--------- Evening everyone. Welcome to the SE select board meeting. Today is Tuesday, October 7th, 2025. This meeting hearing of the air select board will be held in person at the location provided on this notice. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Please
note that while an option for remote attendance and or participation via Zoom is being provided as a courtesy to the public, the meeting hearing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law.
I was running. Members of the public with a particular interest in a specific item on this agenda should make plans for inperson versus virtual attendance accordingly. This meeting will be live on Zoom in channel 8. The public may access the proceedings by joining Zoom
meeting ID number 978-772-8220 or by calling 9292056099. For additional information about remote participation, please contact Carly Anteneellis, assistant town manager at atmir.mma. us or 978-772-8220 extension 100 prior to the meeting. And
with that, if I could ask everyone to stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. All right. Any amendments to the agenda? No, I have none. Make a motion that the board approve the agenda as presented. Seconded. All those in favor? I. And chair says I. And any announcements tonight.
Okay. All right. Anyone here for public input on anything other than agenda items. Once twice. Okay. All right, then. All right. So, with that, if I can ask
the board of health to join us for the request for use of opioid funds. Absolutely. Hi. Hi. You guys like that? I know you lately. We were posted as a joint meeting
because we're both here. So I I don't need to read this. Correct. I just need to open the board of health. Correct. Okay. All right. Perfect. So with that then I'm calling to order the aired board of health meeting for Tuesday October 7th which is in
conjunction with the select board to discuss u the opioid funding. Okay. So we have some money coming to the town as you know from the various opioid
settlements that are going around. So, um not sure how much you know about this, but there has been an effort um spearheaded by Jenna at NOBA to pull together a group of the towns,
surrounding towns that are all getting money. And the idea was to pull all of that and put it into one fund that will be administered under um an IMA intermunicipal agreement that I think went out in your meeting packet. Um so
the towns just so you know Harvard Littleton um Bolton Shirley Air Graten and Pep are the towns that would be participating in this. So the IMA actually establishes this group the job
opioid abatement collaborative and then the daytoday runings of it including there was also in your packet a request for proposal for coordination and support services. So that would be one of the first things that goes out once
this new group is all formed. So my understanding is Shirley Grten and Bolton have signed. Um Harvard has agreed to sign. they were supposed to be signing like today, tomorrow. So, we're kind of getting close to to getting
everyone ready to go. So, what I'd like to do first is just kind of share with you as some very quick background the survey that we did. And this was the survey that we had um let you know about back in like February, March when
whenever we ran it. And so it was just posted in a few public places and it was very simple, just 10 questions about basically who people are and what's your connection to town. Um would you like to see uh the funds pulled into some sort
of collaborative and then what are your priorities for what you think the fund should be spent on? So very quickly it was it was primarily women like 66% um 97% Caucasian. There was one um
African-American so that might be a little skewed. The age um range was pretty well distributed a little skew to older. Everybody uh lived in the town of air. And then the next questions kind of were
trying to feel out who are the people that are impacted and how are they impacted. So this was really interesting to me that um a lot of and more than one even though there were only 29 respondents there are actually 43 of
these because some people picked in two categories. But interestingly an awful lot did not have any personal involvement. But there were also quite a few that had friends, family members, some, you know, very close involvement and some that had been involved
themselves. The strategies, this is kind of more information, um, I think for that working group for like where the money should go, but I'm glad that we did this frank choice because it really pointed out that there there are kind of two big
things that people want to see the money spent on, and it's connections to care, maybe paying for treatment, finding out what treatment is available. An awful lot of respondents said that they just didn't know what is available
out there. So, that was kind of good. And Carly has the link if you want it. These are um a little interactive so that if you click on the bar, it'll actually show you the whole text of the question. This is a little bit abbreviated.
So um so that's kind of what people think that we should be spending the money on. There's also one about um number eight is about just barriers and gaps that they have experienced and this had really three main drivers. The
biggest one was paying for treatment. I think 20% of the respondents close to that 19% said it was not knowing what services are available. So, you know, kind of again, I think we've got to do a little bit of education. And then there was the stigma or the just
being uncomfortable with the whole treatment thing. So, gives good information, I think, and all the towns did these. We put together our own survey content, but the format was very similar. And then we found that there
are people that um have heard of the funds were a little bit familiar with this, some not at all, some vary. Um and then kind of just trying to assess what's the relationship to people. Are
they, you know, are people aware of services? Do you, you know, are people that you know that may be affected, are they getting services? But 12, question number 12 is really kind of the payoff I think for this our reason for coming
before you tonight. And we got a really strong response on the pooling question. And that was 80% supported pooling. So out of our respondents, 23 of them were yes, only five nos and there was one no opinion. So that was a
really strong response for that. So this is I don't want to bel labor this. This was kind of done as information to guide you as to whether this is something that you want to get involved in or not. Kind of take the pulse of the residents and see what
they're thinking and then to give some of the more detailed questions about what people need would be input to this the group that's going to administer the funds. So with that as background, um Trish is the board of health
representative that goes to the meetings and they're what once a month. Once a month. Yeah. So she has much more information on the nitty-gritty like every week um thing, but the two documents and the the RFP I
don't you know you can put you know some time on that obviously if you want to. The interesting thing in the RFP document is it has the breakdown of the funds and which towns are getting what and Harvard
got quite a bit of money. They're putting in one half of their total opioid funds. The other towns are up for just putting in 100%. And several of them I mean surely is even smaller numbers in Bolton than some of our
numbers. So, kind of makes sense to get more more bang for your buck. So, if you're interested in how the surrounding towns break out, you can definitely see this. The IMA is the document that's going to create
the NOAK, I guess, the the group that that is administering these funds. And so they will issue that RFP once they're legally created with all the signatures on this. There are
some nice um you know kind of assurances for us as a town. We will never have to or be asked to put in more money than our total aotment from the opioid funding. So there isn't going to be any
commitment for monies from, you know, out of the town's pocket for this at this point. They except gifts, but there's no requirement for that. And there are also some uh reporting requirements in here that there be reporting um to the group and to the
select boards of the sponsoring towns on what the money is being used for and what's going on. And then of course Trish is still involved in the monthly meetings and I think those are going to go on for a while until this is really probably into January before we're
really Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. up and running. So what we're here tonight for in a nutshell is to ask you to consider a vote to approve the IMA. Um it right now
requires a select board signature which I was kind of surprised about. I thought the town manager had to do that. So, I'm going to let Robert feel the legality of that piece. Um, but right now it is set up for uh a select board signature. And
then the other piece of it is to just let you know that we're here and happy to support, you know, being if you want more information on the program or, you know, if you'd like to have more input for guiding how the funds are spent,
we can definitely be the conduit for that and we don't mind doing it. It's so this is something that the board of health is recommending as a a good thing for the public health of the town overall. So, that's my
sales pitch. Um, do you have any questions for us? I can't think of anything at the moment. You guys just um you might have said it and I
missed it. Um, in the agreement, have you decided on who's the host? Miss Oh, yes. Yes. How could I have missed that? Littleton is going to be the host. Okay. And They haven't yet. This thing must get changed three times a week, honestly. So, there is yet another
update coming with um Littleton entered as the host town. There will also be that copy of the signature page with um Harvard's select board on it. Those are the two changes that I know of that are upcoming. There's so many eyes on this right now
and that's why I know I know I know member. Absolutely. thinking, "Oh, well, we forgot to put this in. We forgot to put that." Just want to be careful. It's legal. So, and at the same time, I don't want to rush you. If you have any questions about what's in here, if there's
anything that you're not really feeling that comfortable about, let us know and we'll try to resolve those questions for you and get the answers. I think it looks good. Yeah, I agree.
I guess as a curiosity, you know, human nature. Why is Harvard only giving 50 and everybody else with 100? That's the I mean, it does kind of stand out, you know. I know. Partly because they got so much. I was going to say because they got so much. Yeah. Yeah.
Which but I've never understood. Well, it's beyond my thinking, but the formula it does not match where the atrisisk towns are. Right. Right. Right. It just doesn't make sense. And um Brad, who is a member of the board of health
in um Harvard, it's he opens every meeting with I'm really sorry you guys, but we're going to make sure you know you get as much as you need. He's really been great about it yet. I don't know who made up that put in at least 75. Yeah. Really? I don't even know.
I mean, it just stands out, you know. It's just like it really does. What else are you gonna do with it? The formula itself is I whoever made this decision just was very poorly cut. Have you ever heard what thinks they
might want to spend the rest of the money on it? They they they're batting around a few other things. There was some when when we did the the surveys, not everybody agreed at once on like, oh, did do you want education? Did you want funding for,
you know, people that don't have insurance? So there was a little bit back and forth on that. So yeah, Robert, Madame Chair and members of the select and board of health, good evening. Um the a comment and then just through the
chair just a couple of quick clarifying questions. So I think first of all the the IMA as the board is familiar with we recently did one with coin is is appropriate to form and so forth that many of the towns including us have KP
law. So, this has gone um through that. I'd also add that um as the chair knows since we've been receiving opioid um funds and as of right as of right now the current balance is $22,797. We did put together two interdep
departmental meetings to try to discuss, you know, potential uses for this. as the board knows it's it is restricted as to what you can and can't use the funds for and it just seems that this re this regional approach as the chair of the board of health mentioned I I think is
an effective direction to go and just two clarifying questions so one is um under number three on the advisory board yeah it says that there are two members appointed by each municipality so there's a if you will a member and an alternate
yeah Who does that appointment? I mean, not to get into the weeds in the interest of time. In other words, is the does the select board make that appointment? Is it the board of health? So, just something I don't think that would hold up, you know, potentially.
Yeah. Just I'm reading it as the select one. Yeah. Yeah. Because you have the discretion on the spending of the fund. So I think you want to maintain your control that way. So just I I think we can clarify this
you know offline but yeah that was just one and then the second is under number five under the payment in funding. It looks like before each fiscal year for each program the um advisory board and so forth will put together a budget and
what have you and that would be driven by the contributions from um the town which is which is fine. Um, I guess the the question is just so I think everyone's aware and I have to double check is under the class action
settlement all of the funding regardless of the purpose is subject to approval by the select board. So what I'm getting at is the select board each fiscal year will have to vote. In other words, I don't believe you can do a blanket vote.
So you or the advisory board be coming back? I'm pretty sure I saw something in here about those were my only they were just clarifying yeah um questions and other than that I I think that it is a a
good uh use of this resource not only for air but for the region we can do more with we're not getting enough money to really make an impact and I think all the other towns joining this are well except and
Harvard are kind of in that same boat. Yeah. Not enough money to Well, it's my recommendation. If for some reason we need more money, we talk to Harvard first. Yeah. Just I like that idea. Yeah. Okay. Cop it up. Once a month we're together. So, if
there's any anything that you want brought up discuss driving them, too. They're they're select boards and they they have other people with input that have come forward. So, yeah, it's a team.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And who knows, they maybe as they get deeper into this, they're going to find that it's hard to do some of this stuff on your own because the things that you can spend it on are so limited and there's so much overhead. So, that's a possibility I could see down
the road is maybe then changing to say we're not really doing a good job administering this on our own. But I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Yes. One final to to the chair of the board of health's question about signing the IMA. As the board knows,
only the select board can vote to enter into an IMA and they they can either sign it or they can authorize the town manager. Okay. It sounds like for this particular one, the board is signing, which is fine. That's how all the other Just to answer your question, it's up to
Yeah, that's a kind of a legal technicality. I just wasn't sure of. Yeah, that was redone I don't know how many times we talked about really they just want wanted to make sure it was done right and they did have a legal consultant help them to put it together the first
time which Mucci was writing that. So it's been through a few sets of eyes so feels like it's probably getting pretty tied up. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think everything looks good and you you guys are happy with it.
Yeah. Yeah, we are. We think that we're going to be able to actually get some, you know, results for our money if we're like that. Yes, Mr. Curry. Um I I actually wasn't anticipating uh this conversation but if
I might are there any um state or what are the state and federal reporting requirements attached to the money that is are they municip municipalities or is little responsible and and what are they what do they need to provide to the
state and or federal government? That's a really good question. I'm going to try to punt to Robert because I know you've been through more of the financial details of this before. Right, Madam Chair? Mhm.
So in terms of the reporting as as I understand it, there'll be some reporting that the the collaborative as a whole will have to make to um the Department of Public Health on the state level, probably the counterpart on the
federal level. And I know that the opioid funds are subject each year to audit and and they have to be reported to the um to the class action settlement. So there's sort of like there's sort of like three levels. So there's a federal health and human
services DPH. The funds are audited both on the local level annually through the annual audit and they have to be reported um to the to the settlement administrator. Um okay I guess what results that is how
will the intermunicipal agreement measure the success of whatever modalities um service provision that they enter into. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. I honestly don't know if it's gotten to that.
Yeah. I think through the chair I think that's what the one of the things that the advisory group is going to have to develop. Yeah. Yeah. It's still in the it's still in this, you know, developmental stages. We're not even going to
I think we're looking at January before everything comes to fruition with all by the time but I agree with you that is really important that we've got to have some way to measure whether we're actually getting the results that we're hoping for. So
excellent point and that might be something for the um the host. Yeah, that's where I'm going to make my note. See if that Yeah. All right. We are looking for
Yeah. Um so then I'll make a more motion that the board approve the board of health um entering into the agreement as presented.
Seconded. Okay. All those in favor? I. I. And the chair says I. Congratulations. Keep us posted. Fantastic. Yeah. And let us know if you have questions at any point along the way. Suggestions, too. I mean, it's so much money that's being spent,
right? We will definitely keep you informed. Thank you so much for your consideration. So, we need to um close our meeting. Oh, all right. So, we're adjoining the um October 7th meeting of the Air Board of Health at this time.
And then make a motion. Did you make a motion? Yeah. Make a motion. I think I did it on board. You did. Those in favor? All right. I Yes. Oh my gosh. There. So bad. I know. Thank you.
So, you can sign that last page. I think the way they're doing this is yeah, so that this last page just doesn't change, but I'll also be sure to let you know if something changes in the agreement itself, I will absolutely let you know
about that and you'd be within your rights to reconsider. So, thank you very much. All right. Have a nice one. You too. All right. Next up is review and approval of the fall special town meeting warrant that
is on October 27th, 2025, which I hope everyone will attend. It's always a good time. And I'm actually not kidding about that. I'm not even being sarcastic. Madame Chair, um members of the board, um so I just was going to give um a
brief overview of the warrant and then specifically as is always the case with any draft and further draft. There were there were three highlighted things um since Friday, I just wanted to to flag for the board's consideration and then
answer any questions the board may have. So, it is a 10 article uh fall special town meeting warrant. Uh there were no citizens petitions uh submitted to the town clerk uh by the deadline of October 3rd at noon.
