressed by the school committee that could result in a budget impact include athletic field upgrades and maintenance, student support staff, and transportation. These are concerns that we've heard during the last year. So, um, I know I believe that expressing these concerns are an important part of the budget process and I ask that all members of this committee continue their due diligence in stewardship of chairo's budget and the upcoming budget process. This the subcommittee appreciates their opportunity to discuss the work of the subcommittee and we hope that it will further our goal to make the
099budget process understandable, transparent, and accessible. We did schedule a next meeting for April 13th to debrief the budget process. Thank you for listening. >> Thanks, Karen. >> She covered it. She covered it. >> Okay. >> So, um, at this point, the suggestions that some of the administrators brought up last month, I think Sharon Martin had a couple of suggestions for the school committee last month. Um, I wrote them down um, last month. Teachers at tier one understand differentiating core. Increase writing scores, expand teacher repertoire to deliver tier 2 interventions for standard treatment protocol in math and social emotional behavior and specialized coaching in behavior at tier 2 level at the elementary level. So the this type of sort of request that Sharon Martin made when we get the budget, how do we know where in
100the budget that lies? >> So that's where I come in with the budget presentation. So um Mrs. Martin only already shared what she's already asked for, we've already built in. So what happens is um like just like I said so when she mentioned for example the board certified behavior analyst when when you all um approve the well when you all look at the budget book and I always forget which section's which because for me the budget is the budget um but the section where you get in the weeds and I think some some members have asked oh can you give us this new like so many page budget but that's an example that charo does because what we do is we say okay here's our new budget If all was created equal and today was
101the day that it went into effect, all these people are here, it would look like this. But in in essence, by the time the budget's voted on, people change positions, they get promoted, they move schools, they go on leaves. So that money has to shift to the correct Yukoa code because that's the that's the law and that's what ride requires through the through the Yakoa document. So we don't have the staff to continue to replicate that because that that's just a lot of work and all the changes. We just we just can't no bandwidth for that. But what we do in in the section that has the ecode, that's really where you want to sort of look at that high level and then ask the questions. And what we've done this year is we've taken
102the FAQs that we've done now for the last few years. We have reviewed the the the budget workshop. We've reviewed my minutes um and all of your your questions throughout the last two years and we've revised the budget presentation to really be more like you know moments in time as as well as maybe like the omnibus may look a little different than what a budget workshop's going to look like because I think it's going to be really important like one question we get asked a lot is enrollment is decreasing why is it your budget so we think it's really important for us to highlight well why well because we still have to put the heat on we still have to do the same things even though if I have 15 kids or 25 kids in
103the classroom I have to create the environment and it doesn't necessarily save dollars but I think it's important for us to recognize where those opportunities are. So, for example, when Sharon asks for the BCBA, that is part of our work. And um I'm really proud of the administrators and I'm really proud of the work that we do. And while I was a little taken back by the email from Miss Chapman, because I I'm the first I'm hearing of it, I can tell you that Mrs. Drake, Mr. Jenerelli, Mrs. Floren, those that have left for other opportunities, uh, would be more than happy to come and talk about how they thrive here and that this leadership is the best team that they've ever worked with and they all miss it. But there's opportunities that they have
104to they have to do on their own times as well. So this work when we think about the opportunity to really hone in on how we want to build that strategic plan, you want to see and I'm so proud the admins will will what Sharon shared is that larger piece of work. she understands that vision. We know with the board certified behavior analysts that really that job embedded PD we'll be able to enhance the work of the district. So, in this strategic plan coming forward as we as uh in January and actually I'm I'm jumping to my reports a little but in my reports I hope everyone stays because usually everybody leaves from my side of the house but in the end I'm going to make some connections to our capital plan and our strategic
105plan that really I think will help the committee understand even your your sort of um collaboration as we build the strategic plan. This is your first opportunity because I begin the presentation with budget. It starts from there so that you can see how this is going to live and come to fruition. And while sometimes we have to slow down because you know I wish we had all the money that we needed to do all the things that we want to do and what I can tell you is all of the teachers are well intended all of our admins are well intended but it's about everybody knows the sort of microscopic view and it's my responsibility to understand the district as a whole and really ensure that we're strategic on how we place that dollar. So,
