##VIDEO ID:KjzA57JW7Ac## e e e e e e e e e e e e the master yeah testing one two three can you got me okay testing one two 3 testing one two three testing one two three is that a yes [Music] okay how you doing today surviving testing one two three you got me okay could you let me know if he's giving me a thumbs up I sure can thank you testing 1 two three are we good testing 1 two 3 are we good testing one two three are we good oh thank you you're welc testing 1 two three are we good testing one two three are we good testing one two three are we goodw work testing one two three are we good testing one two three are we good just before this slides over and falls off the edge okay just two more tusting one two three are we good okay got it there's a mute button down okay e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e is it Dan Dan we Dan are we are we good to go are we good to start are we good to start okay all right there's a ladder behind me 5 seconds ago so I was just like okay there's a lad are we good we're going to call to order the AAL royalston Regional School District school committee meeting for Wednesday January 15 2025 the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance and Miss Bobby Newman would you like to start us off this evening absolutely and the flag's over here I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and for all any public input over there nothing on the is there okay clar here okay nothing okay okay uh moving on to approval of minutes for December 18th 2024 is there a motion motion okay motion is is made is there a second second motion made and seconded is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor thank you thank you next we have public input Eric checked and there's nothing written down is there anybody who forgot to sign in okay moving along we have a student representative with us this evening Laura is goingon to pass her microphone over thank you for joining us tonight thank you um students from our trial team took on Francis Parker Charter at lemonster district court yesterday afternoon for the team's first official comp comp competition it was great learning experience as they received received experiences and feedback which will help them in preparing for their second trial which will take place next Wednesday against Lunenburg High School the class of 2026 held a its Winter Carnival fundraiser last Saturday morning where community members were able to gather for pancake for pancake breakfast and indoor activities for kids the class of 2028 held a winter wonder land dance this past Saturday AHS officially has three scient projects submitted for the state science fair their first Regional competition will be at the beginning of March first semester for all non ECA students will come to an end next Thursday with midterm exams being held on Wednesday and Thursday fall semester grades have been recorded for our students in the early college program seniors on the campus at Mount wus Community College earned grades of a or better in 30% of their classes be are better in 67% of those classes and C are better in 87% of the classes and D are better in 97% of those classes 39 seniors will be continuing on campus early college classes this spring while 33 Juniors will be taking Early College courses at AHS all spring classes will start next Wednesday on January 22nd upcoming events we are we are pleased to share that the the recentely added AHS theater course has been has over 20 students enrolled and will be starting on January 24th initial discussions have begun with the arms PTO for our theater students to create production and perform form a one act play focused on adolescent bullying our term three driver education course will also begin January 24th with 25 students enrolled in the course to date since our first class will start started 14 months ago we have been able to get 75 students to complete the class classroom portion of the course 35 to complete the driver's portion of the course and 30 of those students getting their light driver's license as the remaining students are still working towards completing the the driving portion of the class the district around the world literacy event will be taking place on Wednesday January 29th from 5:15 to 7:00 p.m. at AAL high school we invite all AR rrsd families to join for a fun night of games and activities focused around literacy our Academic Decathlon team will compete in regionals on Saturday Saturday February 1st at Ashland high school adal high school will hold its annual prospective student night for eighth grade eighth grade students and families on Tuesday February 4th those attending will be provided with a spaghetti dinner Bear swag and learn more about the AOL High School's offerings and programs such as early college and the Innovations career pathway HS seniors HS senior Emily King is competing in the junior science and Humanities system Sy Symposium at the Roger Williams University on February 8th where she is presenting a poster representation of her science fair project at the that earned honorable mention at the regional science fair last year come and support the 10th grade AP seminar students who will be holding a team multimedia presentation on on Tuesday February 11th from 4: to 700 p.m. at the AHS Auditorium as part of this course requirement students research a specific topic and prepare for being able to present their findings dur during this event all community members are welcome to attend AOL High School's annual Multicultural Day is coming up on February 14th this has become an annual event in which the school comes together to celebrate our diversities backgrounds and other cultures around the world thank you so [Applause] much okay this evening we recognized our students of the months just just prior to this meeting and I apologize but I'm going to kill some of the last names here um so stick with me um at RCS there was Kimber Reynolds and Kellum corpy I pronouncing that correctly cor okay um uh Grayson lir l thank you and oh my God nemiah Reyes thank you yeah Nehemiah thank you so much I do apologize um at um arms there was Logan POS and Terry Austin and at athl high school there was Ethan okiki and Harrison gunderman and our Subway scholar athletes this month were Ethan oiki and Tyler kasmarik congratulations to you all we're very proud of you moving along on our unfinished business we have the Commonwealth Virtual School enrollment vote well this came by way of public input at the last meeting and I believe there was a parent that had reached out to a few of the committee members just expressing concern that there was uh not enough openings in some of the virtual school programs we did some research and found out that there it used to be that there the state set a 1% cap and you had to vote to either in uh put the cap on or just remove the cap the state then raised their cap to 2% but at what we have on record for AOL royalston is still 1% of our population so for the committee it's your decision to choose whether or not you want to vote again to Simply cap our uh our um virtual enrollment at 2% so that's a a choice the other the other option is to I have said this but in complete transparency the other option I believe is possibly to try to remove the cap and I wouldn't suggest that anyway because it it's a little over over the top and I'm not quite sure how it would work at the state level but so the state cap is 2% State cap currently at one correct you can can we move anywhere between that one and two or does it have to be one or two sorry no you're good check it I apologize Russ is just checking he's saying he well because there's two different caps the state cap is 2% but that's of every school in the state and then thought I'm going to double check it now but I thought it was still one any school that was above 1% can cap it at the 1% individually there's not that many schools that are at 1% but you are one of them so so when you say cap it at 1% does that mean we have no movement no ability to move no you could just not decide that it's okay to go above one I just don't know if you could say two two or one and a half No Cap oh so they okay but I can find out um so if yeah c can we make make a motion to maybe bring it to policy we can investigate it further and talk about it I'm concerned that there's a parent who really needs an answer and I would ordinarily I would love that and no she's here maybe we could just take it out of order is there a motion to take this out of order we're going to do some research right here at the table and we'll come back to you just sit with us we come right back thank thank you motion motion is there a second motion made in second and all those in favor to move forward and then we'll come right back okay um next we have RCS Nature's Classroom donation the Boston brew is private luxury Suite um I can talk a little bit to this um as well come on up um we met with the PTO on