The first four articles which the board is familiar with are zoning bylaw uh amendments. Uh the the board had a present a brief presentation made on those um back in the beginning of
September uh and then voted to send them to the planning board which did its due diligence including holding a public hearing on September 9th uh which is required for all four and then um have
recommended them back to you uh for placement on the warrant at town meeting. uh as is required for zoning by amendments is the planning board uh needs to make a report and I know that the the town planner has a brief
presentation on all four of those. Then there are three easements grants of easements. Um the first one is a grant of easement with National Grid uh for one main street for Habitat for Humanity
as the board has entered into a license agreement. This is so we can get electricity to the Habitat home on Newton Street. Um it will involve um a pole uh being placed at the at the rear of the town hall property. the DPW
director for town meeting uh will have images of all three of these and be available for a brief uh presentation answer any questions. So article five is the grant of easement for the habitat home on national grid. Article six is a
grant of easement with Katana Spagna at zero NMCO way. This is there is also an existing license agreement for this uh will allow them for the installation and operation of a storage container as part
of their expansion. It's approximately 2,000 square ft in size. Uh again uh the DPW has been working with them uh for some time and the board previously um entered into a license agreement. Article seven is a
grant of easement for the Grove Pond Clearwell on 99 Barnum Road at the Grove Pond uh facility. Again, the select board has entered into a license agreement. This is to allow the electrical upgrades uh to connect um the
new Clearwell storage tank uh to power. And as the board knows the clear well is designed to address the PAS and the capacity issues. Then there are two articles uh from the community preservation fund from the
CPC. Article 8 um looks to authorize $400,000 uh for the Devon Crest affordable housing support. Uh this has gone through um the CPC process,
pre-application, application, public hearing um and will be before town meeting. Um the finance committee uh reviewed on October 2nd and voted uh 4 to zero to recommend. Um there will be a
brief presentation at town meeting um on this. I should also point out that on both of the CPC articles, if you go to the community preservations web page on the town's website, all of the supporting
documents um are there. Article nine is a community preservation authorization for air housing authority request for generators at 18 Pawn Street. And I've highlighted I think the chair from CPC
on Friday to remind me there was a typo. It is for 250,000. The version apologies that you had on Friday said 230,000. It is been 250,000 is what was voted by the CPC and it has
been corrected in both the article and the explanatory note. Um again a brief presentation um on town meeting on that. The last one is um article 10 which is
the authorization uh for the town funding for the senior center building project. And I just want to preface as the board is aware uh the nature of these articles is very specific and complex and I want to thank
Barbara Tierney for all of her work on this. they involve bond counsel and town council and they're very specific and so in other words it would be great sometimes um if things could be worded
um differently but I just wanted to just go through this article briefly and I have highlighted both the explanatory note that has gone through several revisions and I also Carly has corrected it here but in the version there was a
typo on the finance vote was actually two to one to one on September 10th. So two voted um for not to recommend, one voted to recommend and there was one extension and and that is reflected now
in the correct form there. So the article does and I also want to say this and I met with the moderator um uh recently this is a a a major project uh for the town. So at town meeting there
will be um a full presentation that will be in sort of two parts as it was for Fincom and Capital. Uh Dr. Petrai will present the project if you will and then the second part myself and the finance
manager Miss Tierney will talk about the town funding plan and the tax implica implications. So there will be a robust presentation so that everybody has all of the information. So the article 10
does two things. The and it's important. So the first thing it does is it it seeks town meeting to authorize the town to appropriate the sum of $13,550,000
to construct, equipped, and furnish a senior center building. Now, as has been reported in the public outreach, and it is in the explanatory note, which we'll get to in a minute, the total project is $15,165,170.
But what we're asking town meeting to do is to appropriate up to this amount because there are other funding sources that are outside of town meeting and outside of of the article. So, just bear with me. That's why it gets a little and
we're going to take a lot of time at town meeting to you know explain all of that. So the first thing is the article will authorize the treasurer with the approval of the select board to borrow uh the amount of 11,550,000
subject to the passage of the debt exclusion uh ballot question on November 4th. So, as the board knows, the debt exclusion is a twopart process. It has to pass how meaning? By 2/3 vote on October 27th,
and then on November 4th, um voters will vote and it has to pass by a simple majority. If those two things happen, the town is authorized to borrow up to 11,550,000. However, our intent is only to borrow up
to 10 million. The reason it's 11,550,000 is there is one grant, a $1.3 million grant that we cannot apply to until we have a shovel ready project with town
meeting approval. And that application process opens in April of 2026. under normal circumstances as a federal CDBG program um we anticipate will be
very competitive in this the issue and I don't mean this in a through the ch any political statement but the reality at the federal level right now the CDBG program has been around for over 60
years and with the situation as it's been there's been talk it may be discontinued contined or not. In the event that that grant uh would not be secured, the contingency that that's why
it's the 11,550,000, but the intent in our we will do everything is to only borrow up to the up to the 10 million. The second part of the article, it authorizes
uh asks town meeting to authorize the use of $2 million um from the town's capital stabilization fund. Both of these have to pass by twothirds vote. So, um that that that's so if you
add the 11,550,000 and the 2 million, you get the 13 uh,550,000. In the explanatory note, it states obviously that this was submitted through capital. It's going to be located on Bishop Road. The total cost
of the project is there. Capital Planning voted 4 to one on September 11th uh to recommend subject to a debt exclusion per the town's financial policies. And then it mentions what I just talked about the
process the approval of a debt exclusion 2/3 town meeting simple majority on the ballot. The election will be on November 4th, 2025 at town hall. polls open from noon to 8:00 PM uh per the board's uh
meeting and vote on September 25th. And then as it says here, though the current total cost of the project is $15,165,170, the town has developed a project funding plan in which the town transfers 2 million from the town's capital
stabilization fund, uses other funding sources not subject to appropriation by town meeting for the purpose of reducing the tax impact on the taxpayers, including 1 million in UDAG funds and 2
million in grants and private fundraising and borrowing the remaining amount. The town intends to reduce the total amount to be permanently borrowed for the project by the amounts of grants and private funding payments it receives
prior to the issuance of the bonds. The current estimated annual cost impact for the average residential tax bill to borrow 10 million would be approximately 143 per year. And to borrow if it was the
maximum amount 11,550,000 would be approximately $165 per year. Each calculated over 25 year borrowing term for illustrated purposes. And why we say that is the board knows
it would be great if we could predict with 100% accuracy the future of interest rates and so forth but this is based on Barbber's work and bond council town council uh a solid um projection
and the explanatory note is provided forformational purposes only presentation on the senior center building project the town's funding plan and the fiscal tax impact act analysis will be made at town meeting and for more information uh visit the senior
center building committee web page on the town's uh website. Perhaps the longest explanatory note in the history of um of town meeting warrants. I think the biggest takeaway though obviously is we need um voters at
at town meeting and we will present all of the information. So, that is the warrant in a nutshell. Thank you very much. So, I I saw Representative Cena last night and I uh told him I says, "Hey," I says,
"Uh, here you're getting us $50,000 for the senior center." He's like, "Yep." I said, "We need more." Mhm. And you're going to get So, and he's like, "Well, I had asked for more and this is what I ended up with is well, go back and ask again because we need more." So anyway, all
all jokes aside, I did talk to him and uh he is going to continue to see what he can do as far as getting some more funds. Um so that's that's the best answer he could give last night. Um you know, but you know, I said, "Don't make me ask you
again, you So, um but anyways, I wanted people to know that um that that that is still yes, you know, being looked into and and uh but he did say, you know, if if there's other things that pertain to this that
he can ask for money like in a different question rather than I need money to build it like I need money to put up the wallpaper. Uh you know, we should let him know. Okay. So,
and just to add to that, um the he did he did ask for more. I do know that he asked he did he did he did get 50,000 which was approved in the state budget as signed by the governor on July 1st. What we're waiting
for, and I check in every week, is when the earmark is going to be released. So, that's what we're waiting. There is 50,000. Um the other piece I should add is that the friends um of the senior center group are have begun their
fundraising initiative. Um their target their goal is about 250,000 of which to date and it could be higher but to date they have about 65 to 67,000 in pledges. Oh, excellent.
Yeah. And then um when I talk with uh the director and Barbara uh the the plan is unless the gift is and there may there are specific opportunities but any significant financial gift we would be coming to the select board as you know
under the law you have to accept said gift and it would go towards the project obviously to our goal is to minimize the borrow and minimize the cost. Yes, Pauline.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Really one simple question. Um, Robert, I think you probably are the one to answer it. Do we know yet what our free cash is? So, through the through the chair, um, the certified free cash pulling we is
not certified yet. It it it is in process. Um, we anticipate the certified free cash. Um, I hate to I because numbers then become part of the record. It is in process. We anticipate it to be
um somewhere in the at minimum of probably 1.5 million maybe higher. I'm not holding you to anything, Robert, but it'll be in the vicinity of at least what we've had in past years. Pardon? I'm sorry. I said it will at least be in the vicinity of what we've
had past years, maybe not as much. Yeah, we we remain cautiously optimistic. Optimistic. Yep. Okay. And that is that available for appropriation now or only in May or April? It depends. Um, as you know, Pauline, it
depends. It needs to be certified um obviously before it could be appropriated. It we don't know. It it most likely it'll be May. Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any
questions, Chris? Well, thank you. I think the warrant looks good. I Yeah, question. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. So, Madam Chair, um just for the for public purposes to let people yourselves in, other people know
that on Thursday the 16th at the high school at 700 p.m. there will be a public forum to once again provide the public information regarding the senior center, the funding mechanism, the wording of the article, and as as Robert
mentioned, it's a lengthy explanatory note, and it's obviously a big project for the town. So, uh, we would encourage everybody who has questions about it or, you know, wants to drill down a little bit into the weeds of it, um, to be up at the high school next Thursday evening and
we'll hopefully get all their questions answered. Okay. So, in case anybody didn't hear that, that's October 16th, which is a Thursday night, 7 p.m. at the high school. There will be a public information forum on the senior center. And, uh, everyone show up if you can.
And I highly encourage and and I say this every town meeting. I highly encourage everyone to show up at town meeting, listen to the presentations, and vote. And with that, do I have a motion to approve the warrant?
I will make a motion to approve the um the warrant. Um second. Okay. All those in favor? I. I. And the chair says I. The warrant is approved. All right. And town meeting is
on October 27th, 700 p.m. at the Air Shirley Regional High School, which we've spelled Shirley wrong in this memo. Um, so yeah, here. I think I spelled it wrong. I just noticed it as I was reading. Um,
but anyway, so everyone show up. Okay, next up on the agenda is the approval of the FY27 draft budget calendar. Robert. So, if I could just briefly, Madam Chair, an administrative um update and just review of warrants.
So, you have the warrants in your packet since the board last met. I just wanted a couple of things on the administrative highlight. First of all, uh the Newton Street Festival uh this past Saturday was another huge success. The weather was picture perfect, which is the only
thing we can't control, but it was a it was a great time had by all. I just want to publicly a special thanks to Samantha Benoy, Chuck Schultz, Barry Schwarzel, Alicia Hersy, and Rachel Freedellander who were sort of the committee this
year. Well, they were the committee this year for the event. Um, did a fabulous job. A special thanks to the premier sponsor uh Main Street Bank and Allison Migrants who the board met when she came with the check and also NOA that was a
sponsor. So, it was a it was a great event. Um, and I think it was a good celebration um of the community on a spectacular day. So, now next on the horizon, we'll be looking towards uh the annual holiday stroll and treelighting, which is historically the first Saturday
in December, which would be December 6th. And um more to come on the the town's various holiday events, the tuba concert and so forth to come in December. uh town meeting preparations. A lot of focus has been on that. Appreciate the
board's uh support uh for the warrant. I just want to add um that the town will be doing the articles of the day to to promote town meeting. Uh we will be having a web page dedicated to uh town meeting as we always do. The warrant
will be publicly posted this Friday, including on the website and locations throughout town. And as you said, Madam Chair, I think the key thing is uh for people to um obviously attend, but if there are any questions um in advance of town meeting, please let us know. The
warrants will go to print and mailing on Friday as well and arrive at all the households uh before um town meeting. Just real quick on the FY27 budget update, uh the rate review committee um continues to meet. They're
in the process of reviewing and developing uh solid waste transfer station rate recommendations uh which are subject to uh a public hearing um and approval uh by the board. So more to come on that on that front. uh capital
planning. The capital directive went out on October 3rd uh with all plans and requests due by October 31st and we anticipate the first meeting probably to be the beginning of November.
It's still early, but on the FY27 um budget, and that budget directive usually goes out December 1st, there are some initial observations that we are aware of and monitoring. One is that the
town's health insurance through Maya may go up next year as high as 20% or more. It's not just us, it's it's statewide. Um, take your vitamins, everyone. So again, it's early. We're hoping for the best,
but it's hitting everybody. Um, so there's one area we're monitoring and benefits and payroll went to a meeting that was down in Rentham recently um about that. We will keep the board updated. We don't have any specifics yet, but it's something we're flagging.
The second thing, and I don't mean this in any way as a political statement, but the sort of the volatility on the federal level has a trickle down effect um to the state and local area and we're
just um it's just a period of a lot of volatility that I think there are more questions than answers. You know, how will tariffs play out? How will inflation fully play out? um what is the impact to grants that we rely on? Um
that all unfortunately is question mark but um something we're monitoring and the impacts to grants also the impact to the schools as the board knows the schools both school districts receive a
lot of federal and state grants and um the impacts that both the to the two largest pieces of our overall budget. There's just a lot of volatility. Also, the impacts of the hospital closure on
two fronts. Obviously, the tax revenue moving forward now that it's vacant, and the impacts on the emergency response system, which uh Chief Johnston and his team are monitoring um closely. So
again, um we are in good shape thanks to all of the effort of the town and the support of the town's people. We have strong reserves. Uh we have um we're we're in in good shape, but it's just as
we're looking at these issues will sort of drive sort of the budget directive and we'll talk more about the budget um as we get closer and as we get more information, but I've already um began to convey and I have a meeting tomorrow
with all departments about a very cons a very conservative approach on the capital front and on the operating budget as well to be proactive. The 71 Sandy Pond Road working group met uh on September 29th. Just want to keep
the board updated. They've got another meeting coming up uh the end of October. uh they have all of the information from the public sharet as well as from the parks commission and at that meeting uh we're in the process with the consultant
of putting together um probably three options or a scenario um which will keep the board updated on initial improvements um to the Sandy Pond uh property. So we'll keep you updated.
Two last things. On September 19th, uh the Community and Economic Development Office, Rachel Freedellander and Alicia Hersy held a meet and greet event from 10 to noon up in the great hall. It was really well attended by a lot of businesses and community stakeholders.
The DPW did a had a brief table explaining um looking at the future of Main Street and the senior center director had information table about the senior center um project but it was a really um well attended uh event and as
mentioned earlier on September 25th the select board met and voted uh to call the debt exclusion election special election for the senior center project. That election is Tuesday, November 4th.
Polls open from noon to 8:00 p.m. Mailin uh ballots can be requested uh through the town uh clerk's office and I believe we will continue to put some outreach on that. That's my administrative report.
Any got any questions? The budget calendar. So this we're talking about the budget calendar. Sorry.
Here it is. Okay. So this is so I just wanted to highlight um some of the major dates as we're in October and we'll be looking for the board's approval. And as in previous years, I think this tool has worked well that in the event that there are any changes on these dates, I have
to come before the select board um to discuss and get your approval. That way it keeps us to the timeline and also informs the public of any um uh changes. So just briefly, we October 3rd, um the warrant closed. You just approved the
warrant on October 7th. October 17th is the last day to register to vote for the special town meeting. So, if you're not registered, uh do check with the town clerk's office. Uh you have till October 17th to register to vote if you're not
registered. The warrant, as I mentioned, will be posted on Friday the 10th, and everybody will receive that prior to town meeting. Uh the capital directive uh has gone out. Uh
town meeting is on October 27th, capital due October 31st. Looking ahead to November, the union negotiations will begin. There's only one union contract up this cycle, which is the town hall clerical union. Capital will begin to
meet. Um the select board uh to be determined um will that date will be set by rate review for the public hearing on the transfer station rates usually in November. uh the select board the tax classification hearing uh the board of
assesses and the assessor will be ready for November 18th which is your second meeting in November um for the tax rate December uh the budget directive goes out December 1st all budgets will be due back December 29th
January non-UN negotiations there are three non-union contracts up the fire chief the deputy fire chief and the town clerk draft one of the budget uh to the select board in Fincom around uh January 16th.
The board will respectfully be asked to open the town meeting warrant and call the annual town election at your January 20th meeting. February 13th is the target to end all of the union and non-UN negotiations. So, we
have all of those costs for the budget. The beginning of March, the regional school assessments will come in. Uh, we're looking to do a public presentation on the budget on Wednesday, March 25th at 6 p.m. Later in the process, but later in the process means
we have the maximum amount of information without a lot of placeholders and variables. Uh the select board generally holds the water and sewer rates at usually is the second meeting in March which would be March
17th. Um it's subject to rate. Could we remove the date? Yeah. That sure. Um I mean it probably will be that date but I don't want the committee working toward a date. I want them working on a solution. Got it. Okay. And then the warrant
closes on April 3rd. This is for the annual town meeting. That's the deadline at noon. Citizens petitions to the clerk. April, you'll approve the warrant on April 7th. That's your first meeting in April at 6.
