use Actant TV's YouTube channel found at the top of the agenda. This meeting is being recorded and will be posted on Actant TV's website at actantv.org. So funny I feel like we've all been together like couple of nights in a row some of us. So it's been a heck of a
week um between the first AB Forward community forum. We had negotiations get started off. We had the tri board last night and here we are again. So lots to talk about. Um, thank you all for everything you've put into this week. I know it has been an incredibly long
week. So, we'll start out with public participation. Per school committee policy beedh, members of the public are invited to speak for up to three minutes. And I'm going to caveat this. Um, for the next couple of meetings, we're going to do something a little bit different here. So, this portion will be
on anything on the agenda that is not related to AB forward. So, if you want to talk about strategic planning and reorganization, this is not the time to talk. We'll have that after the AB forward presentation in the school committee's discussion. Public participation on the rest of these
topics will only take place at this time during our meeting. Speakers must be recognized by the chair before speaking and the committee does not typically respond to comments during public participation. Would anybody like to talk to us about anything besides AB forward? All right, in that case, Peter, over to
you. >> All right, thank you, Tori. Um, so good evening, everyone. First, um, nice little congratulations here. I just want to congratulate the Boardwalk campus, um, who hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony recently to commemorate the installation of a new sun shade. The initiative was
made possible by an $8,000 grant awarded by the American Academy of Dermatology in conjunction with financial contributions from both the Douglas and Gates PTO's. Um so we are thrilled about that and certainly congratulations to the boardwalk campus and what a great
great opportunity for kids. Um AB Forward update just really brief overview because we're going to get into that in a minute. We had a a really nice community forum that was attended probably by about 75 people on Monday night um with you know probably about 30 minutes of presentation 20 minutes or so
and then really probably about 90 minutes or so of um just public comment asking questions and just a really nice dialogue with community members. Um, I was impressed with the level of empathy that various community members showed in recognizing the challenging situation that it was putting everyone in and kind
of just recognizing that everyone was going to hold different perspectives on something that was challenging. So, thank you to all the members of our community who participated in that and for um participating in the manner that they did. Um, we launched our AB Forward survey um this afternoon. We actually
launched it Monday or Tuesday night at the uh community forum, but we publicly launched it uh today. So, we've sent that link out. It's now posted on our homepage and it's on the AB Forward page where people can get all of the information regarding AB Forward. Um, I
want to also just thank Joe Costello and his team from DM Group um for all of the work they've done hosting our um small group meetings because we really put them through the ringer with like 35 of these types of meetings um which was possibly a new record uh for them. We're
not sure, but maybe Joe can Joe can highlight that. But certainly thank you for all of the work behind the scenes to to him and his team. Um we are sending out our weather procedures. It's getting to be that time of year. We're headed toward the end of October. Um early November. I will just remind everyone
trying to figure out what the weather is. Um if the weather people bat like 333 and end up in the Hall of Fame, your superintendent can't do much better than the best weather person uh because we rely on them. So just keep in mind it's an imperfect science. Um, but we do want to make sure our families know the
procedures for that. Um, I'm not going to read all of them to you. Um, you know, the one the one caveat I will put in is, you know, student drivers are always the perennial challenge. Um, and what to do about student drivers. We recognize that, you
know, we have a range of drivers from our staff who live far away, staff who live in the community to students who live in the community. What's really challenging is we cannot plan when we have school or don't around any individual's needs. Um we have to kind of make a decision about the general
safety and that is generally our staff ability to get here um and and be able to arrive on time so we can safely operate our schools and our ability to get the buses on the road. Um but we cannot plan based on student driving needs because there's such a range of skills. So, we always remind families at
this time of year that the choice whether or not to get a student on the road sits with the family and not the school. Um, so we just want to make sure our parents are cautious in how they approach those as well. Um, we're really excited because I had the pleasure of going over to the senior
center um last week. I believe it was Friday. I did Java with John. um got to talk to the seniors about some of the great work happening, some of the bus grants we've gotten, the uh tax rebate for almost $3 million that we received that's going to help defer costs on the high school rooftop project. Um and also
just reminded them that we have upcoming uh visits from the senior center over to our high school. Um so we are bringing the the big yellow bus over to both senior centers to pick people up. Um bringing them to the high school. We do short tours uh but then you know get an
opportunity to hear from the high school principal and then have lunch with our students uh which is always really the highlight of the time before we bring them back and drop off at the senior center. So those are coming up in October as well. So with that I will turn it back to you Tori.
>> All right. Well in that case it must be time. Well before we talk about AB4 does anybody have any questions or comments for Peter >> Glenn? Um, thank you for the update and I just I do think that more continued communication with the senior center is
a good idea. Um, I think we heard last night the tribe board that um I think there is some confusion about like what is it the school committee is up to but and I think that with the communicating with them specifically I think is a good block to connect with.
All right, in that case must be time to invite Joe Costello up and talk about AB forward. There we go. Perfect. Um good evening everybody. It's so nice to be back with you. Uh excited to share this update. Uh essentially the the same materials that we shared um at the community meeting
can provide a little bit more context to some some of the details especially based on all the information that we've shared with this group previously. Um so uh the sections that I wanted to to really cover here welcome introduction summary of the reorganization options
because I know this is the first time that this group is formally seeing them. Um, so want to make sure that there's there's time to explore those different options, understanding the trade-offs between them. Um, then can provide an overview of the survey, give another plug to have have folks fill that out.
Um, and then, uh, from there can can take, uh, specific, uh, qu questions or reactions. Um, so with that, um, when we shared these materials with the community, um, the other night, we wanted to make sure that we reggrounded ourselves in the goals for this work. I
think uh especially as as Peter alluded to all the different conversations with different stakeholders what's come out is that there are a lot of people are are entering into these conversations from a variety of different places. So we wanted to make sure that we reggrounded ourselves in what it is we were trying to do both thinking about
the strategy for for act regional school district and then how that strategy should inform decisions for reorganization. So we're not diving head first into the different options and weighing them against one another, but really thinking about the strategy that should be driving those decisions. So we have those those those different goals
up there. Um, I think again really thinking about that actionable strategy that helps to to to drive or to navigate those specific trade-offs and then through this process building support among stakeholders around you the the reality of making challenging decisions
and how we can come together as a community to build consensus around why we need to do this work and um how we're how we're addressing some of those specific concerns so that we can ultimately end with some really thoughtful resultsoriented options for reorganization that the the steering
committee can then uh pres we can winnow down with the steering committee to those two to three um really solid actionable options that can then be presented to you all for uh further deliberation. Um I also shared a a few uh uh summary
takeaways from the diagnostic work that we shared with you uh I think maybe like a month or month and a half ago now. Um so I won't read through these. These are all details that you all know extremely well. Um, but I think it was really helpful and has been helpful as we've had conversations with the community to
regground ourselves in the why behind the work and how there it's important that uh any any solution or any option that comes out of this process really does take these these factors into consideration. As a quick reminder also, I know we've
had a few of these meetings now. Um, we are really in the third phase phase of our work. So now that we've generated those district reorganization scenarios, we're gathering feedback from uh all all various community members and stakeholders um through a combination of community meetings. So three different
community meetings, two in person, one virtual uh a variety of focus groups that are organized by different uh community member groups or stakeholder groups. So, focus groups with educators, focus groups with administrators, uh had a focus group today with with coaches and specialists, uh focus groups with
parents, elected officials, folks who live in the community but aren't but don't have children in the community. We really do want to make sure that we are hearing from all corners of the Actton Boxboro Regional School District community to be able to incorporate their feedback to present back to the
steering committee to uh inform their decisions about how we winnow these options down and really think about what makes the most sense for the AB community. And then that will set us up to have the the formalized set of two to three options in early December to then present uh to you all believe on uh
December 4th during that uh school committee meeting. Um, I felt that it was also important to really dive into that that middle phase. So again, we're in this gathering feedback from the community uh through the variety of of uh forums that I
shared before so that we can distill uh feedback from those various community groups, pick apart and and and really analyze the feedback based on different uh uh community member attributes so that we can really pinpoint some of the key details um from from various community member groups that should be
informing decisions later on. Um, just as a uh additional information, as we've had all of these focus groups and conversations, there were really two main objectives uh related to the feedback that we were hoping to to get because as you all I'm sure are well
aware, there are a lot of details baked into these different options for reorganization. So rather than picking apart every single one, we really sought to understand the trade-offs, priorities, and the the the needs of the community that really need to be addressed through this process so that we can capture these really detailed
benefits and drawbacks for those different options um that really do resonate with the community and reflect the needs of the community. So what I'm going to transition into now is a quick summary of the reorganization options. I know these are materials that
have been they were shared with the steering committee a few weeks back now and then they were uh made or they were made publicly available for that meeting. Um and then we also released a video and a synthesized version of of materials online and then also shared at
the Actton community meeting and will do the same at the Boxboro community meeting uh and the virtual community meeting. But for the sake of of sharing the same information uh at at this at this particular forum, I want to walk through the same materials here. Um there are a couple key considerations or
key philosophies that we wanted to make sure were highlighted um that are really driving or sorry provisions that are really driving district reorganization. Um, one that we felt was really important to just name very plainly are the different ideologies or reasonings behind
uh potentially uh closing a specific school. Um, so you can see the the two details there. Um and really the decision that that that came out of this process was the district determines that school closure if if the district uh determines that school closures or
mergers are necessary during reorg uh it is most practical to consider schools with lower enrollment and less community preference. And so based on those two metrics which are only two metrics there are a host of factors you could you could consider. Uh the lowest enrollment was Miriam and the potential merger
would be McCarthy Town and Miriam based on those those factors. Um, we also wanted to dig into the different kinds of approaches to unifying school communities during during a merger. Um, you see the three listed there. We'll get into that in more detail later on in
in these materials. Um the themes from this idea of merging communities is really important because even if we're not specifically calling out merging communities in most of these options, there's going to be the need for shifting positions around potentially and there's there's work to be done
around what it means to have a new configuration of schools. Um and then the last piece uh this is a broader philosophy for this effort but uh making sure that student placement and um or thinking through student placement and minimizing disruptions for all of these
different kinds of options enrollment policies are still being finalized. Um we'll get into that again later on. But for each of these options, there's a variety of different policies related to enrollment that could correspond uh with what the final option could be. Um so those have not been uh finalized yet but
as we move into uh presenting the uh the window down set of options. Um we will also be providing uh the detailed considerations related to those uh the implications for enrollment policies but through this whole process every effort will be made to minimize disruption for
students and families. Um so uh in terms of how we were thinking about uh options for reorganization um it was really important for us especially early on in this process to be as comprehensive as possible. We
wanted to think through the different dimensions of possible reorganization and lay out every possible combination of options that act in boxboro could really consider and then once we had that full map we could go through and identify which of those options are