Monday evening um and the PTO has agreed to run the fundraiser through the PTO um I don't we were asking at the meeting like what work is expected of the PTO and I don't know what that looks like so basically what we're asking the PTO to do is to handle the funding um I will create the tickets and disperse them between the Middle School and RCS and we will have the Middle School Nature's Classroom coordinator collecting funds and getting it to the PTO and I will be sending it to the PTO from RCS okay so going to help the fifth grade here as well yes absolutely so what we've done is we've opened it up to arms because it's a wonderful opportunity um so we want to make sure that as many families can benefit from it as possible um so we're definitely going to go ahead and we're hoping that this will allow more students from arms to participate in the program and I know the PTO will ask next time we get together but other than the um handling of the funds in the letter for the donation um is there anything else the PTO needs to handle or do nope okay we'll take care of everything okay um so that was approved on Monday evening at the PTO meeting and we the funding will run through the treasurer who is uh Nikki um last name is thank you thank you so she will be handling the the funding for that and if there anything else that so I'll reach out to her and we'll we'll set everything up fantastic well thank you for being there I appreciate it no problem thank you um moving on new business AHS Pier ambassador program we have a presenter here this evening and please don't make me say that last name I'm gonna torture Tom yes I'm gonna call up Mr Tom sham goian I pronounce it right Tom oh my God excellent thank you guys this is Tom you joined us as the College and Career Readiness coordinator I'm Josh H the DEA students at the high school uh when Tom came in he kind of reach out about what's what's going on in our eyes of the college program how it might impact our school uh big conversation about we're taking 40 of our our best humans right and they're going off campus right we have a lot of great humans still but 40 of them were off campus and and they're really not back um embedded into our school so we started com up with some strategies on what might um bring them back turns out some of them want jobs right they want work um so we got together met with some staff talked about ways we might incorporate them back into our school uh and then Tom and I came up with a a little program that he'll talk to you about before you start I want to apologize for not introducing Josh as well I apologize I didn't know you were speaking uh perfect thanks for having me um I'm really enjoying my time in Athol and learning a lot every day um so Josh is a 100% correct it's all about culture and that's what we're looking to really improve upon at the high school and we believe that our our College Bound students are the ones that we want to promote that culture um we talked about in um being a student of success learn everything you can from those who have been the most successful so that's really what we're looking to do is put those students in front of our general population you know day in and day out as much as we can so quick mission statement we're hoping to bring the ambassador program to bring the seniors who are full-time at the mount um back in the building to promote and Foster student growth and development by motivating and modeling the behaviors needed for our students to achieve the highest level of success the parent Ambassador May partner with academic programs and departments clubs and extracurricular activities so it's a little Broad and we're going to hope to use use those ambassadors as we see fit you know during the week um we're hoping that you know our commitment to start would be to help students succeed by providing individualized coaching tutoring being on campus and available at athl high school two to three days a week up to 10 hours attending after school events in addition to classes and events scheduled during the regularly scheduled school day motivating high school students to consider higher ed and talk about what's next sharing essential pathway knowledge with high school students demonstrating the why why they became a student leader and providing AOL high school students with quality advice to promote greater access for prospective students to various career Pathways and higher ed opportunities After High School um so that's really the commitment that we're looking for from these from these students um quick UH responsibilities you know promote and model success demonstrate academic success help pars develop their skills and reach their full potential promote student resources activities and events assist students in becoming oriented getting involved in student organizations educate students about the many resources available encourage involvement and engagement at school assist at new school new student orientation and community events work closely with Administration to build and promote a positive culture and we're hoping that the pair ambassadors accomplish these things by being available throughout the year and forming relationships with their peers we believe that you know it's a little premat but this is is you know really what the picture of a arsd graduate looks like and that's why we want to get them back in front of our students um that that they Excel through higher education reach their career goals and become change making leaders in the AAL Community these student leaders will encourage fellow students to achieve their academic goals as well-rounded self-motivated students we're proposing that we pay our par ambassadors uh $15 an hour approximate cost per semester of $12,600 based on six students at 10 hours per week um we talked about um we'll notify the students of the available positions through our month ly um program we bring the the seniors in we would do an application process they would do an interview with with me and Mr talit um the selected applicants will receive scof scof skills training um and they'd be scheduled in collaboration with uh the two positions um the ambassadors will sign in and out of the building and we've worked hard to identify students that we think will be potential candidates for that questions you guys um so of the eight that we have identified um were they have they been approached yet we're going to approach everybody at once we we did talk talk it up um and you know we will offer up to everybody and then do an interview process um I just want to make sure it's fair and Equitable to everybody I've read through who the candidates were and what your summary of the candidates are so I just want to make sure it's fair and Equitable to everyone based on all of the the parameters around it and then the funding for it um where does that funding come from is it um that uh as of right now the plan is to use school choice funding for it as a pilot and then see how things shape up with respect to the FY 26 budget and also evaluate how the program is going and see if we work it back into the fund okay and would they be anywhere other than athl high school or is just just specific these students are specific to our school we want to so it's not part of like the internship program that kids go to other schools or anything like that okay inhouse culture building student leadership student voice that's our that's our goal that's great a lot of the comments that were some of the seniors last year felt a little disconnected upon graduation so I really appreciate this program and great job putting it together I think this is exactly what's needed so awesome any other questions I just wanted to say we did um I first of all I can't say enough about what a huge coup it is for us to have Tom I think I'm giving him a swelled head because I keep saying what a great job doing he has so many great ideas and he's just a wonderful team member at AHS and but we do have the high school senior intern EP Pro yeah yes so um it's a it's a six sixlet AC acronym um and so we were hoping we did talk DAV and I did talk with Tom about possibly using it the problem with that is that that Grant usually comes out a little later in the year so I'm glad we have identified some alternate funding but we should be able to pay for this easily um through that I that that's an annual Grant so I think we'll be good with that yeah we have we have a lot of awesome kids we want to bring back in very forunate thank you very much thank you so much for coming we appreciate thank you very much oh wait you have to V oh yes I'm sorry yes thank you motion approve yep motion made in second disc unless there's questions yeah any discussion or further questions see seeing none all those in favor everybody thank you so much you guys are all set thanks uh next item for new business is the DG networks's technology update and is Dan here with us Dan will come and join us