And then the IDFA budget uh is also approved around that time, April 7th. Then the warrant again after subject to your approval April 10th is posted, goes to mail and print. town meeting, annual
town meeting is scheduled by bylaw, Monday, April 27th at 7 pm. And then in May, Tuesday, May 12th, 2026, will be the annual town election. And I know that the town clerk and her office uh do a great job reaching out to incumbents
and in promoting the election and the deadline uh to vote. So, that's the calendar uh in a in a nutshell. Before you know it, it'll be May. I don't know if the board has any questions or changes and just as I
mentioned upon approval if we have any changes we'll be coming to you to request those so a they have to holds us to it but any change it could happen the public and you are aware
that's good looks good okay so I'll make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2027 uh budget calendar. Second it. All those in favor? I
chair says I I couldn't get it out my lips. And and the last item uh very short is the Council on Aging's contract um with Mark. It's a three-year contract um
which is up. So this would be for FY26 through FY28. There are no major change there are no substantive changes to the contract. It's just a a renewal. Uh the director of the council on aging uh Katie Petrai
uh was involved with that. The assistant town manager uh and Mart um also was been fully vetted. And so unless there are any questions from the board, we're looking for your uh support uh to approve the contract uh for another
three years with the signature by the chair. Signature by the chair. There's this um Can you have them change or still board of selectmen? Oh, you say select board. I saw that. Um Okay.
Yep. We will do that. I did see that select select board. even reading it, it sounded weird. So, what I'll ask them to do is change it and then um they'll send me back a contract and then once it's
sent back, I'll have um uh select board member Livingston come down and sign it if that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Yeah, we'll do it that way. That's my only question. But we can still approve it to form. Yeah. I'll make a mo if not make a motion that
the board approve um the fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 28 council on aging contract with mark seconded. All those in favor I chair says I Yep. Just let me know. Madam Chair, unless there's any
questions from the select board, that concludes my report. I appreciate the board's time this evening. Okay. All right. Under new business, select board member questions. I had something. Did either one of you have anything come up? I have nothing. Okay. So, before I dig into that, I I
would like that on our next meeting, we have proposed dates to replace our November 4th meeting. Oh, yeah. Already made a note. Yeah. So, yes. Processing, processing, processing. Um,
I guess you know if we can look for an alternate date that'd be great. Otherwise, we're having a really big meeting on what is it? November 17th. The 18th. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, but anyway, so yeah, we're going to need that. So, okay, on with
that. So, I kind of touched on this briefly um our last meeting and this is I'm asking the board that what I'll be asking the board is if they are willing to send a letter to
mass development asking them to re-engage with the Devon's jurisdictional framework committee. So, so let me give you a little background. This committee was was originally formed around 18 and then and Mass Development
was one of the people that asked for this committee to be formed. And at the time we were working pretty well with Mass Development. Uh Jessica Strunken uh was with us and Ed uh Starzac and uh we
would meet over on uh 33 commons on in Devons and have our meetings and mass development did have a tendency to they they were taking care of the minutes and they were taking care of the you know the room and they were kind of doing all the administrative work. All
right. So flash forward we have co Jessica transfers to someplace else. She she's moved on. And we got Dan Rivera who immediately said they will not be participating with this committee
because he said he was too busy. And if you remember when he first uh became the president CEO CEO of mass development uh would have been around circuit 22. Yeah. um he wasn't meeting with any of the
boards, but the deck came and asked this board uh for some uh they needed some approval for something and I says, "Gee, you know, the CEO should really talk to us." So, he was on vacation and he had to call in and he told us that he
couldn't meet with the committee because he was building a bridge acting like I mean, you know, like he was doing the actual shoveling. Okay. So, so I'm not I'm still not sure why there was a pull out. Okay. Um, but
it has been an ongoing conversation with our committee because they are a stakeholder. Okay. So, there are six stakeholders. There's air, there's Shirley, there's Harvard, there's the Devon's residence, there's the deck, and
there's mass development. Okay. and mass development even though they're not like they don't they have a they have a vote but they don't have the big vote. Okay, I don't know how other else to explain it to you otherwise we'll be
here all night. So, but they are kind of ignoring us and we send them note every now and then you know hey and it's always no no no. So we tried again on June 18th. Um the committee sent a letter to Navjet Bal
the new president CEO of mass development about re-engaging with the committee. In the letter we pointed out that 2033 is 8 years away regarding disposition of the Devon's regional enterprise zone or dres and that mass development is essential to the process of developing a professional
recommendation of disposition to include the necessary research. We pointed out that we had written a draft RFP for a professional consultant for the purposes of financial analysis with respect to disposition. Mass development is a key data and information resource whose
partic participation is needed. We mentioned recent developments with respect to the housing and development caps the recommendations of the governor's task force on the future of housing at Devons that all key stakeholders are needed to participate and collaborate. So the response we received which took a
while to get a response. We didn't get a response like within a week. I think it I think that um Victor had to poke them again, you know. Um so Navdet Bald sent back a response. As you know, the governing legislation
for Devons contemplates a study to be started by July 1st, 2030 to evaluate alternatives for a permanent government structure at Devons. As set out in the legislation, mass development would be part of that effort together with the Devon's Enterprise Commission and the boards of selectmen as the elected
representatives of each of the towns. That group is instructed to submit the study to the governor and other state leaders by July 1st, 2033. That work will include public participation in public hearings. We look forward to working with the group identified in the Devon's legislation on these important questions as we get
closer to the July 1st, 2030 date. In the meantime, we will not be able to commit mass development resources and personnel as you have indicated in the draft RFP. Now, all of this is on our uh demonst jurisdictional framework committee um website
which is linked on our town website. Okay. So, Victor says, you know, replied back as to the invitation to rejoin the DJFC. While not the response we'd hope for, your statement of mass development's position is clear. You have correctly identified the parties to the planning process but you have not provided
reasons why mass development believes the process should now not be ongoing despite all the other parties committed to moving forward. Now again this they were part of why the committee formed. Yeah. Now at one point we had the joint board of sort.
I always have called this committee the Jbos 2.0. Right. Okay. But it's actually a lot better than the than the Jbos. So it was then decided that we wanted to engage with our elected representatives,
Senator Eldridge, Representative Cena, and also Senator Cronin, who is Shirley is his district, which of course has a piece of the Devons. I So I sent them an email. Both Eldridge and Cena have
indicated that they will zoom in to our November 12th meeting. Haven't heard from Cronin yet, but I've I told Jamie and uh Dan last night, you know, hey, poke them and and let them know um to that we'd like them there, you know, cuz
that else is his his thing. Well, Jamie also suggested um that the three towns uh select board to ask to send a letter to ask the mass development CEO to come before each select board or to meet with the three select board members, one from each town since it does seem clear that
Mass Development will not intend a DJFC meeting. So, that's where we're at now. What we're having our the DJFC meeting is meeting tomorrow. We are going to be
looking at a new meeting schedule. We've been meeting monthly. We've been working on like a little matrix question where each stakeholder has, you know, said like, you know, if the town if if the jurisdiction, for example, went back to
the town of air, how would you handle um police services? Yeah. Uh fire services and all that stuff. And so we've each given a little blurb as to, you know, what we think. And as I've indicated, I think for air it'd be a turnkey operation. Okay. So that's what we've
been kind of working on and it's really good. And you know, so but now we're going to kind of probably and we'll officially talk about and vote on this tomorrow, but there we are leaning towards going into a quarterly meeting. There's not a lot of work that we're
asking for mass development to do. We're not asking them to do any lifting like they may have done. And I think, and this is my opinion because I can't get anyone to say whether or not this is part of the problem, but I remember when we talked to Dan Rivera, he kind of
implied that, you know, Mass Development was doing all the heavy lifting as far as the meeting room, doing the meeting minutes, yada yada yada. That's all been solved. Okay. Each town takes a turn doing the meeting minutes. Uh it was decided that we would do the
meetings here which works beautifully for everybody. Um and everybody's satisfied and we have a very smooth machine here. So there's really not they need but they and they don't if they don't want to sit with us the whole hour you know that the meeting is going on.
Okay. But seriously we're once a month or soon to be once a quarter. Um, and even when we went to we were at a quarterly before, he he didn't they didn't want to show up, but they won't give us a real reason why. We're not asking for a lot, but we do kind of need
them there because if we have a question, they have the answer. Now, the deck's been wonderful uh support and being able to answer any of our questions, but we also kind of need them. So what I'm asking this board is do we want to send them you know engage
with mass development and say hey look we really need you to be a part of this conversation and it does because I I mean whatever report goes to the state as far as the whenever we are able to
get a professional consultant to pull all the pieces together to make make a recommendation that this one would be the best result for the whole there's always going to be somebody unhappy. I mean I think this is a big deal and
where I I get the part where you know hey we got the 8 years and honestly there are so many times when somebody say this 2033 and then it's 2030 and it it's I know that there's some people could we move it a little sooner. I mean, at this point, just leave it
alone, you know. But my point is is that I I I hesitate to make it feel like it could be rushed because whatever the disposition is is going to be a change. The disposition
is either going to be it goes back to the historical properties, becomes its own town, or it stays status quo. But even if it stayed status quo, that's a change because we're not anticipating that answer, you know, but I just feel like, you
know, maybe they should they can't be ignoring us and, you know, and and we went through this when we even tried to do the municipal agreement with them on the uh what was it the um wastewater. Yes. Yeah. And even that was hard to, you
know, I mean, we're all busy, but seriously, you can give us 20 minutes a month. Yep. Or every month or every three months if that's what it ends up being. So that's where I'm at. How do you guys feel?
Absolutely. Yeah. Perfectly good ask. I support it. Good. Okay. All right then. Um then I guess we'll try to come up with a draft. Yeah, we'll put together a draft uh letter and and if we can we'll try to
have it for next meeting. Yep. Um we can do that. Why not? I know how well our letters go. But but all we can do is try. So having which reminds me I was at um Is that a
little legislative candidate thing? Uh, honestly, our economic director, she just a chamber event. Thank you. She just says, "You need to come with me." And I'm following her. Uh, I It's becoming a little running joke here. Um, but anyways, uh, I in meeting
some candidates that were from kind of all over, you know. Um, she got mentioned and I can tell you that the rest of there the rest of the region knows we're
not happy. So that much I can tell you. Um, they so it is well known that we're not happy. Um, now I know that you you know we recently had the uh the ribbon cutting or something for the
groundbreaking for the standalone emergency room which I applaud because we need that. Um, but we still have a problem and there's the impression that she thinks that the situation has been solved and it has not because we still need beds. So, we're going to have to
somehow figure out another way to do that. I mentioned to Sam last night, Dan last night. Did I say Sam? Yeah, you did. Sorry. Uh I mentioned to Dan last night, Dan Santa, uh that you know there's a lot of people that talk about why can't we come up with our own community hospital?
And as I said to him, I says, "Well, first of all, does anyone even remember how that was done years and years and years and years and years ago?" But with that, perhaps we do need to look to the past a little bit.
to see how it was done, to apply it to today, because we need to figure out something. And I think we do need to shake the tree a bit and we all need to work together to come up with a new way of doing things. But one thing I did say too, I
says if you people, and when I say you people, as I told them, I says the state don't lock it down as far as when a company is doing business in this state, they follow the rules of this state and
this state holds them to the fire. Keep walking because that has to change, too. So, all right. Well, thank you very much. Okay. Next up, meeting minutes from
September 16th and September 25th. Is there any way that I could speak? Uh, yes, Sarah. Um, I just want to say on September 16th, I watched the select board meeting on electronic voting devices. Um, and over just the last past 24 hours, I did
email the board and town employees and moderators just a couple points that I care about seeing included in the minutes. I just wanted to ask, would you please consider these points? Actually, we can't. Actually, we can't. We can only put in the meeting minutes what was actually discussed in a meeting. We can't put in
what somebody's feels should be the context. um if you had spoken that night then it would have been a part of the meeting minutes but we can only put in what happened at the meeting. I think that misses the point um cuz
there were comments that were said about like the amount and the dollar amounts 99 you know the purchase amount and that just were not included in the meeting minutes. They were omitted and I mean that's like a subjective decision you
know it's not like Well, meeting minutes are highlights of what happened in a meeting. So, it's it's not necessarily going to be a word forword thing, but you know, we can't add, you know, you can't just
say, well, I'd like to add context to what to said if it wasn't said within the meeting. Um, okay, that's as far as I can go on this. Um, I did review the m the meeting minutes um on YouTube and I really
thought that I was suggesting some things that happened, but thank you for your time. With that, do you guys have anything that you wanted to No, I I reviewed them.
Looks good. I don't have any changes or edits. Um, all right. I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from September 16th, 2025 and September 25th, 2025. Second. All those in favor?
I chair says I. Okay. Anything else? I'll make a motion the board. Seconded. All those in favor. I and the chair says I. We are adjourned. Good night, everyone. Part: 2
is the uh Tuesday, October 7th at 6:30 meeting of the Air Shirley Regional School Committee. Um did I call the Do I call the meeting first? I would call the regular session to order. Um those attending tonight's meeting should be
aware that the meeting is also being audio and video recorded by Air Public Access and ASRSD. Any audience members who wish to record any part of the meeting must inform the chairperson who will announce the recording. This is to comply with the
Massachusetts wiretype statute. The listings of those that are in the agenda are the those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may be also brought up for
discussion to the extent permitted by law. Per the air regional school committee policy BH public comment is not a discussion debate or dialogue between citizens in the school committee. It's a citizens
opportunity to express an opinion on issues of school committee business. Citizens will have three minutes to express their views and any staff members addressing in committee are reminded of their obligations under the state and federal student record laws to
respect to respect with respect to maintaining the confidentiality of student record information and refraining from disclosing any personally identifying information regarding students. Thank you very much. I'm Joyce Re-Shoots and I'm the um co
vice chairperson and our chairperson is out tonight. We have four people out of six so we have a quorum um that's going to be everybody would stand please for the pledge of allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Eric is going to do the roll call. Joyce
Reese here. Kevin Bringing Chris Rubric, Ashley Bernard here, Jim Quinty here, and here here. Thank you.
So tonight we are fortunate to have the student recognition. Um, Mr. Spencer Christie, our principal, and Mr. Adama, our superintendent, are going to do the MASS students award of academic excellence. Well, that was a perfect introduction,
and that's exactly what Mr. Christopher will do. Um, we are lucky enough to pick one high school student to receive the superintendent award of academic excellence. Uh, and this award is um the student is chosen through a
collaboration of um Mr. Christie and other teachers and other high school faculty and it's a recommendation is is made to me and I I don't know why I would ever not take the recommendation of the high school principal but without further Mr. Christie. Thank you for um
so I'm thrilled tonight to be able to present this award to Devin Given. [Applause] Devon is truly what we look for in any Shirley student. She's praised by her teachers for her aptitude, her attitude,
her go-getter um approach to everything in school. She's incredibly involved. Uh she is a star on the robotics team. She's in student government and you will see her throughout the day and well into the evenings uh most days at school. Um
I don't know that Devon has ever gotten anything lower than an A in a course in her life. um just a absolutely wonderful person, someone who's going to go out and change the world beyond her high school career. Um of which we have two
students tonight, the other who you'll hear about in a moment. Um Devon is wonderful. Everything we would look for in a high school graduate and we could not be more proud to have her here tonight to be able to give her this award. Thank you.
[Applause] Do you want Why don't you come back up and take a picture of Mr. Chris on social media? Yes. You sit right in the middle. Yeah. I'll hold that open for you. Okay. All right.
[Music] Great. family too. Congratulations. Can we please have you guys Why don't we get out of it so you want to get in there? Yes, I do.