feasible or not. So the three dimensions of reorganization that we went with started with facilities probably the the simplest. So apps and everything else, what are the facilities and uh that the district should really move forward with? Um you can see the three options
that we have there and then separating facilities from schools and programs. How should schools be built or how should schools be reorganized within that space? So keeping the design of schools and programs exactly the same. So maintaining six distinct
elementarymentaries. um maintaining six individual schools but allowing for varying enrollment levels which is a a departure from uh how things are done currently. shifting from six down to five by closing a school, shifting from six to five by merging schools together
or uh introducing this this other component thinking about um different variations of grade levels, right? So the elementarymentaries currently have this K through six or PK through 6 model. That's one way of organizing elementary schools. There are other ways to do that. You can have different grade
level bands. You could have an early elementary center. You could have a lower versus upper. Lots of school districts explore options like that and have seen a lot of success. Um so important to think about all the different uh aspects of these dimensions in all of their various combinations. Um
some caveats with this. Uh uh it's really important that the district uh so really it's like any combination of these but the the options that we ended up uh putting in front of you all were ones that we vetted and made sure were feasible based on spatial
constraints and really financial sustainability sorts of constraints. So we wanted to make sure that uh we were really clear on what actually would work in terms of using space effectively. Um, and then the other key detail is that uh all reorganization options maintain the integrity of special education and
multilingual programs and provide for appropriate levels of space in those adjusted district configurations. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that school that certain programs will stay in their exact places where they currently live. Um, however, as we mapped out literally how all of these
options would fit into the buildings, we started with those specialized programs to make sure that they were they were accounted for and then we layered on all the other uh uh home rooms, classrooms, uh, etc. So, that's the general architecture for our reorganization
design. And then from there, we were able to call out nine different options for potential reorganization. Again, based on those four different or the three different dimensions that I shared before, um, facilities, organization of schools and programs, and then specific grade levels, the options you see in
yellow are only impacting elementary. And then the blue ones, seven and eight, start to explore, okay, what would this look like if we if we included the junior high or the high school into our conversations? Um, and then in the spirit of being comprehensive, what would longer term options potentially
look like? potentially expanding the district or region. You know, again, in the in the spirit of comprehensiveness, we wanted to think through what that would be and just have it be a part of the the conversation here. So, I'll walk through each of these options again very quickly. There's a lot of information on all of these
slides. Um, but want to make sure we get the gist of each of these. Um before I do that though uh for each of these options before I I share the the information for each of the options we had specific criteria for assessing the viability or efficacy of these different
uh reorg options starting with impact on student and families impact on staffing uh level of disruption for for both of those etc. implications for curriculum materials and support. Um especially when we get into some of those gradeb band adoptions, what the implications are there. And then we had some
summarized strengths and drawbacks and some projected costs. Um really because cost has been a major theme and major driver for this work. It's really providing some urgency for the work. We felt it really important to highlight the uh projected sustainability of the
different kinds of options. I will say though, this is just one metric that could or should be used to determine the appropriateness or the efficacy of any of these options. This will be weighed in in uh in tandem with a variety of different options or a variety of
different metrics um once we get back together with the steering committee with the steering committee. So with that, the first option very simple uh really maintaining your existing structures. So not making any changes obviously you have no long-term savings there. uh pros and cons to to
this kind of approach um but doesn't really solve the problem. The second option is starting to uh think through the idea of closing the Conan building. And here's an a really important distinction through all these uh options. Uh uh detaching the school from
the building, right? So close the Conan building and then think about how you uh fit the school communities differently within your existing buildings. And so for this particular option, maintain your six K through six elementaryaries. Um the only way to do that or the the
the ways to do that uh would be to shuffle your schools around. And then you'd really have to play around with the enrollment levels of different buildings based on a variety of different factors. One one being the desired enrollment levels based on
uh um the some kind of lottery data uh information like that. Um, but that's really how you'd fit six schools into into the three buildings. There's some again benefits, drawbacks to this, some sustainability implications because you still are
operating six separate schools within three buildings. Um, so you don't you don't get the opportunities for sharing resources that you would in some of the later options. Um, option three, similar sort of idea, consolidating down to five schools. Um
so going from four to three buildings so closing the Conan building but then rather than maintaining all six schools uh drop down to five schools and there really two uh possible paths or the two possible paths forward with that closing
Conan um because you've closed the building close the school that goes along with the building um and then uh explore options for redistributing students. Um, a second version of that would be to close the school with the fewest primary choices, in this case, Miriam, as we uh shared before, and then
distribute those school students across other schools and move the Conan school into that open space. Benefits, drawbacks to this. Uh, here we're getting into a more sustainable option because you're closing not just the building, but also shifting uh staffing
around, things like that. Um, option four, consolidation through merging schools. So very similar to the previous option uh switching from six schools to five schools within three buildings but then merging the two schools in this case with the fewest primary choices. So Miriam and McCarthy
Town as we shared previously and then move the Conan community into that vacant space. Again similar sorts of cost implications because of uh really it's the administrative costs that um that get combined by by dropping down to to five
specific schools. Um here's the detail that that I had on on one of the earlier slides, but getting really clear on what merging schools mean means. Um and this is a a very powerful term. Um when you think about the humans who were involved in
this process so we wanted to provide some additional information around what this could really look like. So one is integrate into one approach. So really if you're combining McCarthy Town and Miriam, absorb some Miriam practices into the McCarthy town sort of uh sort
of approach and then that's that's your new your new way of doing things. Um another option though creating a combined approach. So thinking about the best things from McCarthy Town, the best things from Miriam, bringing that community together, leaders from that community and and folks from that
community together to align on what that new combined uh set of options would be from the existing practices. And then a third approach would be you know you take feedback from both communities. You bring the group together and you say hey what should the new version of of whatever our school be based on not just
what we used to do but what other new interesting innovative things are out there that would really do amazing things for our students. Um you'll see throughout some of these other options illusions to mergers or combined schools or different uh grade level configurations. These themes are going
are going to be really important in the implementation phase uh for you all as you're thinking about what the new school community should look like as new schools are coalescing together through this process. Um next up uh uh reconfiguration through
so now we're talking about grade level bands. So this one starts to get a little bit more complicated and and uh has the potential for more disruption although there are some new and interesting benefits to this this kind of approach as well. So there are two uh versions of this grade level banding
option that that we wanted to share with you uh or really highlight. Um the first is really a district-wide grade banding approach. So we've dropped from three or from four physical buildings down to three physical buildings and then we treat each building as its own grade
level banded school. So in this case we have Blanchard becomes an early childhood center prek through K. Douglas Gates becomes grades one through three, so the lower elementary school, McCarthy Town and Miriam upper elementary school.
Um, and then another version of that where there's still some grade level banding going on is you keep Blanchard as a K6 and you keep the Boardwalk campus and the Parker Damon building as K through six, but within each of those larger buildings rather than organizing
the schools as K through six, like two two K6 schools in one building, you think of it as the other orientation. So you have a lower school and you have an upper school. The real benefit here is that you have more sections of individual grade levels in the same
space. So rather than just having two or three sections of like second grade, which poses some challenges for sharing resources, you have more sections of that of that grade level, which allows your specialist to pull from more students at the same time. So it allows you to use some resources a little bit
more effectively, especially some of those the specialized positions. uh even specialist teachers, there are ways to like be more creative with uh resourcing there. So again, those two different models, the full district-wide grade banded model and then the school-based
grade level uh grade level bands um that's uh where you still maintain a K6 community in each building. Um but you organize the schools differently. This option six is pretty similar to the option five version two, but instead of
thinking about the two of boardwalk campus and and Parker Damon as uh four schools and two buildings, you think about them as one much larger school. And there are ways to organize supports differently and create communities within those schools. That's a part of,
you know, designing for implementation. But the real advantage from a from a resourcing standpoint with this option is that you have uh more uh more creative options for uh for staffing if you think about it as one full school.
Now naturally one full school with that number of students. We're talking like 7 to 800 students. There are there are important uh administrative supports that need to be in place for teachers to get the supports that they need. So, it's a different an a different set of
of staffing uh possibilities um but slightly more flexible than thinking about it as two schools in one building. But that's why this one is on the far right of that sustainability scale. It really provides the district a lot more
flexibility with with staffing, with program design. And again, there are ways to make large schools feel smaller by creating strands and teams and and things like that. Um but the the the larger structure provides that greater level of flexibility.
Um the seventh option here uh uh starts to to dig into the world of of secondary options. Um so here we have make all of your elementary schools K through five and then shift some students to the secondary level. So the distinction between this one and option eight is
what happens to the Conan building. So in this particular option seven this maintains four elementary buildings. So we assume no change to Conan. Um but we reconfigure elementary grade levels to be K5. And then there really two options
for where secondary students go. One option you move sixth graders into the junior high school to create a middle school which gives you a lot more flexibility with how you're providing educational services to your sixth graders. Um so there's uh opportunities for for efficiencies there while also
providing really robust experiences to kids. Um and then the second option keep you maintain that move from sixth to the junior high but you shift your eighth graders to the high school really where there's more space more capacity in the building to absorb those students. A
really important consideration for the version one of this is that the junior high school building is very full right now. And so if you wanted to squeeze sixth graders into that space, you would need additional facilities, modular classroom, something along those lines
to really make that work. But there is research, a a lot of very strong research around 6 through 8 as a as a middle school. So we felt it was it was worthwhile to put on the on the set of options here. And then option eight, very similar to
the previous option, but really the key distinction here is we're dropping from four school, four buildings down to three. And then there are variety of different ways you can organize those three elementaryaries, but you do so as K through five, right? And so that allows you to free up some space in the building. So you're not crowding your
elementarymentaries and you're really making this uh making this be a district-wide solution. again, version one, version two, where does sixth grade go, where does eighth grade go to really make make all the puzzle pieces fit. So, this one gives you the most
flexibility because again, you're introducing some of those other um more efficient options for how you're organizing uh uh all all of your elementary students in three uh three physical buildings.
um in thinking about all of these different options because obviously that's a lot to digest and um a lot of detail and nuance and different subvariations of the of the different options and then considerations for implementation. There really four main
options that we're that we're really talking about here with this fifth potential think in the future what could district expansion look like. Number one, maintain the status quo, do nothing, hope for the best. Uh option two, facility consolidation, right? So let's make the choice. We're going to
drop from four elementary buildings to three and then maybe maintain our K6 configuration. Um next version of that, you're still consolidating facilities, but now we get to play around with some grade level band options. So thinking about how we organize our schools within
those facilities. Um and then the fourth option, do we uh make the shift from sixth grade to into into the secondary secondary realm? Thinking about sixth graders either in the junior high and if doing so do we also move eighth grade to the high school.