good evening everybody um thanks for having me here again I am just going to give you another update uh like I did last time this one I think you have it all in front of you right okay so I'm just going to basically go through that and like last time feel free to interrupt with any questions uh the first thing that I have on there the federal reporting that's the Civil Rights data collection um it's kind of an interesting report because it only happens once every other year other state reports that we do are three times a year so it's uh it it happens infrequently some of the terminology in the report is different than what we use uh daytoday and for State reporting um and it basically it measures student access and I this is something I I pulled from their website student access to fundamental educational underpinnings that impact equity and opportunity um it's they look at courses that kids take the programs that they're in staff uh and other resources and they kind of combine the data in all sorts of uh interesting ways I don't know what they do with it in the end but uh we have to provide it and every school district does and so that one is due uh March 7th and we're working on that um and these these reports are all tedious and a lot of uh there's just a ton of data that goes into it the systems generally aren't the greatest websites that you've ever worked with uh they can be slow there can be problems um so it's just something that you you start early and you push through it um then State reporting we're doing the school attending children report sa report and that's another interesting one um basically if you have a kid that lives in AAL but attends a different school system that has to be reported the people from that school system will come to us to find out information about that kid uh and so it's sort of a back and forth between all the different school systems um communicating with each other which can be difficult because we can't control how other school districts respond to us so a lot of uh a lot of ins and outs on that one that one's due February 21st and we're plugging away at that one we're then doing the nwaa map testing and that's an assessment that measures student achievement we do that in the fall winter and spring and the winter testing started about uh 10 days ago nine days ago um we essentially configure the platform and we make sure that the students and the staff are uploaded correctly that uh that data flows from our clever installation which is the system that pulls all of our data from Aspen brings it up to the cloud and then distribute it distribute it out to other systems um and I think we've talked about that in the past mcast testing this is a big one so um you're all familiar obviously with the mcast what you might not know is that desie decided uh we found out maybe a couple months ago that they were throwing out the old very reliable system that had matured over the past like eight or nine years and they're going to completely upend it and do a an entirely new system so from the kids perspective you know the questions the testing all that stuff is the same from the tech perspective it's completely different it's a whole different system the configuration has uh how you configure the test has not been released to the it departments yet testing is in about a month so we're all a little bit uneasy about that one um in years past when things like this have happened there's been a lot more time to prepare for it I think we were all caught off guard by the fact that desie would do this the old system worked really well and I I my understanding is that the company that Managed IT Pearson uh wanted too much money and so they're going with another company to save some money and we're going to have to figure that one out so we're attending training sessions um we're collaborating with other schools other it people uh because it's obviously a really big deal and we want that to go well the next item is uh cameras and security we're just we're doing uh sort of a review of all of the district's security systems camera systems we're looking at the door access systems and and we're going to begin an audit of these systems and that's something that will take take some time the last thing I have is translations I talked about that last time that's becoming uh obviously a big deal in every school district where maybe it wasn't just a few years ago and we've been meeting with the folks that are dealing with that uh the family center and we're working on a better process to get them data in in better formats and in group together in ways that make their translations efforts easier an example would be right now they're getting some things to translate that are actually they they look like a document but they're a scan so they're an image and you can't really copy text out of an image like you can with a normal PDF so things like that we're just trying to figure out how to get them the best quality documents so that their translations can be done faster and more efficiently um the last thing is I don't think it's on the uh on what I submitted but I wanted to introduce uh Anthony he is back there Anthony you want to come up and say hello so the way we've been doing it previously for the first six months is we had a few different people I was here a couple days a week we had a guy named Cameron who was here a couple days a week and another person Malik who was here one day a week and everybody brought different skill sets and we thought that was going to be a good way to do it what I've decided is that having one person here five days a week with myself also overlapping with that person is really going to be a better system for the issues that we're that we're working with so Anthony has uh come on board he's been here for about a week now y we we hired him maybe two weeks ago um to do this do this work and he's fantastic he's going to be here five days a week he's the main point of contact for everything and he's getting settled in but doing doing a great job I'll let let Anthony just say hello I appreciate the kind words um I'm really excited to be here I've um met several people here so far um um it's been really interesting getting used to the systems that you're using and just getting into the data I'm really you know I'm a big fan of spreadsheets and and uh I know we all are right and uh I'm just um glad to be able to help out and be of service to people I can I can cut in and say I'm very pleased with how Anthony's performance has been going this first this first week he and I are already texting about issues and he's texting me and I'm texting back and then Dan gets looped in but I will say even for me and from my perspective already it's a much more streamlined process when we have the same person here so I'm super grateful for Anthony I think he brings a tremendous amount of skill sets too so I'm I'm excited to have them here and can I just say one other thing that I should have said at the beginning a a big reason that we did this is because you know this update I didn't just pick the this data kind of stuff the testing stuff this is what we were doing and it's really a lot of what we do um the tech assistants I think I mentioned this last week all three of the tech assistants in this District are fantastic they do an amazing job and they really handle the vast majority of the tech work like what you would think of as the traditional it work what we have is an enormous amount of like testing configuration and mcast and all these things that are what we call data work and when Anthony mentioned spreadsheets it all ends up in a spreadsheet at some point and so Anthony has a tremendous amount of experience in dealing with large spreadsheets with tons of data and uh in his previous job interfacing that data with State compliance so it really dovetails uh very well into the work that we're asking him to do here so that's another part of the reason why we brought him on board any questions all right thanks very much see you next time thank you okay um we'd like to uh go back to the um unfinished business for the Commonwealth uh virtual enrollment um do I need a motion to go back or are we good motion U I would make a motion okay um is there a motion to return to the Commonwealth Virtual School enrollment vote motion made and seconded um no question questions for now okay all those in favor thank you okay so we're going to head back to the Commonwealth Virtual School enrollment um I did get some information but do you want to speak to it a little bit before we discuss yeah so it is two% for the state but 1% by per District so you have to notify Desy you have to vote by March 1st of each year and notify them by March 8th but you would be capping at 1% except that if you are already a little bit over 1% you don't people aren't kicked out of the virtual school so it would stay at whatever you have now I think what probably happened here and