There you go. Any school committee members? Any questions? Questions? Uh, congratulations. You're a senior, I assume. So, what's the plans? What's my plans? What are the plans? Fill us in. I'm trying to go to school for mechanical robotics engineering after
this to continue on robotics. I love robotics as I said, very into robotics. Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm flying to a lot of schools to further that and then hope to continue the STEM internship that keeps going on this year. um and hopefully
develop I want to be an entrepreneur so adding on to this internship and hopefully we can get a product going this year and I can put that on and we can continue that for years in the future. Good. Thank you. [Applause]
Um would you say there's someone else? Well, yes, we're very lucky. We have Luchi Overson who's our student rep who's here tonight and she's going to talk a little bit about some of what she is has uh going on at the beginning of this year and it's also incredibly
remarkable. So, first off, good evening everybody. Welcome back. Thank you. So, first off, um last Wednesday I had the opportunity to compete with the Air Shirley marching band at Westford Academy. Um that was really cool. I played um electric guitar
and um we won backtoback competitions and that was really great. I also um last week just auditioned for the jazz band and um now I'm second chair alto saxophone which is really cool cuz I've never played out of saxophone never before. Yeah. But as um junior class president,
we're also like deep into planning um or organizing homecoming for October 25. Um we are hoping to get a pep rally for that and um before before we get homecoming and then also we're hoping to do a 50/50 raffle on um on the Friday football game. Uh yeah, also being a
junior this year it was really um exciting cuz I had the opportunity to um start an indep like an either an independent study or an internship. And so me and one of my friends Mori Khan um under the direction of Mr. more um we wanted to combine like our interests in
medicine and helping others and um in the innovation of like robotics and um engineering. So our big goal for that is just to create like an app or a website where we can um where anyone from anywhere has the opportunity to choose
from a catalog of 3D printed limbs and um and extensions and um that we designed personally me and Maria. And the idea is that anybody can put input their measurements and their lifestyles so that they can have a custom a
customizable renewable and affordable arm that we 3D print in the innovation lab with Mr. Moore and send that out to them because we just believe that um it is in it's essential for everybody to have the basic tools that aid us in the things that we take for granted. Um
yeah, but outside of that, I'm working on starting a shadowing opportunity with the local um and with the local infectious disease doctor in hair. Um we're going to figure out my schedule tomorrow, but I'm really excited about that. As for the all girls robotics team that I really wanted to start um last
time, I think I mentioned that last time. I've already gotten five girls that are really interested in already starting that and I reached out to one of my old mentors in middle school. He used to mentor the all girls robotics team and um we're going to have a meeting officially. I'm not really we're
like trying to plan out the date officially, but that's really great. I'm hoping that we can start it up soon before the season starts in January. And like academically, I'm basically just trying my best to like keep up with all the AP classes. Um most notably, um I have an AP class right now, AP Lang with
Miss Kapasu, where we're um looking at the rhetorical languages of Martin Luther King, and we're making a map out of that, which I think is really cool. And also at the end of that, I'm working at Duncan and I saved up my first $1,000, which is really cool. So hopefully I get a Volkswagen beat up by
Christmas. So yeah, great. You got questions for us? Anything you want us to do? Do you have questions for me? I do. Well, I don't have questions. Um, I'll circle back and I want to say to both of you, great job. Um, Devon, I've
had the privilege as a parent to see you around the school and watch you grow. Um and everything that Mr. Christie um pointed out is very easy to see. I think one of the most comforting thing as a parent that I always saw emit from you
is in natural ability to be kind or love those around you, accept them and work on it together. Um and I think it is an example that a lot of us can take. And I think that's probably why you've gotten so far as one of those attributes among
many. So congratulations. Thank you. really excited for you. And then I am loving what I'm seeing um from the ideas and innovation that um I'm um and I like that we're tackling different questions um and that the level of
collaboration seems to be growing um which is really exciting. So thank you. Thank you. Great. Um from here we're trying to say you know we're where we're taking over and you end up uh graduating and moving on to
your college career where you get chances to stay with music. My son um was a music education major. He's now he taught at Martha's Vineyard. He's now teaching at Burlington High School when he's in the a trumpet in the Auburn marketing band. And Sierra is now at the
University of Vermont. She's a paramedic and she's a forestry major there, but she's also a second chair with the French or so. So, it's been my experience that no one has more fun than music people. So, even if it's not your major and you're studying, if you find a way to stay with that,
whether it's jazz band or marching band or with the orchestra, try to search that up and uh keep the nose flying. Yeah, I definitely think that's a really interesting like a good point because I've always seen music as like a universal language and I think that's one of the most like um great things of
why I like music is because I feel like it can connect with so many people and like I would really love to like continue doing that as with like my mission of like using like medicine and like new like technology. I think that's like really good. I love that and it will really broaden their context
is if you take a look at those music groups it's I think the only organizations that has engineers English majors plus these divinity students everybody is in and they're all connected to that one thing and it will certainly broaden your perspective as
you work through your collegiate career globally. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. And it's something nice to see all these proud parents here. Can't make them get the smiles off their faces, which is rewarding for us
people who've gone through this kids. Um, so thank you guys so much. And uh, how was Houston? It was great. It was It was excellent. We hope to go back again this time. It was a big It sound like it was a good
trip. I got that from somebody who was very new in the robotics group. So, I had to ask for somebody who maybe know more. Deon, please keep up us updated. We talked a little bit before about some of the schools that you're applying to.
Please, like I said, please let the guidance department know so that we can celebrate that uh when you're accepted to multiple schools. But whatever your choice is, um I won't uh share some of the schools that she said, but not only are they some of the best schools in New England, they're some of the best
schools in the world. So, um, she's going to make all of us very good. Don't go to Houston, though. It stays hot. I just talked to somebody from there today. Um, anything else? Um, um,
Dr. Renda, what is the criteria for this award? What's the basis for it? What's the it's it's it's pretty open, but it is for academic excellence. So when we get the notification from MASS, I typically forward the email and reach out to Mr.
Christie to say, "Hey, I don't know the high school seniors as well as you do. Please talk to the teachers and other faculty and choose and for us it's just one because of the size of our school. Choose one student uh that we can give this award to and they base that on academic excellence. Uh what they give
back to the community, how involved they are in school. Uh but the overall theme is is academic." It's nice to know those things that helps us brag, helps us keep going. Um, anything else from anybody over there like to add
anything or jump in, please do. Okay, we're now ready for public comment. Okay, I have my time. Do we have any public comment tonight? Is there anything online?
There's nobody online. Nobody online. Moving on to the next item, item seven, which is the consent agenda to vote on. Uh, it covers SE September 16th, 225 regular session minutes for release. It
has warrants AP warrant 1 um 1043, 1044, and 1049. Those are regular charges. And then AP warrant 1050, which is bi-weekly payroll. Um 6 payroll war 7 payroll 7.1
is five payroll. So 1 2 3 4 5 six seven items in the consent agenda. I would entertain a motion to approve those. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second.
All in favor? I. All opposed. Item passes. New business. Madam Chair. Yes, sir. If we could go out of order just for part of the superintendent report while Mr. Christie is here.
Um we received No, he he's just he's just we received some questions about um GPA. Just want to take that one section. Ju just that one section. Just care just Thank you.
Christie, if you could sure speak to the questions about GPA. Sure. We had a a question come up uh recently just about GPA and and is our GPA calculated correctly? What does this look like? Um last year I I had the privilege of working with a truly
incredible group of parents um to take a look at at our GPA scale in relation to a number of other schools. I think we we tended to look somewhere between uh 24 and 30 different GPA scales that are being used within schools in
Massachusetts. Um the GPA skill that we've chosen is actually the most popular one we found. Um most notably this is being used in Harvard Bramfield as well. The last line and if you turn to the I I printed out for you the the
school profile. The second page will have a grade point average calculations. And the last line in the the box text is maybe the most important which is student GPA is calculated by using
weighted grades over an unweed 4.0 GPA scale. The scale is based on an A at a college prep level. When students score, and we have many students who score above the 4.0, We know that's the grade
waiting that they're getting over and above that A at a college level. So we are very lucky in that we have some truly incredible students that that come here and what we're able to share with their colleges is their successes. Um so we believe that this puts them in the
best light for any college. Um but what students will see and many of them will see this is a GPA that has a higher numerator than denominator. And I think that had thrown some families off in how could this be correct? It is in fact
correct by the way we're looking at it. Any questions? [Music] So the colleges use basically the one that's labeled college prep. So if I'm applying my kid to college then where they fall in that is
going to be not what that college is going to require. So co colleges are unique in that what many schools will do is actually take the students grades and recalculate them based on their own set of criteria. Um we're not privy to that information but
what we share with colleges is we're basing our grade point average over the A in a college prep scale. And so this is reported on the report cards as since I don't have a student there and I'll ask this dumb question. No, it it's a great question actually.
No, when I open my kids report card. Yes. Who's goofing off? I know, but he's a senior in high school. Um and um so then that the letter grade is going to be there. Yes. The letter grade and the I would say more importantly the numeric grade
is there and then the numeric grade is there but that's more important. Yes. And so what what we would tell families and this I think primarily is more directed towards our senior students. Right now when students are applying to colleges,
colleges are going to receive a number of of document pieces of documentation from us. one of which is this school profile. When colleges take a look at the grade point average calculation, what they'll be able to see are the scales that we
have in there. They'll also be able to see the language we're using on how we're calculating GPA, so they'll know exactly what we're reporting to them. [Music] [Music]
So, anything that goes to the colleges, I'm assuming, is going to have listed on their application the extracurricular activities they've had, the athletics that they've done. It's not just straightforward that most schools that would be think Yeah. I I think when when students are
Yeah. when when students are looking at applying to colleges, there there's a range of of things that each individual college will ask for. Um, but I think for for most colleges and most students, students are going to be listing uh their extracurricular activities in
addition to their their um transcript um and school profile. Um, most colleges also will ask for letters of recommendation for for students from their teachers um and generally personal essays as well. It it's a it's a complex process um but but one in which we've seen a lot
of success from our students any questions anybody there was a rumor that if you applied to MIT everybody was the top of their class everybody was the honor student. Everybody was the captain football team. Everybody ranked here and here. So they take them all and throw them down stairway. The ones that landed on the
top of them. Okay. It's the same. They used to have that same joke about how you grade papers is you throw them down a stairway and you see which one lands at the top and which one lands at the bottom and that's how you grade them. I I would hope that the criteria is a little more strict than that, but
Well, I think MIT might be a little more strict than it too. We hope you know it was just to keep it light. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Spencer say good evening.
Okay. Um after we have that nice presentation, I feel like we can just leave. Nothing more we need to do. Um going back, do you want to jump into the rest of your report or go back to the regular agenda?
Why don't we go back to the regular agenda? Okay. Um, we have Charlie is going to give us a 2025 MC MCAS accountability presentation. Mr. Clearary, we would appreciate your performance.
Performance. I agreed. Uh, I believe you have a copy of this in your packet and the slideshow is accessible in Drive as well. Um, so you may have a paper copy. Um,
each year we share our MCCAST information, our MCAST performance, uh, as and I'll go through a few of these pieces. Uh, to remind folks, the MCCAST is ultimately the test or the assessment is the proper term that's administered by the Department of
Education in Massachusetts to assess our progress towards academic standards. And then each year the state puts out accountability reports for each school as well as the district. Uh and those accountability reports have become public in the past week. And so we wait
to make this presentation until the information has become public to orient folks to the information that they're looking at. Um connected to this, students will be receiving the or families will be receiving their scores. Those will be mailed home or sent home
with students this week in each of the schools. So, just to highlight a few new things that happened for the 2025 school year, the testing contract was renewed with Cognia, but they added a new subcategory
called a subcontractor called Etric. We're not quite sure what role they play in the process, but you may have seen in the news that there were several assessments that had to be rescored because of the AI scoring process that didn't work properly. Uh, and so a number of different schools had to be
pulled to be rescored and um that changed accountability reports between preliminary and final didn't impact air surely, but I share his information. Um, as a reminder, this is the first year that our high school students participate in the MCCAST without the competency determination hanging over
their heads, meaning this test is no longer a high stakes quote unquote test for them in order to graduate. So, that's important to consider. This was the first year for grade 8 civics. So, that's something that been talked about for the past couple of years that they were going to implement. So, this is the
first year that they officially did it for all grade 8 students. So, our grade 8 students actually participated in four assessments this year in the spring, which was a lot. Um, and just a refresher, this is still an accountability process. So, we're using next generation MCCAST for all of our students in grades 3 through 10 in all
of our subjects, math, and ELA. Science, technology, and engineering happens at specific grades, grades five, grade 8, and grade 9 or 10. For us, it's grade nine. Um, that means the next generation MCCAST is aligned with all of the new frameworks and it's also computer-based
testing that's taking place. There are accountability reports for each school that I mentioned before as well as for the district. There are percentile rankings that exist for each school in the Commonwealth. There are not percentile rankings for districts. So,
only school percentile rankings. And those rankings are calculated based on performance from 2024. It's a weighted average. 40% of the performance is from 2024 and 60% is weighted on 2025. So, it's a 2-year weighted average that determines what your accountability
number is. And then that's compared to all the schools that are in the same grade span that you are in or testing span that you are in. And then percentile rankings are determined. When we look at the data, we tend to look at our performance over time. And I've
shared these um images in the past to show what our progress is. We lump all of our grades, grades 3 through 10 and our performance in ELA. So this is English language arts. And so what we're looking at, what we look at as a district when we look at highle data for
this, we're looking at that green curve on the left relative to that gray line. So that gray line is the state average in terms of performances for the percentage of students who are meeting and exceeding proficiency targets on the assessments in ELA. And so we want to be
moving away from that line above it. That's what our goal is. Uh and if we're below it, we want to get closer to it. That second chart in the middle there, which shows the blues on the top and the grays and the reds on the bottom. We're trying to increase our percentage of
blues. So you'll notice in 2023 it's kind of a lower number. In 2024, it goes up. 2025 it goes up. And our percentage of students in the grays and the reds gets smaller and smaller. Our goal is really to shrink reds and increase blues. That's really what our goal is.