So those are the the main options that we wanted to really get feedback on from the community allowing the community to really respond to all of those detailed options as well. Um, the other crucial element to to all of these options is how you then decide which
students go where. And so what you're looking at are four different options for a re-imagined enrollment policy. Because under any of the options that I just presented, you could maintain some form of an open enrollment lottery, right? You have there are ways to to think about, okay, we still we have five
schools or six schools, however, however you want to think about it. There's still ways for families to rank their preferred uh schools. However, uh the district would also entertain some modest procedural changes to really make sure that that works effectively. Um another uh uh trim down version of that
would be okay, what if we uh restricted open enrollment to buildings and not schools, especially if we have, you know, the three buildings, three elementary buildings that we're thinking about that allows some level of preferred choice, keeping communities together, etc. and then the district
would use that information to deter to determine where in the school students would be enrolled. Um other districts out there use district assignments using some set of factors. Uh so that basically the district reserves the right to place students you know using
some lottery data but also with some other other data points to to establish what the enrollment should be at each school. Um, and then a fourth important notable option would be geographic zone assignments, which is what many other communities, especially in Massachusetts, do. Um, thinking about
how you carve up the community so that you can keep students who live close to each other together while also ensuring a nice blend of of communities in each of your schools. So again, we intentionally separated these options for for enrollment policies away
from the options for reorganization because they are distinct even though they are intertwined. And I think especially through our the conversations and focus groups, it's very easy to start debating enrollment policies when we also need to decide what the structure of our school district is
going to be. So that's that's the reason we organized this in this way. Um the other other key uh bit of information I wanted to share very quickly with you all just the overview of our survey and this very much follows the structure of our of our focus groups really we want
folks to rank options. So of of all those options that we shared we split them up into their own distinct options. We want to know where folks stand on those different options with space for elaboration and understanding what what details what information do people really need to know at least, you know,
as they're thinking about it, digesting this information to be able to process it. Um, also understanding trade-offs, especially from certain communities. There's some really big trade-offs that that are being weighed right now. We want feedback on how people are uh thinking about those trade-offs. What's
hardest? what's the uh what potential benefits are you seeing, greatest concerns, etc. Um and then importantly thinking ahead, what should the district be doing to support all of these various stakeholders in this process? How can we make this be as least disruptive as possible? And in some cases, you know, a
really beautiful point um that was brought up at the community meeting was there are so many wonderful things going on in all act schools. And there's this tremendous opportunity to bring best practices from six distinct elementary schools together even in the meeting
that was happening like oh wow I didn't realize there was an opportunity for that kind of experience. It would be really cool if my my child could do that as well. And so I think there are some some opportunities that we don't want to lose sight of um to to really make the most out of this situation. So hoping
for feedback related to that in that section three. And then of course we want demographic information really to make sure that um the full Actton Oxboro community is accessing the survey. We're getting feedback from all corners. We're very carefully monitoring uh those statistics to make sure um if if we need
to to go deeper in certain communities, we're we're taking those steps. some additional details. Again, uh released it on the 21st uh and then publicly uh yesterday and then plan is to have that go for about two and a half weeks, closing it on Friday, November
7th. Um and then we'll be able to distill those takeaways and findings. Folks, for folks watching at home, you can take a picture of this and uh that should that should bring up that that survey. Um, but with that, uh, let me pass it back to to Tori or Peter, um, for
questions, comments, or or what have you. >> Sounds good. Thanks, Joe. So, just so we have an idea of like kind of what the next couple of meetings look like. Uh, we probably have about time to go around for one round of questions and comments tonight. We actually have some real work
we have to do in our meeting on uh, budget guidelines, which we'll get to. Um, you may have noticed in the Friday update that we are looking for kind of the top three burning questions that are on your mind that we will then pass on to Joe for our next meeting. So, that's when we'll have some time to do some
really in-depth. Um, but for tonight, let's just pick like whatever that top comment or question is that you that's that's on your mind right now and uh we'll get started trying to make sense of all of this. Yen, >> thank you, Joe. Um I just have a
logistic question. Uh I'm hearing that people saying that there are more people on the wait list for focus group rather than people who are participating in a focus group. Is it act is it correct? Uh yes that is correct. So we we hosted
I believe 35 maybe 36 focus groups so far. um which in our experience is like actually a lot of focus groups and we feel especially in being in all of these conversations we're hearing a lot of the same kinds of comments. Now that's not
to diminish the experiences of individuals in the community because everybody's experiences are valid but in terms of pulling out the themes we feel pretty good about 35 to 36 focus groups. Um so that's that's where where we're at. Um if the district wants to to open
additional spaces, we do have the Boxboro community meeting uh this coming Monday and we also have the um virtual session uh the the Thursday after that. Um and then and then I would I would encourage people to go to the survey to
to provide really detailed feedback. In some cases, you can provide even more feedback through the survey than you could in a focus group. Um, even though I know being in a in a space with people with different perspectives and backgrounds is a really beautiful experience. But to answer your question directly, yes,
>> Ben, >> thank you. Um, could you go into a little bit of detail about how some of these uh consolidated schools would impact classroom size? There's some reference within the slides, but there wasn't very much detail behind that. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, absolutely. Um, so
the way we ran our analyses, um, we used the district's existing class sizes, so what the averages are currently, and then we use the school committee's class size guidelines across grade levels. So when we looked at the feasibility of all of those options, quite literally, do
the number of students we have in Act and Boxboro right now fit into all these different spaces, we use the existing class size guidelines to make the numbers work. So all the the cost projections are based on that. So it's your own existing class size guidelines
um that's that's driving those decisions. >> Great. Thank you. >> Of course, >> Vicram. >> Um just uh I wanted to call we it seems that uh Miriam is being thrown under the bus on a lot of these slides. Sort of
seems to have a magnifying glass with a strong sun on it. Um, and I think it's important to note in this uh that Miriam's approach to education is quite novel and cutting edge and I don't see that reflected anywhere here. And I think it's important you yourself were saying that a lot of schools are
surprised that oh other schools do this and that. Uh, and the fact that Miam has low enrollment and it it's quite it seems quite likely actually people are not aware of how wonderful Miriam's approach to education actually is. A second question I have is could you uh
sort of uh expand on the district expansion? I'm I'm really unclear as to what that actually would perhaps like a brief synopsis of what that actually looks like. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um in response to your your first comment, completely agree and that's something especially
from our focus groups that that we're really taking to heart. Um talking to community members in in the Mariam school and uh McCarthy town because those are really the two schools that are called out in that way. and enrollment uh does not equate to how how strong
that school community is. Um to your other question, yeah, absolutely. So the idea essentially the process that you all went through to fully uh regionalize Actton and Boxboro, other communities in in Massachusetts would expand beyond just two towns. So you could think through, okay, you know, think about
your neighboring communities. Is there an opportunity for an additional partnership? And really the advantage there is you save on district-wide administrative costs. Also for a district that provides options for students and families, uh it would open up more schools that you could that
could be a part of the Actton Boxboro XYZ district portfolio. So that's that's the idea with that option. Now I'm sure the wheels are all turning and all the select board members in the audience you're like, whoa, hold on. um to do that you need cooperation, collaboration
with another community. So there's all sorts of planning that would need to go into it. Many other communities in Massachusetts and the broader New England area have gone through that process successfully though. So yeah, thank you. I also just want to say with the record, my children don't go to
Miriam, but I I just want to be clear that should be respected. >> Absolutely. >> Liz, hi Joe. Um, so I was actually surprised how many of these options included closing a school building. And I know that that's something that the community
is very tuned into. Um, I guess my question was, um, you know, is closing a building really that significant of a potential savings or cost avoidance for us? Um, and I know it's early to get too deep into that, but are there any specifics that you could give, you know,
just to kind of give an overview of like, you know, this is the value that closure of that building would c would give us? >> Yeah, thank you for that question. Um, it's a it's a really important one and I like how you framed it as both savings and cost avoidance because a really key
detail is the needed renovations for the Conan facility which we had in our materials 17.5 million maybe 18 million but if you if you think longer term of like okay over the next 5 to 10 years what would renovations need to be and to really bring that facility up to you
know standard for for uh for for public education today costs could even be much higher than that. So there is this piece of avoiding those costs in the future especially with recent history of you know initiatives to to open a new school
uh finance that kind of renovation. So there's that piece and then the other piece is if you're really going to find efficiencies for the district shrinking down to fewer fewer schools is really how that's going to happen. Um that's where you you save on administrative
costs, facilities, facilities cost, uh utilities, things like that by dropping down to to to fewer buildings. Yeah, >> Glenn, thank you for the thorough details. And I taking a bit of a step back to a
higher altitude like you mentioned about longer term solutions for expanding the district. I'm also wondering if some of the some of these restruct restructuring options are more advantageous than others for doing things like laying the groundwork for full day kindergarten. Um
even if it's years from now or things like expanded vocational programs like a robotics program or something. Those have been pretty big costs that we haven't been able to entertain in for years. But I'm just wondering if are there are there structures of
restructuring that are more expandable throughout the years than others? Does that make sense? It's yes. Um there's a lot that could go into an answer for that. Um
so I can get back to you on some more specific details. Like the the shortest version of that is by having more efficient schools. So in that like sustainability scale that gives you a little bit more flexibility or gives the district leadership team more
flexibility with how resources are deployed between buildings. So like staff members etc like the reach of staff. Um so the more sustainable the option that frees up resources for other kinds of programming. Um so that's one way to think about it. Uh and then for
the potential collaborations with other communities. So that expand the region sort of sort of idea. The there are there are opportunities to like grow a specific kind of program that attracts that would attract another district to to be a part of your like consortium of
of schools. Um I'll stop there because there's a lot of different directions and I think we've given a lot of information to the community so I don't want to get too far into the weeds of like what could possibly be. Um, but I think those two options, the most sustainable, like consolidate our schools, frees up more
resources for other other things like important investments. Um, and then this idea of expanding the district potentially because really you need you need students in programs for the programs to be viable. That's kind of the main takeaway. >> Thank you. And I appreciate that. I feel in my element in the weeds and I so
thank and it sounds like you are too. That's very good, >> Adam. >> Thanks, Joe. Every time I hear the presentation, it gets better. I just want to let you know that. >> Keep practicing. So, it's good. >> Um, you know, one of the wonders that I've had as I've been fortunate enough to sort of hear this and and hear
feedback a number of times. And you know, as we start to see our community pick up on where this may lead, um we're clearly hearing a lot of concern um from each of the individual schools that they feel in a way targeted. And so um you
know, I I think about that um and then I think about uh one of the the feedbacks that we've gotten that I really like is this this concept of disruption. And you know when we look at a sustainability scale that's one component but you know how do we look at the disruption um and
I think particularly for us on the school committee when we make the decision I'm really curious about how we balance disruption for a small group versus disruption for the system as a whole. And the question that I have that I sort
of I would love for you to to come back with some some information on next time is we're clearly not the first school community that has gone through this where they've had 50 years of educating in one way and have decided through whatever reasons to change their
organization. And so I know we we've got some research coming from a thirdparty research organization, but I'd also love to hear just some case studies around that because I think one of the things that personally I'm going to wrestle with is do we disrupt a small group and say well a disruption for a small group
is better than disrupting everybody or do we have and and one of my co-chair vice chairs mentioned this the other day like do we have a shared trauma but it is a shared moment that the community can all wrap itself around and I say that for a couple reasons. One, I I
really want every elementary parent to think about this as something that could potentially affect them. You know, we are hearing a lot of feedback from those families that schools have been called out in the materials. Um, but I want to be clear, I don't think that there's
going to be zero change to Blanchard, Gates, or Douglas. I think that there's going to be some significant changes to those communities as well, um, regardless of of what we end up with. So what I would love is some more sort of not data but sort of stories about other
groups that have gone through this because I think that's going to be one of the things that we really struggle with when we when we come to a decision is do we make a a a big disruption for a small group or do we make a big disruption for everybody and I think we want to know that what how that comes
out because ultimately we're going to start talking about that and this room is going to fill up and no matter which way we go it's going to fill up but I would love to hear how it worked out in other organizations, other schools. >> Absolutely. >> Lisa,
Vicram, we're just going to do one per person. Um, Laxshmi, did you have your hand up? Go ahead, Laxmi. So, I'm wondering, we're talking about buildings, consolidating classes, classrooms. It's always been about the physical structure of
>> the schools. Are we thinking about how we structure our instruction and I think our major costs costs are in those spaces, right? So, did we catch up to the modern u uh kind of movement in
how to educate our children and are we at least even talking about it and orienting classrooms to that? >> I I don't see any any topic that's touching that. >> Yeah, thank you for the the question. um
in these materials. I'll admit it's very structurally oriented based on options for reorganization. Um when we started this process actually back in May and then through June, um the first effort that we tackled was developing language
for a strategic plan and that is thoroughly grounded in what teaching and learning needs to look like in actin boxboro grounded in your vision for a graduate all of that. So that thinking and the work of designing really high quality instruction um is very much
happening in tandem with all of this. We're just in this phase right now talking about options for reorganization which admittedly is feels a bit disconnected from the instruction that's happening in classrooms. But I can I can I can say for sure in the additional materials that will come out later with
the the strategic plan language etc which we're still we're still finalizing with the school comm or with the sorry your school committee with the steering committee because it's it's very much interconnected with these options for reorg that that connection will be made again for what really strong instruction looks
like especially strong instruction the AB way. >> Lisa So, my comment is um more in regards to the emotional climate right now and I just wanted to I've been thinking a lot about this since the options have come
out and I just wanted to take a moment to say something that's been weighing heavily on my heart. I think it's really important to say how much we truly value all of the wonderful people educating and supporting our students at every school. It's also imperative that a
moment is taken to acknowledge the fact that our community is going through the process of grieving and many of us are in varying stages of that because for many this does feel like a loss. With great change there is an accompanying
fear a fear of the unknown and some families have lived here or nearby for much of their lives. Many of our families have moved here from other places and as they have settled they have looked to increase support through the creation of connections with other
families and by working to foster positive relationships with the people who are dedicated to educating and providing services for their children. When you don't have family living nearby, the people in your immediate orbit or the realm that we each inhabit
tend to end up becoming your family by proximity. So, when thinking about how to move forward, I just want to encourage everyone to think about what matters most to them and what makes each community feel special. While everyone has a community that feels unique and
has qualities worth preserving as we think about what the future could look like, I also want to encourage all of us to think about the things that bring us together, our shared values. When I moved to this town and just like every other parent I talked to, I had the daunting decision of ranking my
school choices for my first child. And I remember the echoes of wisdom resounding within the community. Every school is great and you can't go wrong with any of them. And when I think about the pearls of wisdom imparted onto me by other parents who have courageously gone before me in this portion of their
parenting journey, I am compelled to understand the underlying truth. It's the people who make the difference. And it's really important for me to stress that here in AB, we are incredibly fortunate to have individuals with unparalleled talent and a true passion
for what they do. Our children are supported and genuinely cared for in a way that inspires me and is confirmed within every conversation I have and with within the data we saw in the survey. I hope all of us can hold on to and remember it's the people who matter
and it's the way we care for each other and carefully consider how to meet the needs of each student that as a community will allow us to move forward. All right, thank you all for that. Joe, thank you for the the first rundown. We know we will get to see you
more often. Um we will shift here to our um our public comments. So we've got 15 minutes allocated. Can I see a show of hands of who's interested in uh talking about AB forward? Now is your time. I see one, two, three.