there's a template attached to the Desi advisory on it um so my guess is at some point you voted years ago to cap it at the 1% and that stayed in effect through to this point um because the template letter says as of this school year we're capping at 1% and you have to use this template letter for the state um and throughout the letter it talks about capping at 1% it doesn't talk about being able to cap at some other number and the regulation and the statute also just have the 1% number so it looks like you would have to either cap at 1% or not have a cap and you can make that decision by year so if you didn't have a cap this year then next year you'd have another chance to vote on whether you want a cap or not um so I would say that would be my opinion if if you wanted I can call the state or email the state and say hey this is what it looks like this is what your template says is there any flexibility to say the cap would be you know 1.5% or something um but it doesn't look like there's anything that really allows for that that I see in either the advisory or the law right now are we able to vote to change it so this family could get into or would that just be effective for the next school year so that would be for the next school year because right now for this year you have a c you have the cap in place at 1% during a school year it looks like you have to do it by March 1 for the following year so what's to say we go over that 1.1 that 1% and we end up at 1.1% like you were saying they're not going to kick anybody out of the program right they look at our percentage as it is right now so this yeah this year is based on last year yeah I get that so you're already locked in for this year at 1% this vote would be for next year to change it and I can understand that what do we do now for someone that as a district you know that just came into the district there are options for this is virtual school she's asking for there are there's homeschool which is another option for her which she does have um for this evening we if we were to try to put a vote together it would only be for next school year according to what the template says according to what the template says I I I just don't want to run around there's so many kids that can you know benefit from this it's there's no 1.5 it's right now the town of alol is at 1% the state is at 2% all you guys have to do is go to the state level there's no in between there's none of that you just get rid of your 1% cap that is outdated from you don't even know cuz you don't even know and you're Googling now I just the LA so my daughter and my kids I have four did this last month four kids at home that are waiting for me to come home and say they raised the cap to 2% you guys can start at the end of the month that's what my four kids at home are waiting for right now so I beg you I beg you I don't want to do these meetings anymore I don't I have a full-time job the fact that you put us off and you're Googling it just really irritates us we came to you Virtual School enrollment vote it says on the agenda tonight here I am it here have a seat well he's reading directly from the law what the law is he's our lawyer we can't make a decision without a law without the lawyer there's a couple things he doesn't but he's on point I'm not saying he's wrong okay so if you have a seat and let us finish the discussion that'd be great so I looked at the this last time the only thing I was looking up is something Matt mentioned about a 2% but that 2% is that's just the state cap there is no change in the law from the 1% so the last meeting when you discussed this I did look it up and what it says is if a school committee this is right in the Desi advisory if a school committee is considering restricting enrollment in the cmvs which is Commonwealth virtual school for the upcoming school year the department requires the vote to be taken by March one of the current school year so that already happened last year so you're restricted this year so if you wanted to do it for next year you need to tell them by March one that you're no longer going to restrict because you're already in the restricted status from prior votes what was that vote was affected so what we didn't vote on that last year we didn't vote on it so would that technically be in effect for this year so let me yeah let me read this template so with the template so once you decide to vote you send this letter in that they require you to send and the letter indicates that that um the blank school committee has voted to restrict full-time enrollment of future students in the Commonwealth virtual schools to 1% of the district's total enrollment because of whatever reasons this goes into the effect as of the blank year so my guess is you did that years ago and as of that year and going forward as long as you're over 1% for your District that's stayed in place which is why the virtual schools are saying you're capped at one so if you wanted to change that would need to vote and according to this advisory it would it would go into effect for next year V effect immediately as soon as the superintendent's office faxes the paperwork and my kids can start on January 23rd there's no March 1st there's no March 1st nonsense it does it has to the committee talk okay I'll beine um what I would say is you could try to vote if you decide to vote in that direction you could send it in but their advisory says it's only effective for the next school year so you could try to do it it's a it's a 2019 advisory so potentially they're you know Mak an exception but I I would say based on the advisory language they wouldn't but you never know I mean doesn't mean don't try and send a letter [Music] into the to do the note to do the virtual school and send it in so and to see if that can cause some movement for this family at least second a second any discussion go ahead Frank vote this ever or is it just the advisory it's voted it's voted back before you joined the committee 2019 yeah I know but did we did did we put that in a policy somewhere or is it he's just reading the advisory from desie you voted you must have at some point because the virtual schools are saying you have a cat and it could have been voted in several years ago back 2019 no no it's not it's not 2019 2019 is the date of the advisory but the virtual schools are saying you have a cap you are above the 1% so at some point my guess is some committee here voted to implement the 1% cap either way listed at a 1% cap no it doesn't matter when it happened it's listed so we just need to make it if we make a change make a change and then we have next month if she didn't get in make the change for for next make sure that goes in for next year one again for next year but right and then I mean we can always go back and cap it by March is what he's saying but I would say a No Cap now to open it how would that if EXA I don't know that's what I'm saying I don't know that they would allow that but you could try it if you want is on right now right to just try it yeah we can try I just want to make sure that the committee understands what the implication of raising a No Cap means and I'll I'll ask Matt to talk a little bit about what no cap means for the for the district yeah I I can't speak to specific numbers I haven't assessed who's interested the cap is All or Nothing so it's a either you cap it at 1% or you can't cap it at all so that means anyone who is interested in leaving the district and going into a virtual school program can do that 2% of the entire State it's two% of 2% of the entire State the school district cannot go over 2% that's not correct so anyway we we need to keep it with the committee but it's there're two different caps it's 2% of the state once they get to that then nobody can accept throughout the state and then you have a second cap which is 1% by District so if we do it for this try sending it in see if it makes movement put it on the agenda for the February see if there was movement and we can cap it again by March if we need it to if if that's what you're trying to do I don't know they're going to let you do that but you can try it we can try it can't other discussion for the 23rd of JY which is not far yeah um could we do it like an an emergency for one time process could that be could you do that I don't know if there's like an it's I don't think there's like an I mean that's kind of what you're trying to do that's what so that's what we're trying to do if we lift the cap this evening and send in that paperwork and lift the cap and on the 20 whatever day it is she wants it for she's able to enroll her students because that paperwork has been filed great but then we have to rethink about the cap again in February prior to the March um deadlines is what I'm understanding about people they won't take them out so that we make sure they in um right right if yeah so Frank we have it's over 1% no I understand of our total enrollment