If you look at it from a data standpoint, these are kids we're talking about. So, I don't mean to minimize this, but from a data standpoint, when we look at big picture, that's what we're trying to look at. On the top portion, it shows you performance in each of the subcategories for the ELA
test. And I'll talk more about this later, but you'll notice that our performance in writing and essays is lagging behind our performance in reading and language. So those are some of the pieces of information that we notice when we look at the information. Then further information is provided in that bottom right quadrant showing
performance relative to grade level to see where changes are taking place. So similarly you have a snapshot for math and it shows us that we are moving towards the state average which is where we wanted to get to over time. So again this is grades 3 through 10 and now
we're heading in the direction that we intended. Uh same thing we're looking for blues to increase and reds to decrease which we're starting to see and the categories for the math categories are broken up a little bit differently. Um and so we tend to focus a lot of our
energies on number sense uh and functions and so on. So that's a lot of our work. So we can see some of the progress that we've been making each of the grades. I'll talk more about this when we get into noticings that we have later on in science, technology, engineering,
same process. So looking at our performance. So we're notice that there's a gap forming between the gray line and the blue line that's there. So that shows us that the work that we're doing in science at grades 5, 8, and 9 and 10 is actually making some um impact on our students and our student
performance. And that's broken down by each of the grades. Um middle school has, as you may recall, middle school has adopted open sedric framework this year, which is going to tweak some of where we get the standards addressed. And that's going to take a little bit of
an adjustment. So, I don't want us to I'm looking at this information and we're like, hey, things are looking really good. There's probably going to be a correction as we go into next year and then we'll rebound again. So, and as we implement new curriculum, but as we talked about in the past, the curriculum that we keep trying to implement is
intended to engage more students, make the learning a little bit more realistic and exciting and fun and engaging for our kids. And that's you're going to start to see the benefits of that as well. Sorry, going in the wrong direction. Uh civics performance as we would kind of
expect we're a little bit there's no state average that's there. The state average typically on the first administration of an assessment is roughly hovering around just below where we are. So it's usually around 50 is where it ends up. So we're slightly above that. We have a little bit of you know this is the first year of the
administration of the test. 8th grade has just adopted new curriculum. So we're going to see how this evolves over time. and we have a lot of confidence in the curriculum that we've chosen and the teachers that are working with our kiddos that this is going to continue to grow. Just as a reminder, there are two parts
to accountability. So when we talk about MCCAST information, that's just score reports and accountability is based on two different parts. It's based on how we perform relative to certain targets. And so the state will set targets for us that we have to meet in our achievement
for students to perform on a test and also in their growth from one year to the next. And so our goal is to try to meet those targets. And we get points if we meet those targets. We meet the targets, we get three points. If we don't meet the targets or if we're at the same level, we get two points. If we
exceed the target, we get four points and so on and so forth. In addition, there are other measures that are incorporated as well for high school particularly. You'll see student dropout rate and graduation rate, but all schools have chronic absenteeism on there. And that's awarding points for
those as well. And this process of taking the accountability and scoring how did you do on the test and how do you do on these other measures is all lumped together into a performance that determines your percentile ranking. And so when we look at our percentile
rankings, I have them over time here. So we're focused on the far end of this chart in 2025. We if you look at back 2024, our performances were hovering in the 50s. Our performance in 25 is hovering in the 50s. We're kind of staying where we made
some improvements, some gains in some of our schools. We've slipped a little bit in some of our schools as well. We look at this as kind of like big band performance over time. Our percentile ranking, you know, we're looking at this tells us that we're right in the middle of the state average for each of our
schools. So, I highlighted I go back to the slide again because you may not be able to see it and I can't blow it up here. Here, I'm sorry, but on your handout, you'll probably be able to see it. What I circled on that little category is the percentage the percentile ranking and our progress towards these targets is
categorized as either making moderate progress or substantial progress. So in we have the majority of our schools are making substantial progress towards our target and we also are we're at least making moderate progress towards our target which is what our goal is. We want to be meeting all of our targets
which we're going to be getting to over time but we're making progress. So what we noticed overall is there there's moderate progress towards our targets which I just clarified. Um the achievement has improved. So, we've made a lot of curricular implementation and
changes over the past several years in ELA and in math and in science. And what we're seeing is that our performance is improving overall, which is what we were looking for. We're getting a lot of points. This accountability determination is is based on two different categories of students. You're
weighted on all of your students. How do all of your students achieve and grow based on their performance on the test and how are they attending school? and you're also rated on your lowest performing 25% of your students. And those two categories are weighted
equally. What we're noticing is that we are earning more of our points for our lowest performing students than we are for all of our students. So, we're shrinking our opportunity gaps and achievement gaps for our kiddos. Our achievement levels, as you saw on those
curves on the graphs, are rebounding relative to the state. And in some cases they're expanding and creating a larger gap between the state performance and our performance. The achievement at the grade level is at least near state average and are not meeting our percentage of students who
are not meeting um performance standards or proficiency is significantly below what the state average is in not meeting proficiency. So I highlighted some strengths and some weaknesses here, relative strengths and relative weaknesses. I'm not going to go through all of them, but something I wanted to
call attention to is the chronic absenteeism that we we spent a lot of time focusing on that over the past couple of years and we earned a lot of points for accountability towards chronic absenteeism. So, in other words, we're getting our kids to come to school. So, the systems that we're putting in place, Jordan, we have some
tweaks to put in place for certain groups of students. Yes. But overall, our chronic absenteeism has improved. Uh our graduation rate continues to remain strong. We've exceeded our targets in English language arts for our multilingual learners. And our students with disabilities have made they've made
improvements below the target, but they've made improvements that continue to grow, which compared to other schools or across the Commonwealth. There was seems to be a big slip in students with disabilities kind of their performance dropped. Ours dropped, but it didn't drop as much as others. And so that
tells us like there's clearly something in the assessment tool itself, but also the work that we're doing in the district with co-eing and providing the supports for our students with disabilities and providing more training on universal design for teachers to make their classrooms more engaging is making
an impact positively. Relative weaknesses, you saw it in the first slide that showed the information and I mentioned writing. Writing is something that we continue to focus on and so in fact today is Tuesday. So Thursday we have a writing meeting with teachers
from grades 3, four, and five to talk about how we're working on our writing process um to establish that a little bit more um consistently. Um, you'll notice if you look at the accountability report, our dropout rate, uh, we didn't earn points for our dropout rate, but
because of our, and I I don't mean to minimize this, but because of our size of our school, the dropout rate, if we have two students out of a class of 200, we get zero points for dropout. So, the difference between our rate was one
student when we look at that. So, I'm not minimizing it by any stretch, but I'm just trying to show the power of the numbers. and we have to work because of our size. We have to work to make sure keep all of our kids in school and get them to get a diploma. That's our job and that's our task. But sometimes students aren't
ready for it. Um I had mentioned before the high school achievement there are questions across the state and I've had this conversation with several assistant superintendent when we're talking about MCCAST information is that there was a big wondering because high schools across the state achievement on the test
dropped. And so everybody's wondering the same thing. Did removing the competency determination, that little carrot and that requirement that was on students, did that impact their performance and taking the test seriously, did it have an impact on them? We don't really know the answer to that question. Pressure pressure.
But we wonder we wonder if that had an impact. So our next steps um I'm not going to go through each of these, but a couple of things I wanted to reference. We have lots of work to do. We we look at this information. We share it with teams or share with teachers. We have conversations, data meetings and so on.
But ultimately, one of the big picture areas for the year was to refine the work that we put in the big things, the big boulders that we're working on seems to be making an impact, positive impact. And we have to continue to refine and tweak that to make sure that we're meeting the needs of all of our kids, not just of our kids, not just of some
of our kids. And so that means we have to continue to emphasize our tier systems of support. um our tier one instruction like making sure that what we're doing for all of our students in class is really engaging and compelling for kids. Uh we're going to continue with our co-eing process and we're continuing our work on equity and
fostering a strong sense of belonging for students in our classrooms. Um you're going to hear over the next month at these pres school committees. You're going to at school committee presentations you're going to hear the school improvement plans from each of the buildings which are not going to go into depth on the MCAST information but
they are going to build upon this cursory view of MCCAST and their goals will be aligned with the goals that are here as well. So this is the precursor for that. So you'll hear some of the things like when Pa says we're working on writing. Now you'll know where that comes from. Um, we're continuing our
partnership with the Hill for literacy. They're going to help us support our literacy coaching model as well as uh providing some targeted VD for our teachers. We're continuing the work that we're doing with Allison Melo for math professional development and we've actually expanded that to include administration this year to start the
year, which has been wonderful. Um, teachers are feeling more supported with the work. Um, and we actually just met with a map leadership team last week, which was great to kind of develop like our plan of what classroom instruction should look like to finalize that and clear that up for folks. But our big
focus um is also to provide folks with more time for collaboration. So, we have the half days that school committee was graciously awarded um as part of the building the calendar for this year. So, we're using that time for folks to collaborate and get together and work on some of this in terms of establishing
curriculum and really working on their instruction. Um and we're also piloting the process of giving some folks uh taking meeting time and redistributing it into after school professional learning communities for teachers to collaborate. So we're going to see what impact that's going to have as well. So
that's a lot of information, but I try to keep I try to take all that stuff and try to shrink it down into some little bite-sized morsel, but I am open for any questions that you might have. Questions. Um, so for just I know obviously there's
a lot of um things that go into those scores, but I noticed that the two elementary schools were quite different. Is there anything that you guys could pick up from the data to show why? Or I know you mentioned writing. Was there anything else specifically that you think separated the schools
at this point? No, we haven't. I mean, we each of the buildings is going into a little bit more detail on the depth of their work. Um I think in each of the schools um we've had some
how would I say this writing has still been an issue that we've been focused on and I think that with a number of the work that with a lot of the work that we've done from curriculum standpoint um we had a great deal of that work that was in place and
teachers have been practicing there's been a little bit more continuity at lower white than there had been at page hilltop and so as a result that may have impacted some of that performance. Okay. And doesn't part of that just rely on
the fact that whichever mix of students happen to come together, you're going to have variations anyway. You're not going to have consistent look at these numbers that up down up. Yeah. From year to year you're going to have changes, right? because it's always a different group of kids,
right? When we're comparing when we look at some of the data, we also look at um comparing the same group of students as they progress through the system to see how they perform from one year to the next. Um and we continue to see that growth happening, which is what we want to see.
Um and that is that's why the MCCAST information when we share it, you know, my first year presenting this information, I feel like I had 45 slides or something ridiculous. And now like in terms of sharing this information, these are different kids, different focus
every year, different circumstances for the assessment, different timing. So it's not realistic to expect you're always going to get the same results. We expect them to be in some band, which is what we saw. I would say that the two elementary
schools are more aligned right now than they ever have been. And I mean that in a good way. Yeah. Um, so I can I think I would expect to see a bounce back from Paige um this year. Um, but I would agree with Mr. Clearly that there's been
some some changes, some retirements and some um, greener staff coming on. So that that does make a difference. I will say that I mean each year when we go through this I I don't really
I don't like the way it's named the accountability numbers, you know. I don't like the algorithm so much. The whole thing is just like you're a victim of your own success. The way that they put it together. So, it's like taking a look at at how we're doing relative to the state average seems a little bit
more uh cogent, but it must be and I'm sure that each one of the buildings finds their own way to deal with it cuz the the knee-jerk reaction always is, you know, you take a look at the data anyone what everybody here wants is that everybody gets a baseline education that allows them to succeed, right? Everybody
wants to get to that. But you also don't want to dial back on kids that are in the rank and file stage, right? That the highf flyers almost no matter what you do, they're just going to be there, right? This just the way it works, right? But it's that middle portion that
that I always try to uh make sure that they're giving the time and and I feel very confident and that's really a leadership thing in each one of the schools to make sure that they get what they need there. And I feel confident that we're we're keeping an eye on that as we we like to strive for numbers, but
but they're actually people. That's important. We we try to humanize the data all the time when we talk about it. We're always there's an old expression about bringing kids in the room with you. Like bring a chair in the room with you so that you can say who is sitting in that chair while you're
having this conversation about students or what not having a conversation about data. So you can remember that these aren't just numbers. We're not just trying to get all these kids who are $4.99 and cross them over to 500. Like they're kids, right? And so this is one or in some cases two testing days that's happening in April
or May. And so some kids are not going to be in their greatest it's not going to be the greatest day for them, you know, and that's going to happen. So that's why we try to look at trends over time. So when I share this information about relative strengths and weaknesses, I mean I'm pulling out some of the pieces that we
tend to pay attention to, but the things that are on the left side, the relative strengths part, those are things we've been emphasizing, you know, and so of course we're going to expect to see positive outcomes. And we know that we spent most of our time in the elementary grades implementing a new reading
program. So we really focused on reading. We've focused on reading and I shared with you like the results of like assessments in the past about reading and we've shown like pretty substantial gains over the past couple of years. So
now that we have reading now we got to work on how do you apply reading which is in writing and so that's the next phase of this. So it I wish I could just go like that believe because nobody wants to move faster than me. Um but we have to remember that these are adults professionals and kids like it's going
to take time. People have to learn, practice their craft, work on it. And there are kids, I mean, I spoke to teachers after this who were not happy with their results. They were like disappointed. And I would try to help to, you know, validate how they feel,
but also put it in perspective for them. But one of the teachers has shared with me, one of my strongest writers, you know, who writes routinely whole five paragraph essays, pages and pages and pages and pages of stuff on test day wrote two sentences on the
response was just done was just didn't want to do it. And that is the score that ends up on here. And everybody's like, well, we try not to overreact. That's why I treat MCCAST. And I've had teachers come to me, this
is great. And I'm like, I'm right in the band here. People like, it's one test. It's two days in the spring. It tells us about our standards. It's small picture. Let's look at it. Let's learn from it. Let's fix our instruction to make it so that kids continue to grow. That's what
we want to do. So, I don't mean oversemble, but I do want to make it feel That's a great That's a great point, too, because we we get those results. We can show our students, you know, here's what you did last year. Here's your writing. This is your writing portfolio
and your five paragraph essays. And here's how much you wrote. And here's your test from last year in two sentences. That's your score. And here's the rubric. And this is what if we scored this piece for Castle based on the rubric that you wrote on, you know, two weeks prior, you would have gotten this score. So, I mean, I think it's
it's fair to show students how they did and how how it was scored because this isn't going to be the only time they have to take a test that is going to mean something for them in the future. So, um just to maybe create a little bit of agency for that, we have to find ways to do that and not stress them out,
right? And that's a fine a fine line to to walk. So, we don't want them to stress about it, but we want them to do their best work and and finding that balance sometimes can be difficult. I will say I think there is some stress for the kids that are taking it for the first time. Yes,
I have a now fourth grader and it just I think the teachers were trying to prepare them, but it actually sent him into quite a tizzy. I don't want to do it. I I don't feel well. I don't want to go to school. I'm like, it's just take it. It's okay. Like, however you do is how you do. So, I do think
I mean, you're going to have different types of kids. Some types of kids don't care. My oldest was losing his mind. So, I think it just depends who the kids are, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that's why it's such a tight That's such a tight rope to walk, right? So, we don't want anyone feeling like that. Yeah. You want to like prepare them and
try your hardest, right? But don't but so it's Yeah. Oh, it I don't know. I I couldn't figure it out. So, I don't I'm sure the teachers were doing We're not grading you. We're grading us. Yep. Right. Not you, it's us. This is our grading.
Yeah. I was surprised kind of. Not just I'm sorry, somebody else. Anything. Eric, um, I would just say on on the last comment, the only thing I can think of is, as weird as this sounds, I almost liken it to when we have to go into like
anatomy, when you have to have that conversation with kids, and it usually is more like fourth grade. It's almost like you have to set it up the same way of like explaining to them what is the standard, what's the purpose of the standard, and because it's so droll, the kids tune out, which probably isn't the best, right? But at the same time,
that's probably the, you know, just to disarm um anxiety, but at the same time, you know, just let them know, hey, we're just trying to make sure that we're giving you the best education possible. And this is kind of one of the ways, you know, one of the method mechanisms in how we do that.
Um, we just want you to do your best and represent your best self. We don't want you overdoing it. We want you being you, but you know, that's what it is. But that's very hard to communicate on several levels. I still have a hard time communicating with someone who's been with me for 18 years of her life. So, I
appreciate what you're trying to do. It's a teenage girl. Um, how many year? I know there was a big freakus about putting civics in and stuff, but um to grade this LA what this
spring last spring eighth grade physics did we really have enough? Did the everybody in the state, not just us, but was there really enough basis to start testing civics? Yeah, at that at that time point. Yeah, it's been um
it was my first year 2018. Oh, is when the law passed and when the curricular frameworks were released and when civics had to shift into 8th grade. So, it's been 7 years for folks to minus 3 years of co.
Yes. So, but it's been it's been I mean it's about what they estimated. They estimated to be about 5 years by the test time the test was going to be ready. So, it was it was pretty much on schedule. Yeah. We opted not to pilot pre-state the pilot the year prior cuz we were not keen on having our kids take multiple
tests. Um and so this year was required for everybody in eighth grade. So, the eighth grade is still just two days or do they have more than that since they have they have two days for civics. They have two days for science, two days for math, and two days for ELA. So, they have 8 days of testing.
Yuck. Yeah. I mean, it's spread out over the from April roughly April break, uh, a little bit before April break until the end of May. So, it's, you know, four tests, eight days of testing.
By the time you get the fourth one, they're just I'm just putting my name on. Yes. And that was the most testing. The the middle schools have by far the most test. Yeah, it's every grade level multiple tests and are they going back to are they
putting into are they injecting cuz um you know this is nice that we're looking at civics and we're looking at math and etc. Is there anything with just functioning with decision making?
There's no inventive. This is all just basically No, not for MS. No purposes, but nothing else really either. Well, I mean, but we're being graded on this and they have to do something, but still someone needs to Yeah, that's I mean the I don't want to
call them soft skills cuz they're really the hard skills, right? But those are embedded into the teaching and learning structures that we're choosing in the class, right? So when kids are participating in project-based learning and you know when we walk into the middle school and we
see kids facing off against each other in a hydraulic shooting a dart process across the foyer at the middle school can like that's where it's at. You know that's what the learning is supposed to be. Um and those are the skills that we're looking to develop in
our kiddos. So, I mean, yes, there's content that underlies all of that and sure they have to understand hydraulics and motion and forces and, you know, so on and so forth, but really it's about the iterative process they're going to go through in the engineering process. That's what I'd rather see and that's what we're working on.