Okay, that makes it fairly fairly easy. Then we um can go with our usual three minute maximum. Um, and as a reminder, the committee and presenter will typically not respond to comments or questions, so you can come on up and uh
share your thoughts with us. >> Hi, uh, the David Martin select board. I just want to kind of address uh, Adam's concern that, um, you know, a small disruption or a large disruption. I would just put out there that another dimension is how long the disruption
lasts or when you take the disruption how long are you settled right so um maybe a small disruption is not so good if 3 years down the road we have another big disruption right so I think just I think it's just another consideration is how long we estimate that the things
will be settled after we disrupt either small or large thank Hi, Hillary Grebin. I know you can't answer this question, but I'm just curious about option five and um making the Blanchard and element or the early
elementary with preK and K given that we've had um obviously I'm a Blanchard parent, but given that we've had like class um grades that had three to four classrooms per grade going down to preK and K seems
like a lot of space that may be wasted. Also, we have our pathways program that uses a lot of the classrooms. So, I was just curious about that option. And then again, to your point, um I mean the staff is is what makes our communities.
Um and we've already lost a lot of staff over the past few years. So, I think that would be a huge concern for me. Thanks. >> No, thank you for the question. I'll I'll just give a brief answer. So, try and summarize that. um you know and this
is just more the factual statement as opposed to understanding the complexity of I think what you were hitting on and the impact on people which is is certainly significant. Um you know one in terms of special education programming we want to reiterate that in any model we continue all of our special
education programs and all the services that students need. However the location of those programs may be subject to change based on how we do things. So we can't commit at this stage to the location of any specific program in a specific building or school, but do
commit that it certainly would exist. So just be clear about that. Um two, in terms of space, um how Blanchard could be impacted if we went with that that pure gradeb model where Blanchard became the prek and K. Um we currently have I
think 16 or 17 kindergarten sections across the district. Uh Blanchard has 30 classrooms total. Obviously, some are taken for specialized programming and things like that. Um we also run um nine preschool classrooms currently. And so, you know, the combination of those two
um would allow us to actually use most of the space in Blanchard and possibly expand kind of preschool offerings for other members of the community. So, that's not advocating that model. That's just saying what are the the constraints of that. And then in terms of impact on staffing, I think that's something we
all think about, which is, you know, obviously we've been in the system we're in for so long that teachers have developed community, but they also come here because of the system we're in. Um, and particularly different schools and choices that people make. Um, and so that's always a concern we have and it's
a reality where we're likely to have to face too that's going to be challenging. And so I think a lot of thought needs to go into kind of that next stage once we know what we're doing. Thinking about how to best support our staff through the process. >> Hi Leah Ali from Miam. I just wanted to
add that at our last AB Forward meeting, it was brought up that even though the word merger is being used for Miriam and McCarthy Town, what that actually is is Miriam and McCarthy Town closing or that's what it feels like to staff. So, I just wanted to put that out there.
Amanda Bailey, I am on the steering committee, but I'm speaking right now as a CPAC co-chair. Um, we keep talking about the named programs, Compass, Connections, Pathways, and those will be kept intact. We have kids with really significant support needs who are not in
some of those programs. Kids with Down syndrome, kids with all day support needs, bell-to-bell needs, who will not necessarily be kept with their same teams um, and who will experience likely significant disruption. And so I just want to say that yes, we're keeping the
named programs together. Um, but there are other individuals who are going to be deeply impacted by this who are sort of invisible in this process right now and we'll obviously be working through that with admins and families. But I just wanted to just note that for folks that it's not just those named programs.
Thank you. >> Thank you everyone. Something I have really appreciated throughout this process, and I said this at um the forum the other night, which by the way is recorded, so you can get on Actton TV and watch all 90 minutes of Grill the Superintendent, the consultant, and the
school committee chair. But it was an incredible conversation and listening to our community um just making really thoughtful comments just just like we just heard, really great questions and working on solving this together is something that I am personally finding
really inspiring. So, thank you all for for coming and and participating in this. We appreciate that. >> Can you reiterate one more time what you want from >> Adam says the voice of an experience chair that I have to remind everybody that we have homework. There is a Google
form. It is going to be rel to the update that you will get on Friday that Julie will send out that we're all going to read and respond to. So, you're thinking about what are the three questions that you really want to ask Joe so that we can give him a heads up to come prepared to respond to all of
the deep thoughts that I know we're going to have between now and then. So, that gives you a couple of weeks to think about it. All right. Um, with that, we are moving on to our first read of the middle school pathway exploration
policy. Here comes Andrew. >> All right. Good evening, everyone. Um, we at the policy subcommittee did a first read of, as Tori said, the middle school exploration policy. Quick background, it's in your memo. Um, DESIE
uh announced this summer that they are requiring all school districts to create a policy around this. And basically it's part of uh I think a good effort an effort on their part to ensure that students in different districts have exposure to the realities of valuable
and meaningful pathways that not only include perhaps you know traditional uh high school pathways but also vocational programs uh and agricultural programs. And so with that in mind, certainly especially for those districts like ours who are part of regional vocational school districts um to ensure policy
that codifies how you are exposing your middle school age students to those different pathways in meaningful ways. So um the good news is that the requirements that they articulated be in the policy really actually reflect the things that we already do. Um not because it was policy but just because
it was best practice. So um so we generated the policy. It actually does not require uh much if any change in our practice uh in terms of partnering with uh Minute Man for annual um visits to the junior high for presentations and
then uh tours during the school day there. It's pretty wellrun um process uh and it's simply codified in the policy that is before you. um I don't anticipate um a lot of complexity or or concern um and hopefully you prove me
right. So um I will also admit not that this is pressure but there they also have put a bit of a timeline on all school districts to actually pass this. So assuming that my prediction is correct um I'd look forward to bringing this back to policy just for one more look and then bring it back to you for a
second read in a vote in fairly short order. So with that I'm happy to answer any questions. Let's Thanks, Andrew. I actually really like this. I think this is um a really nice policy that we could implement. My question is about naming uh Minute Man
specifically. Uh for example, Box Bro is currently not a member of Minute Man and I know that there has been talk of exploring potential uh partnership with, you know, one of the others. So, I didn't know if instead of calling out Minute Man specifically, we could have like a catch-all that's, you know, voca
just vocational schools just so that we don't have to go back and rewrite this if box, you know, >> or to partner. Yeah. >> Yeah. Let's take a look at that in the when we when we connect again onto the policy subcommittee because I'd want to see if the guidelines are really around
is it detailed about the vocational school to which you are partnered or if it's more of a global, hey, there are opportunities out there. To your point, Boxboro students um they attend the Minute Man presentations. They it is made clear to them that currently
because Boxboro is not a member um the application process is a little different for them because you go to member students first and then >> so they won't get in >> second. Well, actually um just given some enrollment trends um Minute Man accepted uh the students who were in in
district members and then still had space. So I think we had two Boxboro students attending Minute Man this year as as ninth graders. So um certainly they still have to be subject to sort of the eb and flow of admissions but um at least for this past year um there was
space >> Lakshmi >> this is nothing to directly to do with the policy but I think this brings a concern that I've had for some time we have a this part is the same that money
comes from the same place for everything and the more students sign up for these programs the less we have for general education and the schools. Right? So my recommendation is that school committee going forward and the administration
start looking at bringing some programs in house. I think going forward I think otherwise I think we will be it it is kind quite disastrous. I think >> you know Laxmi that's that's something
that um Joanie the high school principal and I have actually talked about extensively. I mean, we obviously can't start any programs that compete with Minute Man programs, and that's a regulation. Um, so we we actually couldn't start like a chapter 74 biotechnology program because Minute Man
has that, and you can't create a parallel program in the public school that competes with the vocational program in in that school. But there are other opportunities we can certainly explore. And you know, just as a little preview of um your next meeting, we've been actually working behind the scenes
with ACT and TV um to look at bringing them into the high school again um and thinking about kind of reinventing kind of our media communications work at the high school um centered around a partnership that can have mutual benefit to the community and the schools um that
can expand more hands-on opportunities for students. So we are looking at those things and trying to be strategic how we can do it with the resources that we have. >> Uh Lisa, so in order for students to um get to do this, is there a specific course that
would be designed around this or would this just be integrated into an existing course? And sorry if you'd already said that and I just misunderstood. >> Yeah. So there's two parts. One is certainly exposure to um Minutemen as a pathway and they have a presentation and tours and things like that. Separately just in terms of the sort of the content
area itself. The other good piece uh historically just very quickly is um the junior high has two exploratories one in seventh and eighth that the origins were actually we used to have two Minute Man Tech teachers who were part of the junior high school. they are still part of the junior high school but now they
are our employees but the subject matter remains very similar where it's um engineering workshop um and and so that subject area really carries the sort of the bulk of that that work in partnership with our science courses >> thank you >> yep
[Music] >> sort of uh piggybacking off of what Lux was talking about I'm just what is the cost per student at Minutemen as in compar comparison to keeping in district what is the >> I mean it's like 16,000 in and something
like 5760 to send a mix minute man something like that is that about right >> I wouldn't want to give I don't does any I certainly know it's more than our per pupil but I don't >> it's almost double isn't it >> it could be could be in the third close last year was 35,000 I remember from um
>> so it's in fact more than double >> but that gets paid by the town not by the district >> it doesn't get pulled out of the school budget No, it's a it's certainly an added pressure to the town budget, right? Um which, you know, at the end of the day is one big pie, but it doesn't get taken directly from the school
district, >> right? But that obviously would affect us down the road. >> Yeah. At the end of the day, it affects the town, >> but more than twice as much. That's interesting. Thank you. >> Just so you can hear from all four Boxboro members tonight, I figured I would chime in as well. Um, you know, I
think over the years we've struggled as Boxboro backed out of the Minute Man um, region and hasn't been in one and has been sort of in on off and on talks with Noba. You know, as I look at the policy, I wonder if there's if there's something that we could do around making the
policy nondescript to a school and then having a procedure that talks about what you do for >> kind of what Liz was sort of proposing. >> Yeah. just because I, you know, I I worry because so much of the Minute Man language is encoded in here, if Boxboro becomes a member of the Nshoba Tech
region, um I think we don't want to have to revisit the policy to talk about when they come to visit and whether or not we're going to send kids to their to to either of the two schools. So, you know, and >> I think that that will also sort of >> feel better for Boxboro as we continue
to advocate to get back into a vocational region. And I as someone who student applied to get into Minute Man but because we were in Boxboro couldn't. I think there's this >> another opportunity to feel less than as a Boxboro member. And so I think if we can fix that at least in the policy
>> the procedure can can manage what we're already doing well and that leaves it to the the district to >> Yeah. I think to your point it's almost like rather than specifying a curriculum and then at some point down the road you change the curriculum you have to bring it back to policy. You just say you're going to implement a curriculum that covers these things.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. So, we'll bring it back to our second read. >> Anything else? >> No. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> And noting that we have a number of select board and uh finance committee members in the audience. I just want you
to know that we see you our liaison. Um now is the thing that we were advertising. Sherry is going to help us understand the multi-year projections. I didn't know if it could be zoomed any more than that. That's fine.