here so if our enrollment is, 1600 it's it's I mean just you know I mean our student classrooms are already large in some of the schools you know it's not even going to affect I mean as much as I would love for them to have any type of education it's just if they're not going to be able to attend a classroom and get the education that their parents want that we shouldn't be stopping them I get the financial impact I get it but at the same time you know I know there's other options but it's also 2025 and we have to look at those options and you know I'm all I'm I'd be okay with a No Cap but we still have to get the exception now for this instance which is out of our and we can yeah and we can you know that's a yearly thing we can vote on like he was saying the the cap so I mean I don't see there need to be a cap on for the continuance of this but and then yearly we can re reassess that so we'll we vote now and then we have to revote it again next month just because we're at it to look to see if they were because either we voted in now and she does is able to get her children in there and then she's in the program right oh I don't we don't I don't even know if it's a what the policy is I haven't even seen it's not a policy it's state law so it's not has anything to do with us it's just every District gets capped at 1% yep is there any other comments no did you have anything else you wanted to add so so if you vote in that direction I'll send superintendent aworth The Advisory with the draft letter it goes to Ruth Hirsch which I just looked up I think she still works at DES so um you would send the notification with some clarification added to it because otherwise they'll think you're doing it permanently um yeah I'll send whatever letters or take whatever steps the committee chooses how much effort has been put in on the parents part for this also you know so Matt if we're already over 1% how did we get over 1% I think it's a matter ofies put and then we're at like 1.3 or one point or our enrollment decreases so right now 1% of what our population is is 16 kids so basically yeah you're looking at grows less of kids are allowed to yeah and our population here has grown so not as many kids are allowed into the virtual school so there's a motion made in seconded is there any other questions concerns nothing okay just clarify this is just for the current situation so we're doing now so our attorney is going to send Matt the form he will sign it with some clarification as to why we're doing what we're doing there's one student in the district and that we it make known that we will revote it again through what whatever we choose to do um in February for drafting that a new letter and sending it in March is that correct I would caution against sending anything that says we're just going to allow this one kid in now because the rule is you either have the cap or you don't have the cap if we want to remove the cap now for whatever reasons I would say you remove the cap because it has to be Equitable for all of the other kids you can't we can just request now as sort of a temporary thing and then we can reevaluate have to change before March 1st because we have March it'll have to be next month the the the revisit will have to be next month gonna have to do like three different questions one is can we want to remove the cap two is can we reimplement the cap for next year by March one and the third question is could we have a cap that's something different than 1% yep I would ask all those things so that way by March one you can vote on exactly what you want you'll have an answer and if you don't mind me asking what is the negative implication of not having a cap not having a cap would just mean that any kid that wants to go to Virtual School could and without limit and so if you had a a bunch of people go you'd lose monies here because you don't get monies for the kids that leave obviously would yeah but no no but the state limit the state limit though at least as of then it was only at 0.13 you're nowhere near the state limit so there would be no cap for you at all is what would happen unless that has dramatically changed but back then it was nowhere near 2% okay so do you want to amend your motion to remove the cap and have Matt um discuss it with um remove the cap and discuss those three questions just so we have more information about future decisions and then re vote again in February obviously first question is can you move the cap for this year as opposed to next year remove cap for 2024 25 okay so we'll file the paperwork to remove the cap to see if we can get the student in this year if they tell us no we'll report back to you Claire right yes no removing the cap is everyone removing the cap is for everybody so we will ask if we're able to remove the cap for this year because based on the documents we have it says we can't but we're going to ask if we can remove the cap Matt's going to send in that paperwork um and then he's going to ask if we can have the ability to reimplement it again if needed and then we can't just remove it for like this upcoming year like new year let's remove the cap for the year and then maybe see it next year yeah like next year there's like a handful of counties like literally a handful that are at 1% everyone else in Massachusetts has change their District to 2% and it's districtwide you you keep saying open but have this old policy that nobody even knows about so let's just get rid of the old and in with the new like really like maybe for 2026 March 8th we could receive this and open it for a whole year cuz I have four kids and they're all in school and you know I'd like to keep them together I don't want to come back to this me well we do what we said we're going to do we're gonna we're going to send in the document to remove the cap to see if we can get your student enrolled by the date that you're you're looking to enroll them by if for some reason they come back to us and tell us that we are not allowed to do that this year we'll let you know the only other options that you would have would be to homeschool your child traditional homeschooling um or work with the administration to have them come back to the building so um the motion has been made and seconded in all those in favor perfect okay uh next we have building based substitutes and Aces sure uh so I have been speaking with both our co-leaders of the building Aces and one of the requests that we are entertaining is um we are constantly and this conversation has come before the committee I'm sure a hundred times we got back into the conversation of permanent building Subs versus calling Subs in on a daily basis we did move to our Frontline automated subsystem which has helped but the reality is we don't have a tremendous amount of people that are coming into sub and I think it incentivizes people to stay and do the job if we offer them more of a permanent building sub position the request was going to be to Pilot putting four permanent building Subs into Aces for the remainder of this year that funding would come straight from the substitute budget line and if it did end up going over for any reason we would supplement it with school choice money and then make some assessment as to whether or not it was you know in our best interest to continue with permanent building subs or just go back to doing a regular call day by day but the thought was the more consistency particularly for the kids like the better so that is the proposal regular subs or saying would be the sub rate right it would be yeah it would be a regular sub rate the only they're depending on depending on if they had a degree if they have a fouryear degree they get a different rate if they've been in the district longer than so long they get a different rate so do you need a motion and I would need a motion okay um so the motion will be to Pilot four permanent building Subs at Aces for the remainder of the fiscal 2425 year is there a motion motion motion made seconded any discussion is that a position that they would be in the building every day and what happens if there's not a need for a sub but they sent home no I'm being that has never that has no no no but it seems to me we're creating four building positions and I want to know it what are they going to do if there's not a I'm just hypothetical no the administration would redirect them to service the needs of students and I'm well aware that there's probably the need but I just and to be clear these Subs could not would not just be doing teaching positions they also fill in for par Educators as well so between the number of one: one Paras and classroom Paras and Educators I don't think we've ever had a day where there was less than four people out Aces he does ask and so um this is something this is really something that came from the staff um that they asked for over and over again and so um we typically have anywhere between 18 and 22 staff members out and we