106I'm hoping with the budget presentation that I can sort of lighten that load for all of you. Um, we can also think about maybe bringing Santiago back in for there if there's something specific, maybe that's a special meeting so that we can, you know, dive even deeper and you can utilize the dashboard for your own questions so that it can come out as more of a workshop. I think those are opportunities that could enhance our collaboration together. That makes sense. >> Okay. So, I guess I have a a final question for the members of the budget subcommittee because we we have a lot of subcommittees compared to other districts. That's at least that's what Gina told me and she when we had our sort of our agenda planning session last week. She said that our
107district has a plethora of subcommittees compared to other districts. So, and this is no disrespect to the budget subcommittee because I know that that's the budget is, you know, I mean, a $70 million, you know, organization. The mission of the budget subcommittee, I just need to understand what's the mission of the budget subcommittee. if you know if the if the budget is a live living breathing document and recommendations have to come to this full school committee anyway I I guess I'm just trying to ask a a question about what is what's the mission of of this subcommittee in your opinion so I mean open-ended question and I'm not trying to again this is meant as no disrespect to the chair of the subcommittee or the two members Laura and Jess but I'm just mindful of,
108you know, how many subcommittees we have. So Karen, go ahead. >> Well, I don't know. This isn't really on the agenda, but um I think we could start with the audit subcommittee because that was a meeting that I sat through last week with Greg and um Lynn and it was just three of us. Um so I think if we're looking to eliminate subcommittees, that might be one. >> Some of them >> I don't think that one's in the Cheraho Act. The finance Couple years ago, I went through all the committees and tried to get rid of some. >> Yeah, I think the finance committee is in the char act, but the audit is not. >> You're right. >> I could be wrong. >> No, I think you're right. >> So, the original intent behind the
109budget subcommittee, um, as Jess stated, was to debrief the budget process, explore and make recommendations to the committee. We asked for that. We are always asking for that. I think ongoing um an ongoing review of the budget, which we do at every school committee because we're looking at transfers and uh voting on budget items um and work on future budgets. So, if you're deeming the work as completed, then I'm fine with giving up a subcommittee. Um, I think finding Greg and Kathy Kosal a few extra hours in their very busy day, I'm all for it. I mean, I I do want to say I >> spent a little bit time here. Um, our finance department does amazing work with very few staff. Um, it's Greg, it's Lynn, and it's Kathy. And I think Kathy is
110now the clerk of just about every subcommittee. She's building she's building which which is a full-time job in and of itself. >> Oh yeah. >> Um so I'm all for taking something off off a plate. >> You know we talk a lot about that in education that everybody's plate is full and I am all for taking things off plates. >> Okay. Would you look at Are we allowed to go home? What do you mean? >> Well, um, the budget subcommittee, just so you I know, because we did this, uh, activity a couple of times, but the audit subcommittee was, uh, put in by the school committee in 1992. So, I did a little bit, this is when I was asked a couple years ago to do the history. So, to your to Karen's point, she's
111correct. It was added as another way to sort of make sure there was a lot of if you can imagine people were concerned that the budget wasn't transparent enough and they wanted more people involved throughout the year. So that was started in 1992 and then the budget subcommittee was in 2023. So I um I do like you did take one committee off off the table when you revised the policy for school committee um the school improvement team selection no longer because you revised that policy. So what you might want to do is typically because it's a n a non-election year, you would do um subcommittees in um well, you would actually you could actually look at if you thinking about taking things off, you could bring it up in the spring as well to see
112because um I I would I would think that there are opportunities for you all to be um thoughtful about even your time. I think you all see how much time Yeah. >> it takes and >> Okay. All right. Thank you for the dress. Did you have any other input? Okay. Laura, did you have any other input? as a member of that subcommittee. >> No, I just I I think it's great that [laughter] the mission has been accomplished. So, we can, you know, because it it is it's a lot of work, especially if you know, you have a full-time job outside of it as well. And I'm sure with Greg's team, only three of them, I can only imagine. So, it seems to me that it's, you know, a little bit redundant because it does go