Anybody else? Anything? Thank you, Charlie. Sure. Thank you. I think maybe I understood it this year. Took me a while. Not a fast learn. Um, no, it's very good. Thank you. Thank you. Um,
okay. Um, Mr. Clinkage, you are new business B, budget closeout, director of finance. Thank you, Vice Chair Reuse. Uh, FY25 was a very challenging year
financially. Um we had the shelter come online um November December 24. Uh and right away we we found ourselves trying to transport kids from the shelter to pay
shelter out in middle school. Uh our our buses were already at capacity. Uh so we ended up using the van. We had a 14 person van at that point. uh we ended up getting a second one and so we could shuttle kids over uh that helped out
quite a bit. But we had uh another u u wrinkle in the in the in the bowl there where we families that were at the shelter had the opportunity to send their kids back to the LEA where they resided before where they were enrolled
before. So we were fronting money to transport kids from the shelter to Boston, lol, Averil. Uh we had kids going um every day. Uh that and we had to front that money. It was about $200,000 that we had to front. We ended
up getting about 75% reimburse, but that was at the end of the year. Uh so it already had stretched out the an already thin budget. Um, so going back to March of last year, if I could just interrupt for a moment, I'm
I'm sorry I'm catching up on messages. Did the school committee wanted to table this discussion? We we were looking at that. We were just trying to figure it out for ourselves and know the numbers. So, okay, my apologies for dropping just I'm just catching. I just saw I wanted okay
to continue. So, well, we were looking to table it only because we didn't have our other two members and with it being the close out, we didn't we wanted to give them the opportunity, but because we found out so late, I didn't get the chance to reach out to let you know. Um, Bill, cuz I know you worked on this
presentation and I want to respect the work that you've done, but because we're missing the other two and with this being the budget, we wanted to make sure that all were here. Is that is that okay? Would you be able to present? Um, that is the next meeting. Um that is a decision of the school committee where
we're fine with any either one. Okay. So I just no disrespect to you at all though. Um I because I know that it took you a while to put this together and I want to make sure well we wanted to make sure that we got the the proper due for that and then make sure that we're all on the same page moving forward. So, do I need to make a motion
to um I would reading down through Bill's highlights here. Um which are quite decent and pretty clear. Um she text you if you cuz who knows who might not make it to the next meeting. So, do you guys
just want to hear this? That's fine. And then I can see how you feel about it. I mean, if we're not willing to vote, I don't want to put him through the presentation twice. Are you saying that once he gets through it, we'll decide whether or not to vote or are we deciding not voting or
not voting? There's no information. It's allformational. Then they can watch the playback. Okay. That's what I had to do when I couldn't attend. So just figure it out.
That's my opinion. I know how you feel like being interrupted. Can you go again? You want to start from the beginning? Oh, could I get to go? You want to go from the top? Um, take it, Bill. Yeah. I think I was we were talking about the we when we certified the budget, the general fund is the is the
appropriated budget that the towns are assessed upon, uh, was certified at 33,424,000, just under 425,000. Uh as of June 30th, the end of the fiscal 25 school year uh fiscal year, uh
we had 34,76,720 in FY25 expenditures, leaving a deficit balance of 651,000 uh which is 1.9% 1.95% over budget. our I called our auditors right away and they assured us
that this balance this deficit balance uh may be applied against our undesated fund balance which uh gets certified uh for during the END certification process and as of uh June 30th we had a
$1.6 million balance in our undesated fund balance. So that will be applied during the END certification. Um I always I wanted to point out that salaries are the largest piece of the uh general fund budget and there is a um a
salary report I included as well. We uh all salaries together in the general fund were budgeted at 17,493,000 and expenditures came in at 18,985,000. Uh, and this resulted in a deficit
budget balance of 1.1,492,598 or 8.53% over budget. Uh, fortunately, we had a large positive balance of $966,000 and our out of district tuitions. And I want to give a thanks to Miss Mrs. Bozac
and her team for working on the circuit breaker, which is a revolving fund that uh we we have every year enough money to move uh out of district tuitions into uh to free up for more expenditures in the general fund. So, it's a great uh fund
to have and it's a lot of work. So, I want to want to thank Mr. Bozac for all the work she does on that. Uh we also applied the emergency assistance assistance shelter funding of 588,000 uh that we received $104 per day for
each student from the shelter. uh and that was uh reimbursed at the end of each quarter and like I said the students started in in December of 24 and students that remained uh the number fluctuated just like choice would uh but
the the number of students uh was like 16 to 24 uh based on the number of days that they attended schools that were enrolled at Air Shirley. Uh so that saved us uh that freed up uh and made our deficit a little bit smaller.
Uh the second the next section down I wanted to put some of the highlights that we're going to be watching going forward. Uh facilities uh the whole cost center was over 286,000 and that was mostly utilities. Uh and we found that
paper products uh were were way up. Uh and I have a report uh that I've included that shows the facilities over the last 5 years. um ABA specialists. Uh we've added uh several new positions. Um
some of them some of the uh ABA specialists have taken the place of paraprofessionals uh but they are new positions and we did not properly budget for them uh as we added them. um psychological services.
We have uh two FTEEs in the budget, but we have not been able to hire a second uh psychologist. So, we have one on staff and we use contracted services uh for the remaining evaluations and
testings that we have to have done. Page Hilltop uh teaching. We um we did uh scale back the preschool by 0.5 teacher uh and added two uh full-time two 1.0
spit uh teachers due to uh the rise in student needs and the numbers of uh and and the needs of those students. So that was something that we absorbed into the budget uh and that was an adding factor to the deficit as well. translation
services we saw were over budget by 57,000 mostly due to the eh shelter uh on there property insurance we had some valuation changes because of the field project uh and par profofessional salary expense uh increased over
$300,000 uh over FY24 um so the use the services that are needed by the children the uh and the needs have really caused that uh uh that increase in salaries for the parish.
And I did the last thing I have here is the budgets that I included. Uh if anybody wants to go over them, you want we can do it remotely or you can come in. I will I'm more than happy to go over these reports. So as long as it's 5:00 in the morning. You see par professional increases that
due primarily to additional positions that were not forecasted. But which one pair professionals it's up by 36%. Yeah. Over the past two years I believe it's is it eight positions? We've had eight students move in that have on
their educational plan one to one or one to two parah. So these are moveins over the summer or late in the school year that we were not planning or or budgeted for but we legally have to provide. So, is this compare um balancing with uh
if they have that and they're moving in with that then um a one-on-one parah is better than a district out by a long shot. I I don't know if that's true any longer. I don't know. Oh, really? Yeah. But I mean if what we don't want to do as far as financially, I don't
know because some of our our um collaboratives are less. But that's not how we make we still have transportation that you didn't have. We do, but we we don't make the decision based on the finances of that. We we make that decision based on what is the least restrictive environment that this kid
can receive their education and we hope it's with us, right? So um it's a it's a it's a tremendous expense. Um, but if they can stay in their home school and be educated at one of our four schools, then we we have an obligation to make sure we do that. Um,
and we we do, I think, a very good job of that. Um, but whether or not it's which one's more fiscally reasonable, I don't I don't know if it's if that's the one toone anymore. I don't know. Well, it's always it's close, right? Collaborative cost
for placement collaborative. Can I put you on the spot, Mrs. Absolutely. It depends on um what's in the student's IEP and what we can claim back what we can claim back for that. So sometimes if
we have a student in an out of district placement, we're able to apply circuit breaker and we were able to also um have the to uh the transportation reimbured for us with the district when um Mr. Plunkett was talking about that circuit breaker piece that number. But when we
have student in district, we cannot claim back that transportation. So I think uh what Dr. Ren is saying and sometimes with a pair professional the health insurance um those things the cost may be the same but I want to
re-emphasize that it is really important that we provide programming in our school district so that our students are able and error surely to attend their home schools with their typical peers and if for some reason that does not
work and we get to the table and we're not the least restrictive advisor environment, then we have those next questions. But I do think it's really important that we have had the support of the school committee and both of the fincoms from AR Shirley to be able to
build programming because we are seeing a substantial increase for our specialized programming. We've had eight students alone move into these programs in a short amount of time. So, which is why we're moving a program over to Paige
Hilltop and trying to be ahead of this all the time and we're constantly having these conversations in cabinet each week as well. So, and I think from a budgeting standpoint when we have these moveins, it's difficult to plan for it. And so from a
wondering standpoint as we build the budget going into 27, something I think we may have to consider is how do we look at moveins and the costs that we may incur as a result of movements and if that's something that we can put in to our budget in preparation for that
kind of thing. That may be something we have to do because oftent times with that comes the contracted services piece. So, I'm contracting services from Easter Seals or one of the collaboratives case or or
um CAPS or Keystone to do some of the services for our students in district because our related service providers can't handle the case load that we have. And if I need orientation and mobility services and um augmented communication,
we're doing a lot of contracted services. I think I'm in a puppy area. Um so we have to take that piece into account as well is the services that the students need for their IEP. We've done a good job in district and building our
IEP so that because our goal is always the second that we qualify a student with a disability. We want to do and put things in place so that we can build their independence. So eventually they can our hope is that they'll be able to reduce services and be independent
learners. That's what we want for every single student that we have. And we fill their IEPs sometimes with like a one to three model so that they'll have one pair of professionals that oversees three students just so that we don't have a student tied to somebody all day as well. But the IEPs that we're getting
in district, which I've been keeping all the data on, Charlie, they are coming to us with oneto ones in them. and we have to honor um we we have to provide what's in that IEP to the best of our ability in our district to try to mirror the services
they they received in that district the sending district there is some actual good news uh with this too um I know sometimes when you see that we're over budget um you wouldn't think there was good news however we have built very razor thin
budgets the last couple of years because we're trying to um have an assessment, not only what we need, but but keep the assessments down um for the town so that they can um do what they need. And we we fully understand that we are the biggest
cost as far as um budgetary both towns. But um both the the overage with the pair of professionals and with um part of the facilities, we could have um use some of those reserve accounts, the spend reserve account and the um cap stabilization account. We didn't have to
do that for last year. The undesated funds aren't is going to cover the origin. So, that is some um some good news. Now, I think some of what we need to do moving forward is change how we're making some of these estimates with this current information. Um
you have to be honest with them, but you also have to protect the fact that these are kids that they're taking care of. Absolutely. We and we we need what we need in order to to run the district. And so, um, you know, the undesating response is going to cover this overage. Um, but we're going to have to make sure
our estimates going into, uh, next year are are more accurate, right? Yeah. So, the translation services that was over budget by 57,000. Um, the shelter is not there anymore and that was mostly because of those students, which we got reimbursed. Did
we break up even with the reimbursements and the transportation and everything and the payments they made? Did it come out? Although it set up upset various individual budgets, the translation we wouldn't be reimbursed for. No, I know. But the Oh, we didn't. Yeah.
For the teaching salaries, we we used a lot of it for teaching salaries and transportation. the the the amount the state calculated and uh by no means do we want to put uh are we trying to say it's the shelter for this overage?
It would contribute it just like if we had 26 kids move in that weren't in a shelter would contribute to to budget issues. That's a large number of movements 26 kids. But the way the state had calculated, it was about $13 a day. That came out to about just under
$19,000 per student if they were with us for all 180 days. That's about what we what it costs us to educate a child, right? It's just about almost spot on actually. Um so we I mean that money is essentially break even for what it would
cost us to educate child. So it wouldn't have covered services. I think we covered that before and came up just about the same. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah. You had a chance to to uh sit down with Mr. Briggs and the building people
to take a look at um utility stuff mostly, you know, overnight lighting, you know, maybe you steal a degree or two here or there, you know, every time seven or eight months. probably a lot of that stuff would would happen and not raise a
anywhere across. I mean, a couple times I'll be out on a service and you'll drive by and be like, "Oh, this, you know, there's part of a parking lot lit or you sit there and you're like, there are exterior doors with lights on." You're like, "Well, maybe motion detector and and and if you
have something like that, then it'll be much more apparent." If there was no light and all a sudden the light turns on, that gets people's attention. the light is on all the time. I know it was probably initially set up for security, but I'm like, I don't think it provides any security after a certain point. But
I think we should do that and cuz a lot of the the things you come up with can be applied district-wide and over the course of the year, I think would, you know, claw back something and really, I mean, let's hope to plan
it a little bit too, right? And if we can take that money and put it into helping kids instead of um lighting up. I'm a big I'm a big dark skies guy, you know, and we have really nice sweatshirts in the over there with logos and stuff on them. So, I think we should
maybe take a look at that and say maybe we can head a little bit down that road, too. Yeah. I don't think we can afford not to look at that. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And if you would um if you'd like to be part of that, we can certainly send any immigration. Absolutely. and I all all the members of
course want to be part of any of these meetings we're happy to have. Did we stop you? Did we good? Are you ready to go? Is there more? Any more finish? I think we're doing I think we're doing
your comparison was the next which I didn't get to the 50. I didn't get to the back page. Mhm. He referenced it. I know he did in the front. So since we had Tara here, Tara, were you planning on coming some other time?
Um, how many district gap kids are we running it? Are we running these days? I'm not putting you on the spot. Just give me a Oh, no, that's okay. I feel like I know this. We have 29 students out of district right now. And I do remember being here at times and telling you there were 43 and 45. So, I feel as
though we are doing better um at being able to keep students in. And I want to say out of those that 29, probably 12 of them have moved into district in out of district placements already. And it's
very hard to take a student that's already in an out of district placement, especially in a new school, a new community, and then have them come back into district to try the programming. We always strive for that. But we always keep in the back of our mind, too, like
what is the best for that student? But I think that's kind of the lowest number we've had in in a while, isn't it? Because um we had an influx of sped students one year. I think the pressure that we're going to have here is the number of new
buildings uh number of new residents that are springing up like mushrooms in both of these communities. And we're going to see not huge but definite increases. and these houses that they're putting in that said they aren't going to have kids
in them, right? Um, so I think that's what we're going to be is going to be our budget pressure is more students to take care of. So, uh, good, Terara. Excellent. 29. That sounds like a huge success. And
it's good for the kids because they're not on the buses. They're not they're in their community. And you know, congratulations. I'm sure you're going to do that later in another meeting, but I got you here now. Mine's ready. Thank you. Anybody else?
Erica. No, you can just um Thank you, Bill. That does. So, we're we're solvent when I add all these up together. Yes, we're over budget, but it'll be applied against our undesated fund
balance, right? So we don't have to go and put 10 cups out tonight, right? It's okay. You can still do that. We won't bake sale. We do a bake sale. That's how our schools were supported. That's why that was such a trans
education. Um thank you. Anybody else have anything? That's it. And so I will see you what time tomorrow morning when I come. I need to sleep. Um thank you, Bill. I know that's way
more than I can ever do. Um, we have item C approval to increase building rental fees for athletic fields, auditoriums, non-resident, and for-profit organizations. So, to to keep on the theme of of budgets, we've recently come it has come
to our attention that what we charge for our field rental and our auditorium is like our user fees, considerably less than all of our neighbors. So, um we would like school committee's uh
approval to raise the rental fees of the uh field complex and our auditoriums for non-residents and for profits that are non-resident. So, this would not affect the rec department local sports, the
pickup men's basketball league that rents the gym or um the Shirley Arts who u uses the auditorium. Um, typically the what we charge recent is only the if they're on the weekends, it's the cost of the custodian. If it's a week night, it's nothing. But our fields get used
quite a bit by forprofit for state tournaments and we're charging, I believe it's $100 an hour. Mhm. Uh, we would like to up that to $200 an hour. Many of the local fields are around, our field is rented constantly. We don't, first of all, it's a beautiful
complex, right? people love to use it and um um with the best deal in town. Even at $200, we're going to be the best deal in the area. We don't think it would affect um the the the renting of it at all. Uh but it would bring in some
more revenue. And the same with the auditoriums. We would like to move the auditoriums from believe it's $100 an hour now to 150. And again, that is still going to be uh very competitive, if not the best price. Um, all around, you know, and my apologies for not
picking up on this last year, but you know, we're increasing the user fees for our parents. We should certainly increase the user fees for um people that are not taxpayers there uh for using our facilities. Do we have a schedule or a list of these
which items we lease out and stuff? So, and um an idea of what the revenue is from the applications. We have a software uh that tracks the um application process and then invoices
the groups and then we um we actually take that information into a report and then deposit it into our uh revolving accounts. Do we have a history here of how much we brought in? Well, with the new field that should have bumped quite a bit,
right? I don't know if we have it tonight, but we can absolutely. We do have that information, but I don't know if it's readily available at this moment. Oh, we we'd be and so generally we plow those back into into building maintenance, don't we? We don't. And it's gone to ground.