have about six Subs yeah it's a juggling and and Brandy has been doing a phenomenal job of trying to keep all of it covered she deserves all of the credit that says being more permanent or what's well sub well Subs AR no benefits but they're not permanent employees right unless they're permanent no so just wondering like is there an incentive just would be there's got to be some sort of Union Union they're going to have something to say Union's going to have to have something to say about this I'd imagine it's the UN asking for I understand but we teers who are mostly asking for it it's essentially I would be viewing it essentially as a longterm sub except they're not in a specific class they're just positioned at at the building change the terminology to not permanent you know well this is a pilot maybe we yeah I understand the pile yeah I'm just saying will there be any you know will we have any issues someone could they using buildings point for some reason we had a great day struggling every day is a great day in all of our buildings um so um tou yeah I you know I suppose but I really I really don't anticipate I mean we have four days where we have special ed meetings we have 504 meetings we have you know other things going on and so um you know that would be really an anomaly but sure of course if we and and you know if if one building was really short and and we had a plethora of of adults um then then we'd be happy to share the wealth but um you know no but we're also trying to be very responsive to our staff who are trying when we ask what do you what do we need and they tell us I want to be responsive and to be clear we do regularly move people around the district to try to fill the holes in different positions I can say many times we have uh people from central office going out to the buildings to help either as a parah or as an admin assistant we have we have a lot of people that we have moved and like again I don't want to make it sound like every day we're just throwing people everywhere but as needed if it's urgent we will try to make sure that any building has what they need so a motion made in seconded is there any other questions or discussion seeing none all those in favor abstaining [Music] okay thank you um Communications we have District enrollment your packet for December and January seems like we've we grew again yet again um we are at 1637 total enrollments in the district um soes anybody have any questions you can reach out to um Matt okay financial statements and approval of accounts the review oh sorry go ahead Nancy I'm GNA turn it over to you all you all right so in your packets you're going to find the usual I Vision reports and these are expenses through December 31st so overall the fiscal year 25 budget is on track with the budgeted expenses the good news is our Title One fiscal year 25 grant has been officially approved with the Department of Ed because of this um this allows for the alloc allocations up to 500,000 in salaries to be applied to the general budget you will not see this in this report at this time but you'll see it next month as the allocations still need to be made so that's definitely going to open up some savings um additionally I'm working on a reimbursement for Essa foster care for last year expenditures which I think will come out to about $4,000 of reimbursement and then quickly there's a couple things new overages that I wanted to bring to your attention the first one is in the a thousand series it's um under staff appreciation and District advertising the main part of this one is that when we post our jobs when I first started they were posted on school spring and on indeed indeed's very expensive so since then we changed it that we only post on indeed when we don't have a lot of applicants when it's a hard to find positions so that that's kind of leveling out to help us save money in that line item the next line item is in the the next four line items are in the 2000 series one you'll see that is over is the interm dean at Arms which you previously approved the mentors show over but that most of that will go away in next month as the fiscal year 25 title 2A Grant was written for mentors so I just have to reallocate the funds for that uh professional development is over um and that's just different line items taken from different buckets so next year I'm just going to coordinate the line items differently uh textbooks is showing over and that's because of a new program called newella um that's used to be paid out of Esser and wasn't paid out of Esser this year and lastly the line item in the 4,000 series for high school ground salaries so when the budget was built last year the business manager at the time put the high school grounds person in the out of athletic revolving the full salary so after forecasting it out when I first came on board I switched that to be 50 50% of the general budget and 50% being taken from athletic revolving and I'll re-evaluate it at the end of the year and if I can transfer it back I will but at this time I think we're safer keeping it the way it is so that is my update on fiscal year 25 budget does anybody have any questions okay so I quickly wanted not quickly I wanted to go over the fiscal year 26 budget so we could show you guys where we are at this point in time want to I want to show you what we have accomplished so far what we have left to complete and what we're waiting on let me see if I okay thank you so what we've done to date so to date we met with all the leadership team the leadership team has evaluated their needs in their buildings and it was put together and then they met with the super intendent Andor myself we had meetings reviewed their requests after the requests were given to us I then put it into the financial software where it is now then we took their new request and asked them to sort it sort it by your musthaves versus what would be nice to have and then con constantly the superintendent we're looking at potential other funding opportunities grants or other Revenue buckets to see any any other sources that we can take the money from what needs to what needs to be done to complete the budget the main thing we're waiting on at this point in time is the governor's budget to be released it's scheduled to be released January 22nd I'm excited for that date because at that time we'll know where we stand we'll be able to evaluate our expenditures versus our revenue and we'll really be able to dig into this budget and see where what we can do and what where we stand after we fi and then we'll be able to finalize the budget after we finalize the budget we'll meet with the finance committees at both towns and then we'll have the public hearing on March 19th and then the towns vote AOL has their town meeting on Monday June 9th and royalston on Saturday June 7th so since we can't talk about the revenue that we we don't know what we're going to get I thought it would be nice to kind of go over the requests that we received from the leadership team the new budget requests so I broke it out by school and departments and I thought we could quickly go over what they're looking for so I'll start with royalston community school so they're looking for replacement of soccer goals and Nets they're old and need to be replaced um currently they're they're looking for in royalston and Aces Lexia which is a reading intervention software platform for kindergarten through six currently Bridges is being piloted for math um so and Eureka is currently being used so it's going to be one or the other and then royalston has requested additional PD for the teachers So currently the way I budgeted for next year the superintendent and I budgeted for next year is that PD be spread throughout the district so royston's asking for a little bit above that for their teachers to do some trauma informed instruction for Aces they're looking for the continuation of the interm dean and students same thing with Alexia Bridges Eureka and one of the other thing that they have is a new early literacy program called foundations and if that goes through they will need they're requesting four additional General pair of professionals to help run the programming for grade one for instructional technology they would like to start a cycle of replacement of devices for our staff so this would be next year would be year one of a three-year cycle it would be approximately 50 Chromebooks they would like approximately five PCS for administrators in administrator support So now as I start to go through this you're going to see some items that have asterisk next to it so what that means it was pre previously budgeted in a different Revenue Source or a different line item so the reason I'm including it as a new budget request is when we really start to dive into this it's going to look like that category is a lot higher than what it was last year and it's mainly because of movement but I wanted to put them on here