113back to the committee. And if there are changes that want to be made, then why not just have the whole committee do it because that's really the directive anyway. Um, >> and we do have budget workshops. So, that's the trans that's where the transparency comes in for the public and for us. So, okay. >> Well, thank you. Thank you Karen for the update, Jess and Laura. Thank you very much for your work. All right. Discussion uh for possible website design services for the capital improvement plan requested by member Pcell. Jess, I'll hand it over to you. >> Thank you. Um so to start the necessity for school construction tab of the Cherho website um it serves a purpose but it's essentially what I would call a bucket with links to PDFs of documents. So there's
114a lot of information there but you have to click each one. It'll make you download a document if mine does. If I'm on my phone it makes me download a document. I have to find it. If I put it somewhere, I never find it again. It's not really a website. It's more of a server of PDFs. So, I think it serves a function, but from a design and communication standpoint, I think it's inadequate and it should be improved if we're, you know, really serious about giving information about this capital improvement plan and a unified school. Um, I think the greatest limitations of the current page are lack of function, flow, visual engagement, and accessibility. Like I said, it serves a purpose purpose, but it doesn't have the accessibility of a website. I'd like to see
115um something be the go-to place for information about the capital improvement plan for the elementary schools. I think it's, you know, prohibitive. These documents have to be downloaded. A proper website would have all the information coded into its design, drop-down menus, links um and it would be engaging to the uniter the user to um engage them in learning and planning about the future vision of Cheros schools. I've seen examples which are hosted through the school district servers and some that are through their towns. Um, but I these I've seen websites and web pages that are share excellent information uh district-wide at scale, not only about the process, but the progress that's been made, you know, a timeline, an FAQ, which we do as well, but like it's the same thing. It's a document. Um, and
116I'd like to see some live features, too, like how to sign up for an email list, how to submit a question, how to send an email, some of the common features on websites. Um, just to give some examples of websites I've seen that I think are really good. Baritin Warren has a one about their capital projects and a lot of them are it's right off of their >> right off Bristol Warren. >> No, she said >> oh sorry Bristol Warren, not Barington Warren. Um, >> sorry, >> you know, it's off of their their main website, you know, capital projects. Um, Barington Schools has another page for their construction. Um, Middletown Rhode Island has information about their new middle high school. Um, so my main purpose would be to ensure that a web page is accessible
117to users, including those that use it on a mobile phone. And I want to ensure that all stake stakeholders have access to one place where they can ac um sign up for updates, have a message function. I'm not sure if an RFP is the right way to go about this. I I don't know if um I know that everyone in this district does a lot of different jobs, but I don't know if our tech team could handle anything um or if the owner project manager or architect can offer some services. I know, you know, there's even a Google a Google website I think even would be an improvement. Um but so I just wanted to get this conversation going now. Um, we do have the benefit of more time with this plan than we did
118um when we were going for three new schools last spring. So, I think there's time to plan ahead and consider how we want to communicate districtwide with one place of information from the district that is accessible. Okay, thanks for that overview. Um, Gina, do you want to weigh in on this? So, um I completely understand and actually, you know, Mr. O'Brien's in the back and he he's done a lot of our website work. Um but that's just not all we're responsible for. So, while um and again, if this is an ask from the school committee, we would you would at the budget you would add it to the FY27 budget. So, we' we could do it July 1. Um there's two ways you could do this. You could hire a vendor, which I believe is
119what the other districts did. Okay. Um, but I'm going to double check with the superintendent there, but I I believe sometimes um they have a marketing firm. We talked to Collers and Slam. They uh they said that, you know, they can give us sort of maybe referrals to marketing um firms, but they don't have that in-house service. Am I correct, Greg? >> They gave us referrals for two um Providence-based companies. I looked into both of them. >> So, what I I think is important is I I absolutely agree. Um, I am your communications and Eric is your we do the best we can. Um, but our bandwidth can get tight, especially if you know, life happens every now and then. Um, things get busy. So, I think it would be up to the committee to
120determine um, you know, what they believe is in the best interest of of the district to be able to do that. You know, is it do you want it to be that infrastructure where we hire someone internally to do that work? Do you want to do it where we have a vendor, a consultant that sort of gets us up and running and um this is not something I could say, oh, we could have the kids do it because you have to understand this and that they're learning. So, this is not maybe a learning platform, but this is definitely um I think it's a it's a reasonable request, but it would be up to the committee to decide how to implement. So, can I ask a question? I know that we through CTE we have graphic