We kind of tap it for that money is tapped for that purpose cuz that's what it would need would be the maintenance from the use, right? Mhm. Am I wrong? No, that's I'm guessing anybody else be interested in something
like that. Um, thank you. Um, so if we, you know, it would be interesting to see what the schedule is and the amounts, right? Yeah, we can we can absolutely provide that for you. I Anybody else want to see that too before
we vote to approve? Not exactly, but we're approveing. I'd be interested in seeing it, but I think a vote would be fine. Clearly, I think we should at a minimum be voting the uh athletic fields or the auditorium tonight.
Okay. Something else comes into play, fine. But right now, we can Would you like to make that motion, please, Jim? Yeah. I move that we increase the rental fees for the athletic field from $100 to $200 per hour and the rental fees for
the auditorium from $100 an hour to $150 per hour. Second. Any other discussion? It's been motioned and seconded. Um I would just have one question. And I
know we have like um some people who practice at the middle school auditorium and they have um well Shirley Arts is there doing performances but who who are the Sha orchestra band
thea band so do they fall into like a community group kind of yeah that's me Rachel Fletcher is there can be some great a member of it Yeah. So they do they do practice there.
I think they also um were very um instrumental in part of the u middle school um production in the spring the their presentate their performance. Yeah cuz they were certainly some of those
people were certainly part of that. So a gray kind of a gray good connection huh it's a good connection right? So I mean so um There's always nuance and if Mrs. Fletcher would certainly not have any problems reaching out to us to express why there should be
an exception and we would absolutely listen right because she does a wonderful job and if uh they are helping us with our middle school productions which are like topnotch then then to me that is a local organization that we want to support. Right.
Yep. By the way that was a wonderful performance they did. It always is. Does a great job. Very good. Fortunately, I got to see it. Um, so there's a motion on the floor to go from 100 to 200 and from
excuse me, 100 to 200 and 100 to 150 for the fields in the auditoriums. All in favor? I I done. But if we could request maybe to see the whole cuz there's other things. Yeah.
You want to see the revenue? Well, just and just like what else do we rent? What else can we rent? You know, um because most of it's our the other major thing. I'm sure there's other that there's there's times that
people want to rent cafeterias, but it's the elementary and the middle school gymnasiums, but really the the wreck departments in the winter really they kind of own those, right? And I don't know if you remember this, but we uh I don't know if it was last year or the year before, but we had made the
decision to prioritize the rec departments in both towns over some of the other uh local high schools that sometimes would rent our spaces and and um they're not renting these these other local high schools aren't renting these spaces anymore, but our youth basketball
programs and whoever else uses that gym, I mean, they're they're they're booked out. But the only thing again that we charge the rec departments and I believe is the cost of the the custodian that has to be on. We're not interested in in charging our parents um or the rec
departments and our rate to use a gym that is is theirs. Well, the other side is the more people come into your facility, the more they're going to support it. The more your community is involved in your organization, I think you you gained
right and you will for pennies. This is really to not increase the cost. We've already increased cost to parents, right? So, this is increased cost to other vendors who want to use our facility so that money can then be used to to support kids.
Anybody else? Since you brought it up, are we having a reaction to that increase? No, I haven't gotten an email, a phone call, or anything about user fees. Um, we have some we have some students who have worked out um some ways to to work
off the US fee with Mr. Kendall. Um, uh, it it seems like people um, our families understood it was a really good deal and now it's still a a good deal if you look at our fees as compared to other local youth sports that can cost
thousands of dollars for a season. Um, we haven't really had had any push back unless unless when you put something in kind, is that going to work? Um, item D is middle school pathway exploration policy.
Thank you. So, recently within the past year, the acceptance policy to the trade schools, the CTE schools has changed. It is now done by lottery. And this will be the first year um that our students who apply for in 8th grade will be picked at
random. The good news for for our students is that we have they usually have more slots for us than we have students apply. So probably any of the students who want to go um will go. That's not the same for many tech
schools in many cities. So um the state recently changed that. This is kind of an add-on policy to that. Um, the tech schools wanted to make sure with it being a lottery that all students were aware of their options for high school.
This policy is not going to change how we do business at all. We are already doing all of these things. Um in this policy, this draft policy was written um by all of the the the schools that send it to Nuroba Techch and uh Denise Pigeon, the superintendent of the show,
who I have to say is is um fantastic to work with. So what this is essentially um putting into a policy is saying that we will advertise that is in auction that we'll will allow to come in and do
an assembly in the school that we will have a field trip that will pay for transportation to send our eighth grade students to tour um the tech um during the school year. We will advertise um through our email and website. We
will allow the showc to come into the middle school to do interviews um use other online resources and that we will provide them with any admissions um records that they need and that we we will maintain a log of what we have done to make our students or parents aware
that tech is a possibility. So that is the summary of this policy. This is really based on um the model policy provided uh by the department of ed. Um but again we are doing all of these things. I have to say that um we have a
a very positive relationship with tech. They take a really well in the past when they when it was more of an application process they took a well-rounded and a representative population from um here Shirley. um they
weren't just taking all top students. They took a about 20% of the students they took were special education students. With this new uh law rate that could change, um it would probably stay fairly similar. My guess is if they're
drawing names from AI, it's probably going to be fairly representative uh most years. So we don't envision any issues uh with implementing this policy. Again, it's really business as usual for us. Um the only real difference is the um maintenance of records where we need
to keep a list of what we're doing and be able to uh provide that to the department of that upon request. So we now have to keep a log of what we do every year um where in the past we didn't. All of this uh all these these
other mandates um is really business as usual for us. Yeah, I would say the the uh overall the the present administration of the tech school is easy to work with really. I I don't really have any issues that I have
any issues with the tech schools. We have had some problems in the past on how they're managed and the message that students were getting when they're over there. I had a number of kids that that I talked to that were especially tenants. Um, and after trips, they were
explaining that they can take AP classes. This is an alternate route to college, all that sort of stuff. But when you take a look at at the numbers of how many of those kids are succeeding in AP classes and how many of them are graduating from four year degrees, that doesn't exist. If you're looking to go
to college, this is where you have to be looking if that's going to happen. I I don't think that I mean, that was a while ago, so I don't know how that message gets sent over there. Now, um, the state has made, I think, helpful changes in making sure that there's
equity in on who they take because in certain places they were cherrypicking to any criteria that they wanted to have. The the other aspect that I want and it I I don't think it impacts this policy
at all is um our ability to provide some training information on say cooking, you know, light things. We're not going to make we're not going to take our students and and put them on
a path to being chefs or line cooks or any of that. But, you know, all as all of these kids move forward, I mean, I'm always a gasp when I go to to uh on all three of my kids as I get into college cuz all my kids could cook from the time they were small. I can still
remember watching the Patriots play Indianapolis and have Sierra screaming at me in the fourth quarter that she's played. They had to get up to get out of there, you know. So they they learned early but as they got into college they were I mean it's amazing how many kids
are just getting dejour frozen pizzas or whatever they can do to get through and I think as a basic home economic standpoint thing from that I think we have to find some way I'm not sure how to do that to allow us I know that there
are restrictions in what we're going to do but we're not trying to create a a track we're just trying to give them some life skills that's going to make them healthier and more successful later on. So, like I said, I don't think that really engages this, but I think it's something that we
need to take a look at. We are everybody wants to have well-rounded students and this is one aspect right now that everybody sort of hands off because the rules were different, but now we're in a time where the rules are in a state of flux and this would be the time if
you're going to do something when you would do it. So I I think we should explore that. Yes, ma'am. Building off of Jim's idea, actually the example he gave, I know we have like our finance course, right? Our finance
class. Um, which I think does an excellent job of kind of reviewing what life looks like after school. And I think exactly what he's talking about life skills. So like for example with Rihanna, I got her Walmart and Target both have these mini um kitchen tools. So, not just the convection oven that we
were all used to bringing with college, but they can get an induction stove with a little pot and they're all college safe. I have to teach her how to be able to prepare her own meals because she can't use what typical colleges use for preservatives. So, like just going back
to that general life skills cuz we recognize not every kid's going to college, but maybe there's an area or opening now that um just like Jim said, the laws are in flux. maybe not necessarily in the finance course, but maybe creating something to come alongside that where it is maybe more of a life skills that every kid would need
to know regardless of however they choose to live their life after. I think that would be a great idea just because you happen to say it before I forgot it. Anybody else? Um, it strikes me that for uh where they
have no valley tech school and the chapter 74 approved programs, that doesn't say that they have all these programs, right? And why would that why would our dictate of their programs be in a policy that we have to do? Cuz
these are am I just reading that wrong? the these are these are the programs they don't have all those. No, I believe these are all the programs that they do have. I I'm gonna have to double check that, but I believe because there was um the original version of
this also included Monty Tech because of um and it was there was different programming. It did. So it did right was Monty Tech offers some different programming than than Ashoka Valley. I believe these are all the programs that Michal
cuz I know they cut out quite a few. So that's why I'm looking at this going I don't think they do that anymore. I could be wrong. Um it's it just strikes me that we're not going to our policy is not our policy says that we have to allow all the kids to do what they what
we have to do and that's the way it's going it's it's written I'm sure this is the boiler plate way it's written but I'm like um that does that mean we can go over and check in valley and see if they're teaching um um automotive collision
repair and refinishing and if we're not then we can't do anything. I mean, it's that paragraph just like not up to us. They could be teaching ditch digging and nothing else. And I interpreted that maybe a little bit
different like we were just basically stating that whatever they were approved for and we happen to list what they're approved for, but essentially we're just identifying that it's in relation to the program they're approved for, not necessarily that we're hoping that they're going to do them or not do them, right?
But maybe my interpretation is wrong. But that's just how I was reading it was whatever the school is offering that has been approved and we have establishment change. Right. So is this a policy because they would change their programs? Is this a policy that we would look at
yearly? We might have to. And actually I think that's a that's a pretty interesting point. We we could reach out to both MASS and MASC to see if this part of the policy needs to be in. Mhm. Or if we could have a statement saying
that we will advertise any approved programs that Valley is currently running. I think if you just start right now it says that um only on chapter 74 approved programs. We're not the approval. I think if you just dump everything after
that. So that's just a boiler. Whatever they're to do, they can do and we can just dump all the rest of that stuff out of there. What' you say, Charlie? I said there's a difference between policy and advertising. I'm not sure this isn't the
advertisement. Yeah. No, I mean I don't think it's intended to be that way. I just think it's more of a list of what their programs are, but the reality is is that chapter 74 is a list that's going to be updated. So, right, just follow chapter 74. I agree with you. It's like a program of studies. It's like program of studies should be
their own approval, not our approval for anything. So that's why it just seemed like yes, we have to let them do this, this, this, and this, and that would be in our policy, and then what they do is in their policy, right? I think that's why Jim just recommended just removing the programs
and making a statement that 74 approved programs. Yeah, I think that would other than that it makes sense exactly what you guys said because essentially the my understanding is based upon what you said we're creating the policy because we need the policy and these are
things we're already doing. We're just essentially creating the policy and adding in the maintenance of because it's a requirement now. That that's correct. Correct. That I that would be the only guessing was the suggestion that Jim made you take out the programs. That way we don't have to continue to update it annually
unless it's a requirement like oh we don't do that anymore. Okay. Um San kids also go so there were kids who went to Monte Tech because there wasn't a program at the show valley that they wanted.
I believe that would be school choice. Oh they do that just school choice. Is that No. No. So if a resident of AR Shirley didn't have the academics they wanted at Ashova, they could go to another dis another vocational district.
Right. That's what I thought. And it and the town would have to pay for transportation if they go, right? It's just like a school choice. Then the town has to pay transportation. Have they changed that? They still require transportation to be part of it, but a lot of the parents
will decide to do it. And then we used to reimburse the parents and for driving with the IRS rate. Yep. We want to lay out in I mean outside of that one change. The only other thing I could see on here that we may want to add in these maintenance records we may
want to put in there on who's responsible for doing that. So when as you put in your uh you hire somebody for job descriptions for the vice principal, you can tell by the way you are now this hour of uh making sure
that this is in a file somewhere. We can add that. I'm not trying to get on the bad side of the vice principle. I'm just they get attached with a lot of this kind of stuff. Yeah, I would I would actually probably put this on the principal and then they can delegate that to the
assistant principal if they so me. But if if they don't do it the much like well I guess my job if it doesn't get done it stops with me, right? Yeah, pretty much. And it's and it's going to be I mean only has to be available for Jessie request and
nobody's looking for this. But you put it in there so you could just say, "Well, next time you should be better at." But I think we should just pick somebody and say the principal, middle school principal or or whoever you think not Charlie doesn't. But I mean that's very simple.
We're going to take this list right here and put that into a little check sheet with a signature and and a date when it happened. And I don't see this being much finished. So this is the first reading. So come back or Yeah, we can make those changes and we can bring this back. We have to
um we are supposed to upload this into Champs by November 1st. If for some reason we can't get this approved before then, we can't ask for an extension. But uh really this feels like I did hear November 1st so we can get this on the the next agenda with those changes
approval. Um and this really kind of this feels like a retalatory policy for the for the um lottery that um is happening for the CT I think right now I don't know how error
it is but I I think um Shirley now has no reps or because the one that we had is now I went to the move back to Kentucky not back to West Virginia rather he's in West Yeah. So, we have no rep there. I don't know. I
think Eric just has approve. We have one. You have one, right? Um I was notified by a member of the of the Tech School Committee that we had no rep from Shirley and I did pass that on to the town that they would be a good
idea if they did that. I don't know if anything or not, but we will be watching um closely how how this goes this year. Um right now what has happened the last few years is we have there almost every kid
that has wanted to I believe every student that's wanted to attend the short was able to. um our numbers are actually going down between the both towns. But now that it is a lottery, there is a possibility that that number could go up if there's more. And we'll
watch that and if we believe are they six towns or seven towns, I'm not sure. I'd have to look at that list. But if that spikes for some reason, we may come to you to advocate for whatever the the school committee reps are. I'm sure to change that. um
to be members need members on the board. Well, and and to have a a percentage of students to take from each member town rather than just oppose lottery. No one right now is for seeing that being an issue. But I think that's something that could be an issue um in the future.
Right now, it's very reasonable. I think they they have they they take 20 to 30 students a year um from us but if that went up to 50 or 60 that would we would need to that would be a problem for us. We would need to be able to budget for that. So we will be watching it closely
in the next few years and we will come with recommendations. So is your lottery based on the number of on your population therefore number of students they will take from that? Not at this residential group. It's just a a lottery for every student. There are some there
are some things that are allowed to wait on. I believe attendance is one. If you have if you're not chronically absent, you get um an additional two tickets instead of one. If you're chronically absent, you just get one. Yeah. It's
Oh, I get you. So they got got away from like we're not letting that kid in cuz he was trying to well that that would have been a disqualifier for sure before at some text and discipline would be another
yeah those but this overall should be probably a more affair system overall but again not to the show tech was was pretty ethical in my opinion how at least since since I've been here superintendent in business.