um just to for reasoning as to why it will will look so high once we really get into it so in the business office that's my request for onboarding for time and attendance software so this is an additional module um on top of the software that we currently have so the business office I would is very um thank you I was looking for the appropriate [Laughter] word and yes yes and onboarding you know we're really working hard on onboarding to make it a smooth process for all um and this will really help it'll make everything electronic and and it's and it's great so that's that's my that's my must request for myself so for the Middle School looking to continue the Dena students for the interm Dena students that you approved this year an additional grade five teacher due to enrollment if in the back of my presentation there's an appendix that I started and will be built upon as we continue to build the budget but you'll see I mean you you were presented the enrollment figures earlier what I did I believe it's page 14 is I took the enrollment and then I forecasted it out for next year to kind of show you how the movement going up from Aces to fifth grade it it is a big increase of enrollment um and the middle school is also looking for a unified Arts Spanish teacher the foreign language is currently not offered in the middle school and they would like to start that at the high school they're looking for pottery wheels additional pottery wheels for their art class looking as you heard earlier from our student rep um they really want to enhance the theater program so additional theater supplies additional supplies for extracurricular activities we have our neas visit next year which is our accreditation process that we started a little bit this year in athletics for football football needs new helmets shoulder pads and uniforms for the middle school high jump mats replacement old needs to be replaced and the last thing is uniforms so the athletic director is working on finalizing a uniform replacement cycle that I will present at a future meeting and at that time we'll let you know what new new uniforms they will be pupil Services we're looking for an an additional not an additional an assistant director of pupil Services um the level of the workload that our current director of pupil Services has is is extremely high and she needs assistance the arms school counselor we having increased seal needs so that's needed under pupil services and obviously that goes under arms uh additional bcba additional support is needed a BCA bcba support specialist that will help implement the behavioral plan translation which I um Dan mentioned earlier is a is a high need so additional software which is called Lexi keit which this is for when we don't have someone available to help with the languages that we we that's not common and then a translator inh house would be contracted to help support people in person and help translate documentation and then we got three things adding in on different line items the safety care training teach Town curriculum and AAC devices that are currently in the budget right now just that's movement then lastly we have facilities so with facilities in royalston there's repairs needed to the parking lot a water the water heater needs replacement it's very old it's the original to the building would like to replace two old bubblers with bottle filling stations we were able to already do one through a the wellness Grant this year that's been done so there's two left the principal has asked for some standing desk and Horseshoe tables add in an annual roof inspection and a preventative maintenance for exterior it's already being done just movement for Aces preventative maintenance for Paving and adding it in well movement would be the annual roof inspection and preventative maintenance for the exterior doors the high school annual roof inspection replacement of garage doors for the athletic shed and preventative maintenance for exterior doors they're all very similar Middle School annual roof inspection repairs and sailing to the parking lot sewer pump inspection replace four old bubblers with the filling stations and preventative maintenance for exterior doors so what are our next steps to wrap this up our next steps are our first one is wait for the Governor's budget to come out hopefully it will go as planned for January 22nd once that happens we're going to review our current revenue streams our revolving revenue streams and and see if there's any openings where we can fund some of the new items from there one would be the Desy onetime funds that I brought to your attention earlier this year or our rural Aid that we receive hopefully we can use some of those funds to take care of some of these new requests another one is to review Where We Are with our fiscal year 25 expenses forecast them out as best as we can and see if we're we think we're going to have any remaining funds where we can actually prepay some of these new requests so those are my top two things and then we're going to continue to meet with the leadership team the the budget is a evolving process that changes weekly new needs come up sometimes needs fall through so we'll consistently be meeting with the leadership team to see where we stand we'll analyze the enrollment we're going to ensure that the budget lines aligns with the our enrollment to make sure the needs are where they need to be and we're going to align the budget with our long-term plans so as we meet with the leadership team and we we decide where we want to go as a district we're going to make sure our budget is bringing us where we need to be y I'm just about done so yep I just wanted to emphasize NC my conversations the question may come up well we don't have all the numbers yet why why are we going to present all of this all the asks I want the committee and the community to see what all of the requests were right we are going to go through the process of whittling through this and making sure that we could try to reach a place where the budget is palatable for our community however for starters and and I think the committee and I do believe the community all know how many services we need for our students and how much we need to do for them so the principles and their leadership teams worked with their staff their instructional leaders and they put their budgets together at the building level Nancy and I reviewed them with every cost center manager principes director of Athletics other directors there's a lot of asks but there's a lot of need so I just want everyone to see the transparency in the process that these are the numbers that we're requesting you will see eventually the full amount all of the numbers itemized that the principles and the leadership team gave us and then we'll compare that to where we are at um and then what we'll do is explain as best as we can as funding becomes more available okay we're going to supplement this with funding this year for you know for to cover some of the curriculum material or as Nancy said we'll bring from one Grant to you know to to purchase some other things but I want everyone to see the entirety of the requests so that's all and the remaining P pages are in the appendix but what I included for you I thought it was good to see the other Revenue sources so I included what was budgeted for 25 in building the budget where I think we will end up what I'm forecasting for 26 which is very preliminary you it's very difficult to forecast Grants at this point in time um and a in the entitlement grants I just kept level um and just did a dollar and percent change for you to see it's all very early um but it's just to give you a a idea of what we have to work with and that's what I have so yeah on of thech budget Y and this is just put that out there I know um some of the programs depending on what and at least I know in the science like some of the Project Lead the Way Chromebooks for staff don't work for some of those programs and I know they already have some laptops in house from that so that's just a concern I have and then just the other other thing is I know we have more than 150 staff and based on their three-year cycle that's the number of Chromebooks in the in the three-year cycle is only 150 so are we buying enough Chromebooks to make sure that we're doing a change over that is effective and we're not leaving any staff out of getting new technology so that's just a couple things that I see and concerns that we are making sure that those pieces are covered in that staff because I know a lot of Staff use desktop computers partly because sometimes the Chromebooks are not sufficient to run some of the software that they use to to demonstrate in class so just putting that out there there are always excellent there are always programs particularly at the high school level uh where PCS are necessary so to be clear we will provide any educators to replace things like we are if we're