121design. >> I was just gonna ask >> we were in sync. >> Yes. Um, and do some of the students have a project that they have to get credit for? Is this something that the graphic design students could take up um starting in either the spring or >> in the fall >> this year? Probably not, but I can check. I I want because they they usually um um as they do their projects, they usually have to decide earlier when there's their long term and they start to present in the spring. Um but I can definitely talk to Miss Caster. She's our graphic design teacher. Um but remember this comes with an understanding of a lot of this um the detail so that somebody then would have to provide that level of information. There are opportunities
122in AI as well. So one of the things before Mr. Draper left uh that we were looking at was um the the automaticity. So when Jess said like responding where your AI would literally callull your call your information from your website and give it to you say where would I find this? Um, there wasn't an appetite three years ago, but maybe that's something we start with because I think that's an opportunity where we actually reach out to the principles and say, "Would you be willing to pilot?" I'm gonna be honest, a lot of people in our in our towns prefer like um the pick up of the phone. They want to talk to someone. So, that's where we sort of walked it back. But, in the end, you know, there's not just one way to
123do this. I think this is a good opportunity for us to sort of think through. Um I can talk with Miss Caster and bring back some information, but I think um we might want to if this is something that the committee is interested, we want might want to bring this back for further review. Um so if you look at the homepage of the Cherrow Regional School District, there's some circles with some various topics. So busing, bullying, athletics, eupdate, special ed, there's a bunch of stuff. So, and then there's um you know sort of pull down menus uh home district information, school committee, administration, staff, parents, students, teaching and learning. So, I understand where Jess is coming from because to try to find information on the one unified school and this whole process, it's tough to
124navigate and it's tough to find. So maybe we can find some sort of a happy medium about putting a one unified school circle on the homepage and then have content from there. So it's at least it's more accessible to the public to try to find it, you know, more easily than because if you don't know that it's under necessity for school construction, it's very difficult to find. We could I mean I think Dr. Camila mentioned um as well as the Google site. We think that was like that was sort of our happy medium and um Mr. O'Brien, you know, this is your wheelhouse. Feel free to provide the advice of the school committee. Um what what maybe you would be thinking um as he's my go-to. I'm like, Eric, what do you think? How do
125we do this? >> Do you mind? >> Come on up to the microphone, please. >> Can Can I just say one thing, too? Like so we I know that we did have it front and center on like the homepage to find it but my issue too is when you go to and maybe you can speak to this when you go to the necessity for school construction it's just a bucket of documents which is fine for the budget you know you go you know what you're looking for but for a project of this magnitude like I'm not looking for a happy medium I think we should offer the most information that is easily accessible and understandable to the all constituents in the Linda, I'm sorry you had your hand raised, too. >> Well, I guess I'm
126I'm naive and I think you answered it. You're not It's Is this an expensive uh if we had to um contract out? This is an expensive What was some of the >> Can you tell us who the companies were that they suggested? >> They gave me two that I believe were on the um NPA NPA list. Okay. Um >> just generally >> they are they have a retainer. They are um they are, you know, they They're expensive. >> Okay. Just I figured they would be, but I just because that's something that needs to be monitored all the time, right? I mean, once you can set it up, but when you want to update it, someone needs to be >> Let Eric give his opinion. He >> does. This is what this is his wheelhouse. >>
127Sorry. >> Um, no, I I definitely agree that that the the page we have now is just like a you know, a pile of documents. It's hard to find stuff and finding that that page itself is hard. Uh the search function on our website is it leaves a little to be desired. Um you know the idea of implementing something that's like AIdriven that will better interpret what you're looking for and give you a a more structured response uh would be great. Um but you know and I I also think that marketing this project you know with a nice page uh is is a good way to go. um using some company to to come up with something is going to be expensive. Uh you know, if we could a lot of the um uh subgroups,