It says 67%. See on the other page. >> Okay. Why don't you just press buttons? That looks bigger. There you go. Okay. I just want to preface this with saying
that this is not a budget proposal. >> Um it's Yeah, it's a very unrealistic to think that the level of funding here is available to us. However, we had to put together a multi-year model and this
model is based on maintaining our services year-over-year going through FY31. So, our forecast, and I know you can't see the bottom, but the forecast right now that we have for FY27, which is
incredibly preliminary, is 124 million, 124.5 million, which is a 6.4% increase over FY26 budget. There's many different factors that come
into that number. Peter and Andrew and I have been meeting weekly to try to go over what we can. As you know, it's a negotiating year. We've just started negotiations. We don't know where we're going to land. But if you look at these numbers and you
look at the percentages, some of the highest percentages and the biggest drivers are salary and benefits. So, we'll start with this basically the salaries, which is colas, steps, and lanes. So, our FY27 number right now is
projected to increase 3.8 million, which is 5.25% of the overall budget. Again, we're not really sure where it's going to land. We had to come up with some sort of preliminary formula and we're basing it on
what we're assuming right now, but that is a very fluid number. Um the long-term impact we'll be able to figure out once we do finish negotiations. We'll be pretty set on 28 and 29 because we'll
have a threeyear or 28 29 and yeah 27 28 29 we'll have a three-year contract in play. 30 and 31 will be a little less. Um then if you look at health insurance and
our fringe benefits, that's our next biggest very big concern. Um we met with Maya last week about health insurance rates and they are advising us to go 18% for
active employees and 54% for our retirees. So overall that comes out to an 18.12% increase. And if you just look at health insurance for retirees active and for
our salaries, that's basically 25 million of the whole entire increase over the five years that we're going to have to look into. And that's 86% of the increase just going into 27.
If you go to the next one down, that's going to be OPED. So OPEB and Middle Sex County retirement, it's been a school committee plan to try to take both of those budgets and add six and a half% each year. So we've already been given our
27. and they've already kind of told us what they believe our 27 Middle Sex County is going to be. And then we take the difference of the 6 and a half and we've historically put it into OPED. Those are the numbers. That's the 6 and a half that reflects there. The Middle
Sex retirement clearly that's a requirement. OPED is not. So it is someplace we can look. However, if we chose just the OPED piece, it's only $68,000 that we'd be saving if we took that
away, which is not very much. Um the next sections the 4% sections those are historically like we have the assessments and we have our liability insurance our sewer and then if you go
down a little further you have your tuition out our out of district tuitions our out of district transportations educational technology and then for facilities and transportation that's mostly utilities historically they might
fluctuate a little bit But 4% is the average that we have for each one of those categories. We do know that special ed, the OSD has come out with our increase for next year for tuitions is 3.04%.
However, we've been contacted already by three institutions that are going for programmatic changes and those are going to be much higher increases. So, we figured 4% is probably a safe place to go. All the other lines, those are our
variable costs. All of them together are under $100,000 worth of increases. So, yes, we could level fund all of those, but it's really not going to make a difference. Our biggest concern over the next
five years is our health insurance costs which again Maya said 18% for this coming year. They also advised us to do 18% again for FY28 and then the following years we brought it down to
9%. For those outgoing years. It's not a pretty picture and again it's not a budget proposal. It's just if we had our services maintained year-over-year, this is where
we would be. Um, we did do a little exercise year-over-year if we had 3%. And the difference of where we would be in 2031 if we just did 3% each year is
we would be off by $20 million in our budgets. So, any fun questions? >> And for next year, the difference between a 3% budget, the 3% budget came
in at 120,500. So, it was almost 4 million exactly on the button. Um, to think about what 3% looks like versus that. And the reason we use 3% is that has historically been the budget target. Like if you look with
the exception of the one year with the override when acting health insurance just blew up our budgets have come in I think at like 2.99%. Consistently over a seven or eight year period. Um and so that has been the historical target that we've always
looked at. And so we wanted to benchmark what that looked like compared to what our projections are. And you know, the the challenging piece of this is two line items are accounting for $6 million of increase, right? Two line items out of everything
you see on that page are over $6 million. Um, and there are very few paths to be able to change that. And so I think that's the piece that when we've been thinking about this, you know, there were great questions with the AB
forward steering committee about like, well, we want to know exactly what's impacted by AB forward. And you know, the honest answer at this point is it's going to be really hard to parse out what's being impacted by AB Forward and what's being impacted by what you see here because the bottom line is this
type of revenue stream isn't even available for the two communities. And so and that doesn't count both communities needing to fund services either. So I think it the the challenging piece for our community is going to have to be to understand kind
of how AB forward can bend the curve and the frustrating element of all of that is it may not fully solve a problem. Um and that we're going to have to be thinking about all the levers at our disposal to solve that. And it's just not going to be like I think we all would love it if we could, you know, do
everything in AB forward and think about like four or five things that we could do differently that we wish we could do but can't right now and we would see that benefit and we still want to see some benefit out of AB forward, right? Otherwise, it's a pretty frustrating activity even though it might be
necessary. But um I just want to caution everyone around expectations of what a reorganization can bring us just solely on its own. >> Yeah. I had to follow up on that. There was a question um at the forum of, you know, why can't we just do the status
quo? And it was laying this out that what what you're looking at here would be the model for what we're going to talk about as level services to keep doing next year exactly what we're doing this year in the configuration that we're in. Um
yeah, this money doesn't exist and even with the AB forward scenarios, we may still have a big hole. So, >> it's going to be interesting. Andrew >> Tori, if I can just um offer a little bit of additional insight into those big categories just for people who are
wondering kind of the the numbers that we use. So, first um in terms of the salary placement and I'm not going to make eye contact with the president of the union right now. Um, but just for modeling purposes, we basically carried over what the cola was this year, not as
a reflection of our of our planned proposals or anything like that, but simply rather than picking a number out of the year, we wanted to be grounded in something. So, we just simply used um what this year is and is is not a reflection of what either we hope to be at or where we think we can be at or
anything like that. It's just simply a a modeling tool. So, that's the salary piece, Mike. Um secondly in terms of the health insurance um what we do know so for retirey health insurance the 54% is not a prediction it's fixed so we so what actually ended up happening is we
are switching to blue cross blue shield because our current um coverage Etna is going up 65%. Um, and so the modest lever that we have between bad and worse is to be able to switch to Maya's Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is 54%.