replacing we're making sure that the PCS are also getting updated appropriately too because I know there are some old ones kicking around you are correct mine's on that list there any other questions on the finance I at estimated Rue and I know these are purely just estimates but there was a pretty big jump in school choice I didn't know what the thought proc process was on that at that point in time it was this budget is extremely high what am I going to have have to pull to to fund it um so like a just a ballpark and yeah it was just extremely high and just trying my best to see where we would land so we would be essentially taking out funds from school choice potentially to pay for some of these asks is that what you're saying no so I wouldn't pull from school choice to take some of these asks I would pull from the Desi onetime funds or rural Aid this would be to fund next year's budget but that is extremely high you got to take that honestly with the grain of salt right now because we don't know where we stand with the other Revenue that that's a tough one to really yeah yeah like when I do the ne with the final budget presentation school choice will be a slide and you'll see clearly where yeah yes it's interesting to know how important the leadership uh team is because I always wondered what about the leadership team and now I'm really finding out and it's uh something that's really needed because it's so many different voices that you're hearing in there that's very very good whose idea was that to to to put in the leadership team the lead you well we we've gathered all of the leaders together to make to make decisions it's just kind of how the process shook out I we want everyone to be involved particularly in the budgeting it should come from the staff right so the staff feed that information to their instructional leaders that feed to the leaders of the building and the Departments then as you mentioned Nancy and I bring that team of leaders together and we start going through all of it but Cindy and I and our executive team we meet weekly we also meet with all of the principles weekly so there's a lot of collaboration and there's a lot of everyone knowing what's happening everywhere in the district and we're trying to make sure that we continue that that is so important it's so important thank you thank you for putting that in thank you Nancy too all right moving along so we have report to the committee rep the chair I have a couple of things that I wanted to bring to you tonight um Hearing in the past couple of months that arms has had some um issues in the classroom I have joined the PTO so um Frank also is on the PTO um and this week we met on Monday evening to address the culture um and what the PTO can do as a parent group to look at the situations that are happening in the classroom um the administration from in the building um here met with us as well they brought some ideas everything from a hall monitors having people volunteer their time here as Hall monitors um we have some there's some new lunch staff that come into the building and help with the lunchtime um rushing crowd of the kids and a little bit of craziness down there um but the PTO is really focusing on what we can do and what programs we can bring from the outside in and utilize what we have inside um to help our students um be the best students that they can be here in the building um so the PTO is on top of that and I just wanted to say thanks to Dave King he kind of was instrumental this week with my text message at 7 o'clock in the morning going hey what can we do so um Miss buard is doing the theater class up at the high school and I texted him with an idea how do we get the high school kids to come down here and Mentor our middle schoolers as we use our middle schoolers in the ambassadors program to go down to Aces and Mentor them and the idea was brought up that we would have the theater class make um a skit well I didn't really Envision it but miss Julie Bard envisioned a 45 minute skit which um was talked about a little bit during the student representative report um but I really wanted to say thank you to having Julie come up with something so quickly we're going to come back to you as the PTO and really utilize the high school to help the culture here in the middle school and I just want the administrators here in the building to know that the PTO sees you um we understand that there's issues here and we're doing the best that we can and we thank you thank you for your collaboration um it was really nice to hear what you guys need from us as parents um in addition to just the basic fundraising that PTO typically do so um thank you again Dave I appreciate you and you know looking at my text at 7 in the morning going okay let me call Julie so I appreciate that um the other thing is we um thank you Britney and Bobby and I and Matt we went up to the royalston select board last evening um and thank you TJ sorry you're just Cho liver back there TJ yeah you know it's funny because Greg Vine didn't know your name he's like who's PJ and I'm like it's TJ he's like oh I know that guy but anyway yeah probably um but we went up to the select board in royalston last evening and talked a little bit about the high school program um the build for the msba and what that would look like for um the royalston community and what um where we are in the process Matt did a nice 10 15 minute presentation about how early in the infancy stages we really are we will be um presenting that same um presentation to the select board next mon the 21st whatever Tuesday it's Tuesday evening um so if there's any AAL resident who would like to come to the select board and listen to what Matt has to say I'm sure we can also present it at the February committee we've already kind of went through it in December about where we stand but it's basically just so that we involve the towns from the very get-go about where we stand with the msba program so um thank you for putting that together and thank you to Britney and Bobby for coming out and supporting it and TJ too won't forget you um so those are the two things that I have as the chair um and we'll move on to budget and finance and Lee this is your easy job okay facility stuff fla we met this evening and DJ did a great job going over all the things that are happening around um the district and gain fixed on a regular and timely basis so thank you TJ public Rel we also me too um so we met was it last week I'm like forgetting what we yeah a couple weeks ago um and we talked more about uh the vision of a graduate and we've gone over some of the materials that Matt has been sending things out to the all Partners in the district to begin the formation of a steering committee for that and if you haven't responded to the steering committee survey I did send out an email and while I I would say I certainly don't expect everyone to be signing up for the steering committee I do encourage everyone to open the attachment though that's in the email that explains a little bit more about the work of the vision of a graduate and it also has in that in that sheet it has other opportunities for how people will be involved in the process so I do encourage anyone in the community to to open that up from the attachment I sent negotiations conversation as per the vote um with Matt regarding his contract negotiations um that is a very we're in very preliminary stages of that there'll be more information coming soon academic Excellence we did not meet this month but we are scheduled to meet next month on the 10th perfect thank you and policy all right so there's a few policies in here um there are also our meeting minutes from November and December the policies that we have on the table for a second read are the EAA and ehb those are technology related policies and then um the last policy ecaa which is the use of facilities and grounds that is on our third reading so I would be looking for a motion this evening to approve second motion made and seconded is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor thank you Committee Member referrals Eric you've been quiet no I take it away nothing for you this evening all right Bobby do you have any um referrals this evening no nothing La Emily Britney okay Frank yep get that back keep that on the agenda M can give us an email when he gets things rolling and let us know where we stand and Lee anything even okay okay um we do have a need to go into executive session this evening to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel um we will um not be coming back into open session so um we need an um we need a vote to go into executive session Eric Jack yes just say your first name and yes gotcha Tammy all right um we can take a couple minute break the committee uh will be meeting in the small conference room so they can break this down so we don't have to wait around thank you for setting that up thank you yes you too safe drive home