128for lack of a better term, like the the nurses, uh some of the reading teachers, they'll put together a Google site because it's easier to work with and then we'll just link to that. Um so I mean a good starting point might be creating a Google site uh and then having it like in a in a in a circle on the web page. um and see how how you feel about that. >> And we could do that because we because we don't have this budgeted right now. It would be FY27 anyway. We could pilot that and see how that goes and then sort of review it maybe in May. >> I mean, could we also pull from other because I just was saying that there's other schools that have that. I mean, realistically, you could,
129you know, you could use Gemini and ask that to pull that information and then have it create a website for you. >> Oh, yeah. We can always look at other other tools for inspiration, >> right? And then kind of and then just again link it and you have a Google site that you're using. When you click on the link on the homepage, it'll bring you directly to that site and it'll format everything the way that you want it to, >> right? So, it could be pretty, you know, I I I don't I feel like it would be a cost-effective solution to go that route rather than hiring an expensive firm to try to do it. >> Yeah. And sort of who drives this bus because in the past, Gina, you said that you're like the
130chief communications designer on Saturday. I say, "Eric, I can't get this to upload. Why?" Like, you added a period. I'm like, "Oh my gosh." But in the end, it's it's usually me, Eric, Sean, you know, Mike, sometimes, you know, we all pitch hit and try to do the best we can. Um, but sometimes, you know, it gets uh while it's a priority, some things always something else happen. So, we do our best and I I'm I'm very proud of our IT staff and there is just and well, on top of this, it's cyber security and fishing attempts and scamming and we've had uh you know, inroads with that as well. So um well this is important you know there's a lot of things that are important. So now you know I always say if everything
131is urgent then everything is urgent and nothing's prioritized really thoughtfully. So um but this project is important. So my thinking is because we don't have it in the budget we would start with the Google site see how far we can go. Um I I I believe all um the difference with Bristol War and Barington and Middletown my understanding is the towns are paying for it because they're they're in charge of those building committees. So, it's a sort of a sight off because um but Bristol W is regional. So, I'll reach out to Anna Riley to see if um if that's something that they co-op together and what they did. So, then Eric and I, you know, he he knows the IT people. I know the superintendent. We all have a network that we can talk
132through to see how we can make this work. So, how do we want to follow up on this? Do we want Gina to um contact those other regional school districts or the other school districts that Jess uh referenced and then give us sort of an update in uh an email update? Um and then we could revisit this based on the feedback from Gina Paulie. >> I I'm probably going to say something that's just common sense to me. put it on our Charo web page and go that route with the extra bubble because I think we've already trained everybody to if you want charo information to go to that web page. Um, throwing another one out there specifically for a capital improvement, it might not get a lot of traffic because if I'm if I want
133to go to a Charo web page, I'm going to go to the main one and add a bubble in would work great. I think that's just common sense. It's hard to get people to come out to the meetings and see the, you know, the presentations and stuff, you know, to train. It's essentially training people to go to a website that's separate from Charo. That's how I'm getting that from you. But it's a totally separate website or >> No, I wasn't ide. But my idea, it's all on the Cher Hill website now and the format I'm not sure from what I've heard that the format available, the infrastructure available could be a website within a website. >> Um, so it would be accessible from the chair website. It sounds like the direction we're discussing now um
134would be a a link to a an an external link to a website >> Google pulling it up and making it more prominent first of all on our main page would be very helpful for everyone in the public but I think that's just the route that everybody goes is right to the main page of charo to look for that information um >> okay so accessibility ility content that's all going to be important for this process. >> I mean, >> all right. Thank you. Appreciate. Okay. >> So, we'll have Gina reach out to some of her colleagues and then get back to the school committee with some feedback. If we need to [clears throat] revisit it, then we'll revisit it at a later date. Okay. Is that okay with everybody? Okay. Great. Thank you. >> Consent
135agenda items for approval and vote. Is there any are there any items that need to be uh pulled or that any of the members would like to have pulled? Larry >> A1. Okay. Anything else? >> Okay. So, hearing none others pulled. Can I get a motion for the rest of the items? So, that would be >> So, can I read the donations like Craig would? [laughter] >> Absolutely. First before we do, >> uh, I'd like to read the donations listed this month, which is that the Cherho school committee extends its gratitude for the donation of $1,000 from CVS to the Cherho Tech Health Career Scholarship and to the family of the late past superintendent Barry Richie for their generous donation of $500 to the Cherho High School library. >> Second. We have a motion and