It's a massive course correction um for Medicare. So that is a known entity. And then in terms of active um insurance, the 18% where that comes from, it's a conservative one. It's it's basically um
what we were told is the following. One is just pure inflation. They've said that they're modeling at a starting point of 10%. And then what ends up happening, as you can all imagine, there's talking about um excluding GLP1s, which I think they're going to do. They're going to officially vote on
that this month, this coming month. If they vote to exclude GLP1s, what they'll probably do for um coverage is uh give what they call 2% credit. So, let's go from 10% to 8% of an increase. But then what happens is then they look at the
individual um organizations. So ACT and Boxboro, our current premium does not cover our current claims. So that we're going to have to course correct for the following year. And so whatever that calculus happens is okay, let's go from
8% to whatever the course correction has to be for Actton Boxboro specifically. Uh and so that is where 18% is not a number that you pull out of the air and yet it's not necessarily based on super precise could so could we be at 15% sure
could also be at 19 or 20%. So they did say 18% is an appropriately conservative approach just so we don't find ourselves with sticker shock later on. Um, but that's sort of the the numbering that they're they'll do and then we won't get a more precise number until the turn of
of the new calendar year. So hopefully that helps people just knowing that we didn't sort of throw numbers into a hat and pull it out. There there is some grounding um in it with some with some liberty for um professional judgment. >> Yeah. And just to add on to what Andrew is saying and to piggyback what Sher
said, um last ALG meeting um the chair of the finance committee who has some background in kind of health insurance rates in the industry shared you know some ideas that the next couple of years might be challenging but then it might mitigate a little bit. We were able to actually ask Maya that and they they did
concur with that although they were cautious about how much it would mitigate. Um, so we did adjust our plan based on some of that feedback where based on Maya's feedback, we're carrying the 18% for both this coming year, FY27 and FY28 and then we actually moderated
it to 9%. I know, you know, I think it at ALG it was floated to maybe 5%. We it's 5% is pretty far in our rearview mirror at this point for us to to bank on, but the out years past two are
already lowered in terms of rates at 9% and you're still seeing that that type of an impact. >> Adam, >> thanks Sherry. Uh I I have some clarifying questions. Um the first is at the bottom under um budget increase
percentages particularly in the past. Those numbers don't line up with what we might have presented at town meeting over the past few years. And am I right to assume that those are actuals versus what was um presented at town meeting was what we budgeted. Is that correct? >> Yes. So it's taken what we actually are
actual expenditures and that's what the increase is. And I do see that I am missing FY26 in that increase was 2.32 the budgeted increase. >> Thank you. Um and then the other
comment observation I had was that um right now we see debt service pretty flat for the next two years and then it starts to go down because we've got debt that rolls off the books. Correct. >> We have we do have debt that rolls off the books. Obviously, this does not take into consideration what we may or may
not do in the future, but as of right now, this includes our complete debt schedule. >> Awesome. And then just an observation, quick back of the napkin math, salaries and health insurance are 75% of the
budget. And so, you know, I was looking at this earlier and saying, well, what if we just drop all of those fixed costs from 3% to 2% or 2.5%. And that question's already been answered. We're we're only talking about a 100 grand or so of an increase. Um it it doesn't move
the needle. Uh which is what we're going to wrestle with in a minute. Thank you. >> Glenn, I'm reminded of a Mike Tyson quote. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. And so, right, so
like for those for the members of the the community, select boards, finance committees, we're all getting punched in the face and it really hurts. And so I just want to say like I am seething right there with you. I think it's offensive that
health insurance in this country is set up this way. It's not fair to any of us. Um, so I hope we can commun we can effectively communicate to the public when inevitably many will come up to us and say, "Well, I don't understand what's in the I don't understand what's
in the school committee budget. I just know it's too big." Well, this is it and it's not pretty. Um, at le part um our duty remains to providing the services we need to staff and kids.
Um, so I hope that this can help provide a bit of a clearer context for what we're dealing with as a committee here. >> Remembering this is a model and not the budget. >> Correct. Just keeping us straight. Liz,
>> um, thank you for putting this together, Sherry. As this is a model that, uh, we may be able to use, you know, when talking with the two towns, the other boards um, that are affected by this. Do you think it would be possible just to
add maybe another line underneath? So um you know for example like I'm leazison to the finance committee while the you know percentage what our budget actually would increase year-over-year that is one number but what they care about is what does that look like in an assessment and I would even say if we
just assumed you know like this year's distribution and maybe just carry over. So like assuming that there's no shift in either direction, this is what it would be to the town of Actton. This is what it would be to the town of Oxro in terms of an increase in their assessment. >> I've actually already figured that out
through 31 using the enrollments in the table six and our NASDAQ projections. So I can add that. >> Look at you. >> Look at you, >> Vicram. This is this is kind of on topic but also off topic. um is there any way
for us to join mass health you know and sort of centralize this you know across districts I know it's not really for here but just food for thought so mass health would not be an option I think there is a statewide plan called the the GIC um which we explored
a couple of years ago um you know that's certainly been something on our mind at the time when we did the financial analysis we were actually coming out ahead by joining Maya because of a variety of factors um since that time when we joined Maya last year the GIC ran out of money um
and the legislature I believe had to backfill by a significant amount of money and my understanding is they're already out of money again. >> They were already they're already running a deficit four months in >> and it's a significant one. So it it's not just
like bad luck is not following us around. It's following the industry around right now and that's impacting us negatively. Sherry, thank you for this. This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions we get as school committee members and this is really helpful.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. >> All right, with that um we are going to shift into the next bit of challenge. Um the budget sub has been wrestling with budget guidelines and I'm going to turn this over to Adam here to uh talk about our challenge.
>> Sure. Thank you. Uh first uh the the next item in the packet and agenda is our um budget timeline. Um so you'll see in there >> I like to go in order. >> Thanks. [Laughter]
>> Anything for me, right, Peter? >> The best part of tonight is like having 11 people. >> So uh you know we we work on these uh schedules every year. uh basically working back from what's written in the regional agreement in terms of timeline
from town meeting and um making sure that we have our votes in time. Um so I put it in here. It gives you a sort of a view of what we're working on in budget sub and then what we're bringing to the committee as a whole. Um things to point
out, February 2nd, uh sorry, February 7th is a Saturday. That's our budget workshop. Um, it also happens to collide with the Boxboro Capitol Saturday, I believe. So, we apologize for that. There are only so many Saturdays that we can all get stuff
done in in the heat of budget season. Um, we'll have a preliminary vote then that is required by the regional agreement and then we have to have our um final budget vote uh and our budget hearing on March 16th. Um, and we basically work backwards from there. Um we've included in that schedule and that
all those um items what we're doing around capital presentations which we'll see uh at next week's meeting uh and uh getting our updates on AB forward as well. Um so there's really nothing we need to vote on that but I would just sort of put that everyone take a look at
that put that in your back of your mind. The more interesting thing is to talk about what we've been doing around budget guidelines. So the budget subcommittees met I think three maybe four times um to look at our budget guidelines for this year. Um you know we
are struggling with what we've been struggling for for many years. Our community expects uh an amazing education which they deserve. Um our teachers expect and deserve good working uh conditions. Um and our
community also can't afford to continue to keep up with those expectations. and we had a good conversation about, you know, needs versus wants versus expectations last night. Um, you know, I think the majority of the budget subcommittee felt coming into this
process that as we've said over and over again, we've made significant cuts over the past four years to positions. Um, we haven't necessarily reduced the services. You know, a as an example, our brand new website, which is beautiful, was created by the superintendent in all
of his spare time. and the eight other school websites were created by our director of educational technology. Um, our superintendent needed a new computer and it took two weeks to get a new computer because we're we're thin. We're thin everywhere. Um, where we try not to be thin is obviously in the student
facing areas. Um, and you know, we continue to hear um particularly at the AB Forward Steering Committee, um, teachers have a lot a lot on their plates. um and we've reduced their supports. We've reduced
uh funding, but we haven't necessarily reduced our expectations. And so what we were struggling with as a budget subcommittee was how do we say we need to maintain the level of services that
we have now or even find a way to reduce the services but not cut more people. Um, and so we were really struggling with the definition of level services with balancing this idea of we can't cut anymore and continue to deliver at the
same quality. Um, and so Peter, if you can scroll down just a little bit. Um, you know, we we talked about giving direction and right, our budget guidelines are our committee's directions to the administration about how we want them to develop their budget
um, for this coming year. And we have gone sort of all across the board in these budget guidelines. In my history, we've been very specific saying you must target this assessment for this community. You must keep it within this operating budget. We've been aspirational. Um all of the above. Um so
what you're seeing here was our first go and where we said, you know, we want a level service budget that maintains the current level of service. Um, but obviously if we have a reduction in students, we want to be responsive to that. Or if we have an increase in needs, we need to maintain that level of service. Um, I think as we just saw, if
we were to do that, we have a $4 million gap if we're trying to keep within a 3% operating budget. Um, and so, you know, what I would like to have as a discussion here is how do we give direction to our administration about
what to prepare for a budget? And I will call out that we definitely will have to prepare two budgets this year. There will be our A budget, our desired budget, and there will have to be a B budget for the town of Boxboro who is planning on an override there. I said it out loud. Boxboro, not Actton uh this
year. Um we will have AB Forward um as a as a reorganization option. Um and we want to reflect what we see as some potential savings there. Um, but I think what we're starting to see, even as you saw sort of in the presentation tonight,
a couple million a year in savings plus a large capital savings is not solving this annual um gap that we have. Um, and then we need to continue, as you'll see, we we called out, we need to continue to
look at um our capital um projects and our facilities. that bit us in the butt a number of years ago and we recognize that we cannot just leave that. We can't pull funding from that bucket to to support the other areas. Um and we have regular obligations that we need to
continue to meet being retirement, health insurance, all of those. Um so that's sort of that's the landscape. Did you get punched in the face again, Glenn? >> I'm as handsome as ever. >> Okay, great. Um, and so, you know, I
guess where I'd like to start and and I'll hand this back back back to you, Tori, but I would I would love to get some feedback from the committee for the budget subcommittee around what our guidelines should look like. How do we how do we describe to the administration
what we need them to do for this year? Liz >> um I don't think that I could have articulated them better. >> That's all >> that's what I was going to say. >> The the guidelines there. >> Can I actually raise >> correct?
So attention we talked about explicitly in budget sub because we went through this first and just captured all of the ideas and kind of developed this and I was looking at it one day and I said okay we're going to propose a level service budget and we have to reorganize
the district. How does that jive? And I couldn't figure out how saying we are going to keep our services level and reorganize everything works because that's not the definition of why we have to reorganize something. So I think my my recommendation would be to try and
think about how to reconcile those concepts like we want level services but if you tell me to provide level services in January that worksheet that I just showed you is coming back and it's going to say 6% increase. Um and so like I I
just you know while there is nothing more than I would like to go to our staff and say look I'm developing a level service budget you know like the reality is that it's going to be a gap. So I just want to make sure that we're here all on the same page with
what I'm going off and having to work with our central office staff but also our whole staff on on trying to get to. I understand that it's painful to do the level service and have the 6% and at the same time I hold like we have
been making painful cuts for too long and it's at the point where okay you've asked us to do something about it we are and in order for us to do something about it we need to fund our schools for next year and it's going to hurt and that is so I know me personally I would
say yeah give me a level service budget you know obviously say we're going to have to have the B budget which is you know what if the town literally votes to not fund um which I hope does not happen but I feel that you know we've given enough at this point
>> so actually I want to add in another tension that was in there um another thing we wrestled with talking about level services is that as we've listened to our educators in AB forward it's become very clear that we have cut back on resource after resource after
resource, but we are still asking them to do everything that we were asking them to do four years ago and and they're stretched thin. So, an aspect that I think we need to capture in here somewhere is we need to rebalance what we can do with the resources we
have a available. Um, and I I don't know if I'm in squishy places with, you know, the best quality we can afford and um, balancing and we have to within that balance what we expect of people because, you know,
and Andrew didn't show beyond the the four years in the the presentation we had last week of of voluntary departures, but if you looked at the version that was in our in our packet, it went out, I think, six or seven years. The last four years have had an awful lot of voluntary departures. Um,
and I'm hearing this on the town side too. Like we are struggling with making this a place that people can and want to work. So I think there's an aspect of that that and I just don't know what the words are to capture it Lakshmi. >> So we keep saying that um we have asked
the educators to take more and more. Is it possible for us to frame a couple of stories on how somebody has been asked to take more and which is representative don't take the anomalies right representative of a teacher's uh
responsibilities that have gone up right that's one the second is if I were a town um resident and I'm looking at the budget that projection model that um was
presented a little while ago go I don't see cutbacks in terms of what we are spending for school right we are telling them we have been cutting back services so you have we have to come up with a narrative that represents the pain I
don't think the numbers match our story and I I think everybody here is um wants the best for kids I mean they are our future as humanity right I don't think anybody denies that But the reality is
we are not raising more funds in the towns. So talking and kind of going over our grievances isn't going to help. We need to figure out how to get out of this. And that means sometimes
this language probably isn't going to help us much. But figure out where where are we spending the money? Where are we kind of where can we look at new ways to do that? And if that 77 million we are spending there
is a is something we can't afford figure out a creative way to come up with offering the kids best education but still keeping that under control. >> Laxmi I really appreciate the thought and I think you're I think you're on the
right track. My question for you and I think for the committee as a whole is where are we willing to compromise to to make those cuts to bend that curve? Um, you know, I think we've we've got a list of 80 positions over the past four years
that we've taken away. Um, and we could tie a lot of those positions to services that aren't delivered anymore. Um, and that's been responsive to this need to to rebalance. We're reorganizing. Um, I think what I would love to be able to
put into these guidelines is something that is more tangible that says we're willing to compromise on this to find the balance between an excellent education and something that the community can afford. >> Quick followup. If we request a level
budget, do you think we can get funding from the towns? Actton said no override. Backsp may give us an override, but that's not that may get us over for one year. Then what? >> So this would be why I became really
unpopular in ALG last year was because we came in and said this like we need you to see the reality of this and we are struggling with it. Um no, that money is not there, right? And that's why we're struggling with how do we do this? And on the flip side of this, we
know that our community values education and we know that they expect a lot of all of us. And at some level, I think we as the committee have to be able to stand up and say we can't have both of these things. This
level of of resources doesn't exist right now. So, we as a community have to figure out what we're going to back off on because this is all we can manage to do. This is not a conversation I want to be having, but yeah, you're right. It's reality. Yin, >> thank you. Um, I'm just curious like so
in the first line, the level of service budget, the administration shall prepare a budget. Can we say the administration will aim to prepare a budget that maintains the current level of service per student? Would that give the administration the freedom to
try to provide a level service but also give you wiggle room? If you know there's a formula gap you cannot close then just take off certain services. I mean I think you just said it like you know we all say this community strive
for excellence but we also live in a real world like when you when your grocery budget has remained the same but the price of groceries have gone up there's no way you're buying the same items right the items in your cart will
not be the same I think that's a reality we need to accept and for some odd reason we can accept that for our own households We cannot accept that for the school and town services. >> Yeah, I'm I'm a little bit uh puzzled
here because didn't we just see that no matter what we do, if we shuffle things around, it's chump change of about $100,000. Isn't that right? So, we can say, oh, well, let's, you know, the current level, I mean, first of all, what is there to cut that we haven't already cut over the past four years?