136a second to approve the remainder of the items on the consent agenda. All in favor? Unanimous. Okay. Larry, um, you would like to revisit A1, the regular session minutes. >> Yeah, just uh seem to update the attendance. My name is missing off it. >> Is it? Thank you too much. I didn't realize >> I'm sorry. I didn't hear that, Larry. What? What was that? >> Um, on the attendance, my name is missing off it. Okay. I have to update it for you. Thank you. >> Motion to approve consent agenda item A1 >> with the amended. >> Okay, so we have a motion. Do we have a second? >> We have a second by Laura. All in favor? >> Unanimous reports. >> Okay, so for the subcommittee reports, the link to the budget subcommittee minutes are
137available to all members and the public from my reports. Um, tonight I want to briefly frame two report items that are intentionally connected to one another and to our broader district goals, particularly as we enter an important planning phase for the district. As we look ahead to our upcoming budget meetings and workshop, we will begin focusing on discussions around district planning and priority setting as we prepare to sunset vision 2026 and thoroughly develop vision 2029 and thoughtfully develop. This work will be grounded in our progress to date, our demonstrated strengths in the areas where our current data and student needs indicate continued growth is required. The first item, the elementary capital planning update, reflects the school committee's continued responsibility and leadership following the May 2024 bond referendum. After the bond did not pass, the school
138committee directed the administration to repackage our most critical campus needs and revise the elementary capital plan to ensure that our approach remains fiscally responsible, responsive to community feedback, and centered on student safety and learning. This work aligns directly to our strategic goals and our around facilities, student experiences, and long-term stewardship. The update tonight situates our elementary capital needs within the broader instructional and operational vision of the district and informs future budget and planning conversations. The second item, school improvement planning and preparing for vision 2029, focuses on how our schools are using data reflection and continuous improvement practices to drive student achievement and outcomes. This work is foundational as we develop vision 2029. Our next strategic plan is not intended to be a reset, but a continuation and refinement of the work launched through vision 2026.
139And our school improvement planning, MTSS alignment, and structural priorities will directly inform both our budget development and our district-wide goals moving forward. Together, these two items reinforce the intentional alignment between facilities planning, instructional improvement, and fiscal stewardship, and long range strategic planning as we prepare for the next phase in Cheraho's work. As part of this process, we will be hosting community feedback with SLAM on Monday, January 12th at 5:30 here in the library focused on the elementary capital plan. This session will provide families and community members an opportunity to share what they believe is important as we consider the concept of a unified elementary school. It is important to note that the work remains conceptual. Final design decisions occur in stage three, not in stage two. This uh up was also updated in our December
140e update and this date will also be in our January e update. Additionally, following winter break, school improvement teams will begin reporting on their school improvement planning processes which directly inform district strategic planning. They will update their school improvement teams on their goals and their progress to date. And with this um and as you all know with the school improvement team law, this governance structure outlined in Rhode Island law advises our work. This input will help shape and draft vision 2029 goals which will be brought to the school committee for final approval review um later this spring. >> Thank you. School committee requests for future agenda items or legal opinions. Okay. Polly and Karen request of the St. Pierre. Could the policy subcommittee pull the disciplinary code and >> we'll just review that? >> Um,
141>> so the behavior codes are reviewed every year and um by all of the because school improvement teams review uh the changes I think the CPS are looking for, we can do it but it's really not about the behavior code, it's about law. >> Okay, >> there's a difference but sure you can pull the behavior. Okay, Karen. >> Uh, the building committee would like to attend the next meeting to provide an update. >> Okay, great. We'll put that on. Thank you. Laura, did you have your hand raised? >> Diane. >> Hi. Yes. Um, I would like to consider a special meeting to review the charitable school committee's uh code of conduct um and possibly, you know, make uh make adjustments to that if necessary. >> Okay. >> Um Laura, >> was that the the one
142that we did last time? Wasn't that didn't that get pushed to the policies of community? >> That was uh public forum. So you're talking about rules, rules of conduct. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> For the general school committee >> members. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> All right. Anything else? All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays everyone. You as well. Thank you.