And if we cut something else, what are we saving? $5,000, $10,000 when really we're looking at like 75 million for really for healthcare so people got buy more yachts. But I mean, so it seems like what are we really talking about here if it's really talking about chump change or am I wrong?
>> So I I'll I'll give you a perspective um that that really illustrates the tension that we have right now. The towns look at their overall budget and they say the schools are taking 75% of the money because our budget is 75% of their money. And so they've come to us and
they said, "You're the biggest line item. We need you to get smaller." And so they've come to us and and we've done that. We need to do the same in our budget. What are the biggest line items in our budget? They were up there. It's staffing and it's health insurance. So
you if we if we say the only way we can save money is by continuing to cut the the fixed costs that are at 3% already, then we're not looking at this the right way because we're never going to get there. it it's going to be staffing, which is never going to be a popular
thing. But I think what what I would like for us to be able to do is to provide some guidance and some cover because we're the elected officials who were are responsible for the budget to the administration to have to make that difficult decision. Maybe it's, you
know, maybe we're not going to land at a 3%. we sure as hell are not going to land at a 6% but we have to we have to provide some guidance that says let's get down to this. What are some of the other things that we can do? Um and I'll add to sort of add on to a lot of what
Peter's been talking about. We can't look at our services in isolation of AB forward and we can't look at AB forward and the six options with 17 sub options without looking at the budget. They are very tightly interconnected and in fact
there are going to be some things that are high in the sustainability scale that may not be popular but actually can realize some budgetary savings in addition to reorganizing the district >> Glenn.
So I just I just first want to acknowledge that yeah there Lisa mentioned this in her statement earlier. There is a sense of grief here cuz I think that no one wants to No one wants these cuts.
I don't like I don't think anyone is just like oh yeah this is going to be fun. Like no the these are it's sad. Um and I think just naming that is important. Um I know that I for the best guidelines I
have like I mean I want the staffing is what's the most important obviously well secondary to the kids themselves. Um I Tori and I know you mentioned this at the tribe board. It was something quite it was something concerning about how
something like I forget the exact percentage but a good a significant chunk of third graders aren't at reading level 42 42% of third graders aren't at reading level and that's a that's and we're in one of the top 5% performing school districts in the state and that
is still the case and so and I'm not sure if that number is increasing or remains steady is increasing. Yeah, it's increasing. So the best guidelines I have is that the
the our kids need to be able to read and if there are more things that like I mean for when I was growing up the theater department was my lifeline and there are there are diff and arts have to be protected.
I think that if we're if we're taking a big step back and we have to talk and we have to talk about cutting services, which no one wants to do, it'd probably be things like, okay, which are the ones with the least enrollment.
And I think that's a wider conversation that's difficult to have and that no one really wants to have. I also think it's the reality of what we're dealing with. I think prioritizing our children being able to read, maintaining
a maintaining a core curriculum that meets the standards that we need and helping kids have the services that they need to realize their full selves and their full
potentials and utilizing their talents. and also realizing that there are some programs that we just might not be able to afford to meet the core requirements here. That's the best I got and I don't think anyone here is thrilled with this reality. Um so I think just naming that
tension and the feeling the grief and then trying to move AB forward through all this all just yay. Um those are my thoughts. Liz, >> um, at the risk of being brash and
saying the quiet part out loud, if we were going to look for priorities that we could give as directives for making, you know, the the two the biggest piece of our um, budget smaller, which we
don't have a whole lot of control over. What are some examples of how that would look like? Would that be like reducing tier 2 um, you know, assistance? Would that be like um you know offering reducing our offering of special education so that maybe more of our
students have to go out of district like I'm not sure what even the options would be what levers we have for that. >> I'm so glad you asked. >> Thanks. >> Um I I think the I think the biggest lever that we can control that we can look at in combination with AB forward
is class sizes. So Peter can list our average class sizes off the top of his head. I can't. But what I can tell you is we are not at the top end of our class sizes on average. And part of that is because of our organization where you only have two sections or three sections
at a school building. And if you have an influx or a request, you you can't consolidate one class section in one building because you can't take those 20 or 30 kids 20 or 25 kids and put them into the other two classes because the size gets too big. So, one of the things
that we could look at is to give direction to the administration to go up to or maybe even exceed by one or two students on average our published class sizes. That gives them something to model out. that gives us something to look at when we're looking at AB forward
about how can we stretch class sizes and a a as as a reorganization option which then allows us to um hopefully we'll see research that says this that increasing your class sizes by a few kids does not provide you know
doesn't have a a hugely detrimental effect and there's maybe two options that two benefits that we get out of that. we end up um having a more efficient placement of students. And we may be able to also say, let's take some of the resources that we've recouped by
doing that and put them into the areas that we recognize are going to be the greatest need. We need more adults in schools at times. We need more interventionists, all of those types of supports. So yes, we're going to put more kids in a room, but maybe we'll be able to better support that group and
that educator because we'll have freed up some resources to do that. >> Lakshmi, >> I really liked what you what you talked about there. Uh I think that's the elephant in the room for us. Uh I think
we have to touch that and I know there are a lot of emotional parents who show up for these saying that class and then we get emails and whatever saying class classroom sizes they quote the psych psychologist and that psychologist and they just it's just bombarding but I
think we have to be very realistic if we had the luxury of no resource constraint we can go for all of it but we are under resource constraint so we have to pick and the other one that I wanted to do. I know I don't have kids in the school. So
you may think I've been kind of but I've seen through my kids when they were growing going through the school system they had a classroom they didn't have ID they didn't have a lot of u interventionist like the reading specialist and all those right so my
question is yes doing the tier 2 tier three all those are important but did we forget to look back on the model that was already in place to see if that needs to be adjusted to accommodate the new model. We kept the old costs and
added new costs. So when do we do that? >> I think that's what we're doing with AB forward. Um >> uh I every everything I heard was buildings and the classrooms. So that really did not give me confidence
>> looking at the big items. It didn't touch them. >> Um Peter, do you want to talk about what Handover's doing? No, I'm just wonder like I want to make sure because I I I hear what you're saying and I'm just I'm my head isn't wrapped around it yet. Can you give me maybe an example of like what you're thinking?
>> So, we have a teacher who works with the entire class the whole day and we have the teacher is educator. We have that fixed cost and then we added reading specialist for extra tier two, tier three help, right? So, we added cost.
Did we kind of look back in to say reassess the model of the teacher in the classroom and the tier 2 tier three how do they work together and keep the costs the con as a constant because finally it's the same number of students we are trying to help right how do we kind of
optimize the resources we have >> I hear that >> it's a simpler model to just stack on but I think it's a little more effort to kind go back and fit it to >> Yeah, let me give it a little thought.
>> Yeah, >> I I don't I don't have an answer for that. Um I just want to be able to process it a little bit. I'm not sure how I would address it, but if I can mull it over, that would be helpful. >> So, couple thoughts. One, um tier one is the goal this year. So, that might be a good question for Gabby when we circle
back to that. Um, another one, an example I've been using as we think about um the different organizations and why the structure matters. So, right now, say we have a kiddo who is working on learning to read and um they're
figuring out how to blend vowels and they're not caught up to where everybody else is with that. And we've identified this through MTSS. We know it's something we have to work on. If we have one student like that in every single school, that's a onetoone intervention
conversation. One of the couple of those um scenarios that you just saw concentrate a large number of students in the same grade in the same place on the same schedule. And so now this means they're moving with a curriculum maybe moving
along the same place kind of in the right the same spot. You can identify all those kids. can get them with one interventionalist to work on that. And so when we're thinking about what what are we looking at in AB forward, something I think we
probably have to keep in mind is what's the flexibility in there to answer the needs that we're hearing from our teachers. Um, we had one in AB forward talk about the breadth of student need exceeding anything that anybody gets when they're they're going through their
education, their certification that just diversity of need is huge. And also the depth of that need is tremendous. And so a classroom teacher may not have everything they need to deal with the things that are happening at any given moment in the classroom. So, if you've
got that team behind you that is flexible enough to be able to respond, you might be able to increase class sizes, but in the situation that we have right now, it's a lot harder and it's not as efficient. I think maybe that gets to your point about putting it all together
and and thinking about what those costs look like. >> Yeah, exactly. And I think then you have the uh other side of the coin where we are trying deleing and now we are trying to kind of get back to that model. So I see the but we have to make some
compromise right I'm not saying I have an answer or anybody has an answer but if we look at it maybe we can come up with some way to optimize what we have. Glenn, >> I I just want to note that for a lot of
the teachers and the staff that are listening to this, they're probably just like not really not feeling good. Um, and I think that like there's only so like as elected officials we may say
optimize, be efficient, and when the rubber hits the road often what that means feels like for staffers is more with less or less with less, just more overwhelm. And I think just acknowledging that reality
that the that we have to be tender with this and and compassionate and also just like the numbers are there, they're not good. And I think just being upfront with that and talking about like the elephants in
the room and just laying it out as respectfully as we can and trying not and realizing that this is going to be tough and trying to do what's best for our kids. So, >> okay. So, I'm going to pause us for a moment. >> Can I respond to that because I think that is aimed at what I said.
>> Yes. If you can you please keep it brief and then can we get everyone who hasn't had a chance yet because I'm just going to call out it's 8:30 >> and we still have executive session tonight. >> Okay. So, optimize does not mean cut teachers. I really would like to emphasize that optimize does not mean
cut teachers. I don't think my goal is to deliver the best for the children and best for the town. That's my goal. But that doesn't mean when I care about children, of course I care about community which includes teachers. So I think that's a really really wrong wrong
way to look at it. >> So Le uh Leela had her hand up. Who else has not had a chance yet? So we'll go Leela, we'll go Vicram, we'll go Lisa. And then we're going to move on. And if you have further things, you can send them to Adam. >> Please. >> Leela.
>> Lucky Adam. Um I am wondering to Peter's point about that first comment about the tension between like level services and AB forward if there are any ways that we could be a little bit more clear about what exactly level services means for us like I think I have a general sense I
think also over the years we've heard some like well do you really need level services like is that and so what if if it means that we are providing the the state required level um minutes for multilingual educator uh students for example. Um I think that might be
helpful just to explain maybe what are the characteristics of level services um to help us map that maybe to a different framework of the way that we organize our school school district. Um, and then I was also having a really hard time
kind of trying to figure out places to that we could actually look at to reduce costs or depp prioritize um that aren't actually connected to core functions of the school district, core priorities of the school district around like making sure kids can read um or things that
we're required to provide by law. And so I appreciate naming the class size part and I'm also just wondering if we could all kind of brainstorm like what are other things and other places that that don't fall into the kind of required by law um or like core functions of of what
our district needs to provide for students. Uh I just want to say that the data very very clearly shows historically that increasing class sizes is detrimental for education for students. I also want to say in terms of maintaining a a level
class size across the district, we found when we did that last year that study did in fact show that having school choice has optimized that. >> Go ahead. And I just came to say that a lot of things can be true at the same time. This could be hard. There could be
things we don't want to do. And um I wanted to ask about the feasibility of creating a financial model with the highest number of optimizations from the options. And you know what you're talking about getting those better groupings and increasing class sizes and
moving multiple levers at once and then using that to compare um to other possible choices. Lisa, I can talk to that because that actually I think that maybe not in the exact same words but came out as a very
similar request from people on the AB forward steering committee saying what are the implications of each reorganization option and we want more detail than just kind of the highlevel 700,000 because no one understands what that means. So we've started developing
a model like that. Our intent is to bring it to the next steering committee meeting. And the reason that we want to be thoughtful about those steering committee meetings being benchmarks is if we start putting out new information every week while we're also collecting feedback on something that's been
already presented. Everyone is going to end up really confused as to what's going on and people won't know like I took a survey yesterday and now there's new information but new people are taking a survey. What does this mean for all of this? We have to kind of like stick with our process. So, I do anticipate we'll start seeing some of
those models come out of the reorg process midocctober. >> Oh, of course. No, I was just meaning I wasn't meaning anything ahead of planned schedule. I think I was just referring to thinking about some of the other um levers that we can pull up or down and
integrate into that for our um preliminary budget purposes for you know when as you were saying that and thinking about Leela's comment I actually wonder as we go into the next budget sub it almost sounds like one of
the items it is you know leverage AB forward reorganization options in order to maintain the highest level of services possible within whatever the you know and then you can figure out the budget constraints that we have to deal with but that idea of like using AB
forward as the leverage to try and give our kids as much as possible in the end budget sub next meets on November 3rd um where we're going to go at this again so my plea for all of you is send me some ideas any thoughts um and and numbers
you know I think the The hardest thing for our administration to do is to come up with a budget without an actual number as guidance with in the absence of that they're they're going to just use something and we may love it or we may hate it or our towns may love it or hate it. So please just send me thoughts. We're going to sit at this again. We'll come back to the school
committee one more time and then we'll vote it after that. So we've got a little bit more time to discuss, but do send me thoughts. Thank you. >> Good discussion. That was a tough topic. Andrew, we're on to the personnel report. The monthly personnel report is in your
uh packet. It just simply gives an update of what we're currently staffed at. We're fairly well staffed with certified positions. We continue to um have openings in our support positions, i.e. classroom assistants, special ed assistants, which I've mentioned is fairly par for the course where there's
a pretty consistent churn within that that job category. So, we certainly are eager to continue filling those positions. And again, if you have people who enjoy driving buses, we'll take those, too. Um, but other than that, if you have any questions, let me know. >> Thank you, Sherry. Quarter one.
>> I actually had a couple slides, but I don't really need to go through them. I mean, if we >> I know, but for the interest of time, um, you all had the packets, you all got some of the other slides that were in there. So, we're very early
in the process. I'm very conservative to say that we could possibly have turnbacks of almost 434,000. I do feel that our final transportation reimbursement might be a little higher than the state had projected. The numbers determined by the expenses that
we spent in the previous fiscal year. So, when I talked to Tom, who's our accountant, and we kind of looked and we looked at percentages, if for some reason the uh state decides to give us 90% reimbursement, then we'll actually have 79,000 more than I'm projecting
right now. But we really won't know that until later on in the year. With the interest rates still being on the higher side, I feel that we have a healthy surplus in our investment earnings, but we'll know more about those revenues as they come in. We have sent in our END
certification to the Department of Labor. We're in a little wait list. I think they had three districts ahead of us, but everything did get turned in on time. And we're projected to have an END balance of 4
388 million, which is 3.75% of the overall budget. I know that the policy says that we want to try to hit a range between four and four and a half. We're trying to build back our reserves and try to get back there
um for the expense of well circuit breaker first of all. So we talked about building back our reserves. We were able to last year build back our circuit breaker reserves to the maximum
allowable amount which was 3.9 million. and you're only allowed to carry over the revenue that came in in one fiscal year. So, we took that actually our FY26 offset is 4.262 million for the
tuitions. We have more than that that's going to be coming in this year. So, our goal is to maybe not use the whole 4.2 million and have the whole entire revenue stream used for the following year. That's going to be our goal. We don't know
where we're going to be yet. Way too early in the game. And as I said earlier, the OSD did set the rate at 3.04 for the tuition. So, we're taking that all into consideration. I'm meeting with Natalia
and um Matt KD, who's our out of district coordinator. We try to meet periodically to kind of go over the ins and outs and what might be potentials coming in or potentials going out just so we have a very up-to-date idea.
Um, our expenses, what did I say we were? We're at 4% of our current I mean sorry 14% of our current appropriation to date. Kind of gave you a line item background so you can kind of see where everything stands.
And then our revolving accounts are they're pretty healthy. Um we're trying to work some of those back up as well. We um our community ed program, we're getting more and more programs since CO kind of
got over. We're getting everything back into the swing and we have higher balances there. But again, it's really early. It's only October. So you'll really third quarter is really where you're going to get the picture of what's going on.
Anyone have any questions on first quarter? >> Adam. >> Adam. >> Thanks, Sher. And I apologize for not looking at you at the same time I'm asking the question. The microphone's over here. Um I I um I really appreciated having the admin budget with the character descriptions in there. Um,
and I would encourage town finance committees and select boards to look at just that. And I might be sending it to some of them in Boxboro later this evening. Um, because it does break out our main charact our main budget areas and then each of the budget items before uh beneath that. So it it helps to unwrap the enigma that some people think
our budget is. Um, and looking at that, I noticed that the special education budget is uh encumbered at 148% of of um budget. Can you speak to that? It can. So, our sped tuition shows that negative
balance, but we have a line item that has a negative line item of the 4 262 million. We haven't done any of those journal entries yet. So, everything is currently being charged to the out of district tuitions. We do them
periodically and once we do that, it will end up going into a positive balance. And the reason it's overspent right now is most likely because we had moveins or unplanned for um out of district costs when we were creating the budget last year.
>> Not necessarily. Because we took the whole tuition budget that we have, which I'm making a fictitious number up right now. Let's say it was 8 million of all out of district tuitions and we said we're going to offset it by 4.262 million. We encumber for the whole
entire year in the general fund. Then we do the journal entries. So it's it almost looks like it's over encumbered but it's not because we're offsetting it by the circuit breaker. >> Excellent. Thank you. And then the other question I had was in the facilities line under utilities. Um utilities is
encumbered at over what we had budgeted for this year. Can you speak to that at all? >> I can. It's the same exact thing only that community service and food service we have a $400,000 offset by those two revolving accounts. And we have not done
any of those journal entries yet either. We don't usually do them this early and we have encumbered the utilities for the whole year. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any further questions? >> All right. Thank you, Sher. All right.
So, with that, we are to subcommittee and member reports. Again, noting the time. Um, and the fact that a lot of us sat together with a lot of boards and committees last night, let's let's hit the highlights. Um, Liz, I think negotiations feels like a good place to start.
>> Uh, yeah. So, we met yesterday with uh ABA and uh really just sort of introduced and established some ground rules for the process going forward. Um, I thought it was really productive and um yeah, we're looking forward to
continuing the work there. So, I'm going to go by exception unless anybody has something pressing out of a liaison report from the boards we met with last night. Not going to touch those. Um, anything on JPTso or Oh, go
ahead. just to say that I sent an email out uh maybe two minutes ago um to all of the boards and committees um with the action items that came from our meeting tonight uh last night around the hearing coming up next week around um funding municipalities and then some of the
chapter 70 listening sessions. I'll try to get those up on social media so the public has access to the information too. >> Awesome. Thank you. Um the other things on there, anything from CPAC or JPTSO that we need to cover? No. Okay. Awesome. Um I think we're going to pass
on talking about the tri board. We will we will come up with an opportunity to circle back on that at some point. I will say though, if you're a liazison and you don't feel like you are vital right now, come see me. All right. So, consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda do not usually
require discussion and are approved with one vote. Unless any member would like to hold an item for discussion and a separate vote. I will read each item and if a member would like it held, please say hold. Members do not have to have attended a meeting to vote on the minutes. Item A, approval of ABRSC meeting
minutes from 10925. Item B, the McCarthy Town proposed budget for 2025 2026. Item C, ABRPTSO proposed budget for 2025 2026.
Item D, fiscal year 27 budget transfers. And item E, the approval of warrants is presented in the packet 102325. >> I would like to move to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Okay, that was moved by Liz, seconded by
Leela. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you, Ben. All right, that passes. Okay, so that moves us down to executive session to be convened under
Massachusetts general law. Oh gosh, I can't ever remember this. >> Chapter 30. >> Chapter 3A, section 21. Purpose seven, to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or federal grant in aid requirements. This would be in order to review and
approve executive session minutes for September 18th, 2025. And under purpose number three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the actton box education association or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body
and the chair so declares which I so declare. So is there a motion? >> So moved second Adam and Leela. So we have to do a roll call vote here. Um starting over here. Glenn >> yes. >> Lakshmi
>> yes. Liz, >> yes. >> Leela, >> yes. >> Me? Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you all. Let's head upstairs. Thank you. Peter, anything in the FYI you want to note? >> Okay, >> that's a good point. We the committee
will not be returning to open meeting. Thank you all.