So, um that that's a good thing to say, Jim, about not having to surely rep. So, I'll address that again tomorrow if it's going on because we need to do it hard. Okay. So, this is we don't that's
our first reading. We just do it right. Excellent. Moving right along. Um would you like to finish your superintendent report, Dr. kind of. So, we have some good news. Yay. Um, the PSAT, the cost has has come down
drastically. So, when it was a paper test, it was actually much more expensive than it is currently. Um, right now, our estimated cost for the PSAT is $1,548. That's all online. That has decreased the cost tremendously. We expect that cost actually to go down when we have
the full number of students taking it. Um we we don't expect every student to take that which would bring this down uh minimally but um at at that cost we are going to uh be funding that and not asking parents to um to pay that but we
do also have some some other numbers uh for you um in your packet there is a copy of the PSAT so that is going home to parents um we don't post the SAT here um so our students have to go to other high schools to take the SAT Um, and I
have some numbers for last year's uh AP exams. So, the invoice for last year was $14,990. We had 99 students who took 173 exams and the students paid $99 per exam. Um, we had 15 exams that were waved for
eight different students for a financial need. And we do have an enrollment update for any any questions on that. I have a question but it's related to the it's and I know we won't have data on us because we haven't done it for the
SAT process. Is that similar to if we were to host an event? Let me be specific. So if we were to host an SAT event is that always um is there any benefit to out uh financial benefit to
hosting the SATs? Cuz what I did notice with with Rihanna this year is there's been a number of sites that have closed. So, I was curious to see is it that hosting the SAT is costing schools much more than um than it like uh does it
bring in any money? You know, I guess what I'm trying to do is entertain whether or not it would be wise for us to do that. So, I don't know. I I would if if Mr. Clary has any experience with that. Um we can find out but but I don't know off hand if that would be uh will
generate any revenue. And the only reason that I was asking is just because there was an article that was sent out to like on the parent side because they had to kind of put an alert out to parents um last week cuz that October um last Saturday was one Rihanna went to
Lemonster, but there was another article that came out to parents just saying we're highlighting that we've had to close I guess a number of places and they were trying to make the parents aware. So I was just curious if there is a financial benefit to becoming an SAT. you know, I can't see one, but I don't
know. I don't I don't think that there is like when we from a professional development standpoint, if we like host a person coming into the district and they give us a fee that they charge us whatever that fee is
for the day and we invite people from surrounding towns to also participate with that. he might upcharge the surrounding towns for that. Like SAT, you can't do that. So the test is the test and the school district has to
provide the proctors and the supports and everything else. So I don't I don't believe that there's I mean I have to look, right? But I don't believe that there's an additional financial benefit to hosting as opposed to sending your kids do. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Um, would there be like a discounted rate for a PSAT? Like whatever the fees are that are associated if we became a host site it have you guys ever heard of anything like that would there I didn't think so but I figured I'd ask. I have never heard of it. Yeah. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So we can look it up. So the other thing like we're graduating let's say 100 kids a year, right? SAT you take once, right? take the PSAT and the SAT. Maybe most students take SAT two two or three
times. Two or three times. Plenty of punishment. Um so um if we had depending on the percent 99 students took 173 exams last year. Those were SAT and the SAT. No, those are AP exam.
Oh, the AP exam. Excuse me. I'm sorry, that's wrong. Is it any advantage to our students if we had SAT here is where I'm going financially? No. Humanly.
Well, a familiar test taking place possibly. Mhm. Good. I mean, we can we can we can look into that. Just serving the students. That's all. And you know, she says she has to go to one district. Well,
I know kids who would throw up if they had to go someplace else, but thank you. Sure. So, it's fine. The numbers are fine. Okay. So, we have a sports update. Um I was hoping actually Mr. Kendall will be here
to do that. Um but before I start with the official sports update, girls volleyball won tonight. Um I got the thumbs up from the coaches as they were uh walking by. They played oh Shepherd Hill. The last time we played Shepherd Hill, they got killed is
what I was told when I went up to to check it up before the meeting. And um they won in a very tight match. Uh when I I came in right before the start of the meeting as I was watching the game and it was tied 1818. So they pulled it out. Um in other exciting news, the boys
uh soccer team beat Clipton tonight and that clinched the league uh for them. So that was a close game. It was 1-1 when when Mr. Claire and I were walking in uh for the school committee meeting. So great news tonight uh here in Ashley High School. It was 3-1. You won 3-1.
3-1. Great. 31 31 soccer. We took it. Yeah. So now we'll get to the official um sports. So the fall has been very exciting as the numbers continue to be strong and all of our athletes are working incredibly hard. boys soccer
who's currently ranked uh sixth in the state in division four with a nine excuse me a 100 and1 record with 12 seniors. The Panthers have a real shot at making a deep playoff run. The soccer players are also some of our best fans supporting our our teams other teams as well. JB soccer is also going well with
18 players in a 42 and2 record. Girls soccer has played hard against a tough schedule currently with a 3-6 record after an exciting win over Gardner. The team has battled injury and inexperience and hope to make her a solid run in the second half of the season.
JB girls are playing well with 22 players. Wow, that's a huge team for such a small school on JB and 12 underassman on the varsity. The future looks bright. Volleyball is having one of its best seasons ever with an 9-2 a
9-2 record. The team is led by a solid group of seniors, is one win away from officially qualifying from the state playoffs, which means they qualify tonight. Good job, ladies. Good. Uh for the second straight year, we have two JV teams this fall with 36 total players that looks to continue moving
forward thanks to the efforts of uh Sarah Ernst and Andrew Tvaris, both of whom have worked hard to create a youth program through the recreation department. So, thank you for that. Um and the stands are packed for the volleyball games. Football is currently ranked seventh in the state with a 1-2
record. We have 30 high school athletes participating and another six middle school students that helped RJB team. Um we have three straight home games coming up. October 10th versus Southridge. October 17th versus Lunberg and homecoming weekend on October 24th
versus Southridge. October 17th versus Lunberg and homecoming weekend on the 24th versus Worcester Tech. Sorry, there was a typo there. Um, we will recognize this year's Air Shirley Hall of Fame inductees on October 10th and Jeff Thomas on um on winning the MIAA
Joe Rodriguez award on October 17th. That's fantastic. Our golf team is 12-1 is on the verge of their fifth straight league title. They will look to defend their state and sectional titles beginning October 14th at sections at Shining Rock in Northridge. Senior Reed
Onation looks to defend his individual division three state title as well. Their senior recognition day was last Thursday. JB golf has also competed well. Cross country is having an unlucky strong season. The girls are 6 and0 while the boys are 4-2. League championships are coming up in
mid-occtober while both teams hope to qualify for districts and state competitions. Both teams will celebrate their senior recognition tomorrow afternoon. Middle school soccer is also going well. That's the theme. Fall sports are going very well. Uh numbers are solid. The teams have been extremely competitive. Thank
you, coaches, uh Jaylen McGriffin and Brian Dusk. Uh middle school cross country is uh doing well. Runners are improving under the uh footage of Andrew St. Germaain and Kelly Reed. Unified basketball is just getting ready to start. We will be hosting two home games
over the next few weeks. If you haven't been to a unified basketball um game, I highly recommend it. It's one of the best things that we do. And that is all for this sports report and the superintendent report. That's a good way to end the
superintendent report. Good stuff. Ongoing business update on the superintendent's 2025 26 goals. Uh Dr. Renda, thank you. I'm going to give an update on the first two goals that I had presented at the last school committee
meeting and I had left out student outcomes which I was uh extremely embarrassed about. Uh and we did add an additional goal. Um so goal one is about student identification and inter intervention tracking for academics. Uh this goal is
aligned to Desi standards of curriculum instruction, assessment, student support and leadership and governance. Um, what this really does is it just establishes a consistent district-wide system to identify support for students who needs are not fully met in tier 1. So these
really this probably won't affect our really highf flyers and it might not affect some of our students with really complex needs that might be in special education. But for students who just have some barriers that are that are stopping them from reaching their full
academic potential. It could be it could be something simple, right? Um or it could be more complex. And what what we're looking to design or what we have designed and we're looking to to turn into a system is a way for students to get assistance with these with these
students without having to do 3 hours worth of paperwork and pull every expert that we have in the district into a meeting because sometimes it's not that hard. So, uh part of this will be done through what is called an academic assistance
team where a a teacher can fill out a form. It's a Google form that should take them about 2 minutes to fill out and that should get a response to them. Just asking asking more details is what's going on, what does the kid need, what expert, what person can we bring in
to help create an action plan to remove whatever the barrier is. Uh and it it's really that simple. Uh I have done this in schools that I've been principal of. I have done this in schools uh in other schools where I was a central office administrator and it can have a can have a really big impact.
We are doing it in pockets here uh in all in all of our schools. What we don't have yet is a um unified system and a sharing of resources and things that are working districtwide. And that's that's really what I'm looking to uh to fix
with this goal. So the outcomes is I did go into to a lot more detail last time but I I want 100% of the schools using this and when I say 100% of the schools I mean the schools that will be using it which will be both elementary schools and the middle school the high schools
running their own system already that it um with student success plans that is working um fairly well um and that 90% of the students identified will have a documented action plan. So the measurable outcome, the student growth
on this is is I'm hoping that at least 70% of the students that we put on an action plan will show an improvement in reading and math moving one benchmark level based on our internal assessment. So for elementary school, that's the STAR assessment. We do the STAR
assessment um three times a year. We do it in the fall, winter, and spring. So the benchmark would be in the fall. My expectation is for a student uh what I'm thinking that we will be able to do is when a student is benchmark in the fall and then they are identified to need one
of these really low-level action plans that that student will end up moving one benchmark level. So for um star that is labeled as um urgent intervention intervention on watch we would want them or I believe
they will move to at or above benchmark in reading or math that that's just how STAR legal is that for middle school that is um we would be looking for a measurable improvement of um two plus grade levels below or one grade level
below towards early on grade level or or higher in reading or math. Okay. So really it's I expect them to move at least one benchmark level if they are put on put on an action plan. Uh the terminology is different for the different tests. Any questions on that? Okay.
Anyone? Oh sorry. Um so what is your perception of out of 100 kids um what percent of those of students across the board would you
expect to um interact with? How many students? Okay, I've got 100 kids. I've got three. I've got everybody in third grade. I have under 100 kids. And I want to I have these kids that we want to see them move up AC
in our population. Is that 20% of the kids sitting in those rooms? Is it 10% 5%. What percentage application do you see being approached? We have about 18% of our our kiddos on special education. Now, not saying that
a student in special education wouldn't couldn't be talked about in an academic assistance. They could, right? And then we have about another 15 or 20% who who are at or above benchmark. And teachers probably don't have a lot of concerns, right? So that leaves them
where about 60% of the students who are in the middle. Right. Right. But not all 60% are going to need this. It's probably about about 10% of the grade level. So maybe if we're going to use Paige Hilltop cuz that's the easiest. It's about 100 kids at grade level. It's a little bit less
than that. Maybe 10 kids per grade level. So a page that would be about 60 kids. Yeah. That would be something like this. I'm curious because you kind of need to know absolutely what your baseline is, right? And if it really anything more than that um this problem and it could vary from year to year.
It could vary from grade level to grade level. One grade level might have 20 kids that we need to talk about. There could be a grade level that maybe only has five. Um, but really it's it what what is valuable about this is we're talking about barriers to kids learning and we're trying to remove them and
we're going to track it. Right? So, what we're going to end up with is we're going to end up with a toolbox and profiles of kids who have had barriers and things that we have done that doesn't require special education evaluation, probably doesn't require any funding that's going to help those students.
Mhm. So really by doing this we're building we're going to be building everybody's capacity on how to remove these barriers to learning for all kids and that's the valuable part of it. It's like in a way this is PD for teachers and for administrators without doing the PD
right because we're going to try different things that we know have worked for some kids in the past. And eventually what we're hoping to happen is that teachers will learn some of these things that have worked for kids in the past and not even have to do the academic assistance team meeting.
They're just going to do it. So that's that's really the benefit. It's building it's building agency. It's building a a repertoire of of different plans that you can do to help to remove a barrier. And and this is for the more lowhanging fruit,
right? So, it's it's not for kids who have a severe need. That's that's what the staff process in special education is for. And even 504 plans to some degree, but this is for, you know, I'm a veteran teacher. I'm moving every other kid, you know. Um Joyce should be able to to move. I'm not sure what's going
on. She's bright. She's she's got there's something in the way. I can't figure it out. But I want to go play. I really don't. Maybe, you know, Mr. Clearary had Joyce last year. She was flying. I'm going to bring him to this academic assistance team so I can figure out what he did with her
and she we can get her back on track and moving forward, right? Because it's not just about our highf flyers, you know, going to applying to Harvard or and MIT and BEu, but it's so I mean you see more of an effectiveness in I would think third,
fourth and fifth grade where you can see see more than when you get more complex. It could be. But I mean, you know, the seventh and eighth grade is really in freshman year is really interesting with this too because you will have kids who are like high flyers in math and then when you get to algebra, right, and that
really abstract reasoning, sometimes that can be a barrier. Um, and if they're they're not ready for that this, you know, you know, it's not special education, but why why are they stumped in algebra 1 and they're killing
geometry, right? What can we do? What can we do to help this student who doesn't need special education, but there's a barrier, right? What can we do? Right. And so, do I know the answer to that? No. You know, I was an elementary and a middle school teacher and um I only
taught math a little bit, but um hopefully our math teachers will know that and and they can help each other and come and come up with these action plans for for these kids. I think that would really work in writing. you figured you wanted to work extra in writing. This is where lack of
history and practice and yeah, having having um run programs like this in the past, they absolutely weren't just the conversation and focusing and talking about a student is is is going out.
But tracking it and getting a record of what has worked is what's also what's going to be extremely valuable. Any other questions on that? No. So, the next goal goal to the the school mental health work is actually it's actually a very similar goal, but it's focusing on
mental health and well-being rather than academics. We're actually running these meetings um really well in all four of our schools, but we are lacking in our community partnerships and some of the more um clinical approach, which is why
um I have applied for the school mental health leadership. Actually, um Mrs. Bozac has applied to that too. So, she's going to be a partner with this. Christy Campion was in that last year, so she will be a part. And we threw this out to school counselors and we have um one at
uh Paige Hilltop who's applied. We have um a school counselor at the middle school applied and both school councils at Laura White. So we have a a good team to be part of this and really like I said like we have a
lot of these pieces that we're doing to provide mental health supports and wellbeing supports for our students but it's not a system yet. Um, we are expecting some academic outcomes from this. It's not really the main outcome that we want to measure, but when you
remove the social, emotional, and mental health barrier from a student, they're going to be a available to learn and instruction will be more effective. So, I do expect students who are utilizing some of the supports that that are already in place and will be in place will move at least one benchmark both in
STAR and I read Ready, very similar to to the U academic. Um, you I know you've heard me say this before, but when we we have to apply the right intervention for the need. When you apply an academic intervention for a social emotional need, you're not going to get improvement. But when you apply an a
social emotional intervention to a social emotional need, you will get better academic outcomes. Really though, what what um it's going to be hard even if we see that improvement to say that it was absolutely the social emotional intervention. So the other things that I
want to look at and they're really the main measurable outcomes for kids. I want to see reduction in dis referrals. That's really across the board not just for the students that are utilizing the interventions because when other students are behaving other students
will behave right. So if if the ring leader so to speak if we have a kid in crisis who is making some bad choices lots of other kids around them will tend to also make bad choices. So across the board I I think we can see a 15% and u disprove referrals. I want to look at
students who are utilizing the interventions to reduce the number of nurses visits for emotional distress and improve uh attendance among the supported students. So we're going to look at a reduction in discipline referrals, a reduction in nurses visits
and improved attendance uh for those students. And um that's going to if if we can get that improvement on attendance that will help uh the accountability with the uh chronic absenteeism. And actually all of this is very easy to monitor through both um Aspen and SNAP. And that is something I
had forgotten to mention in the in the um superintendent report that I added. I I'll come back to that after this if you don't mind. We do need to provide uh professional development to the staff that will be running these interventions. That's mainly the school counselors. The good news is is most of
them have applied to be in this institute uh with me. Uh so hopefully if everyone gets in that will be very easy to do. Um, and something that we're going to do for both the academic interventions and for and for goal two, the the mental health is when we create
an action plan or put a kid into a social emotional intervention, we will be contacting the family both to inform them and to get input and then we will be giving them a survey right after about how they felt about the communication and the implementation of that plan.
um a little nervous honestly about doing that because typically if things are uh if things go pretty good um parents don't fill out a survey. If things go great they do and if things go terrible they do. So we're going to try to kind of stay on them to get a
really clear picture of that. Not just the two two book ends, right? It was great. It's the best thing you ever did for my kid or this was the worst plan ever. It didn't it didn't work at all. Yes. Um the one thing I was just thinking as you were talking about that for
balancing just in the mental health space cuz in compliance we have to keep track of that. So what we did is we basically navigated um our questions in a specific way so that it was very specific upfront. So, it couldn't just
be, you know, I thought the service was bad and it may be because there's a disagreement on on maybe an intervention, but um it may be more specific such as um were three out of four of the interventions applicable to
my child? Um if there was a disagreement on an intervention, what was so we could highlight and then that way you see the data trend a little bit better because of course we know when you have those broad questions that's exactly what happens. you get the two extremes, but if you specify a little bit better and
um it helps. And then also we had feedback from our providers that were part of the treatment team. Um, so like when you're doing your teacher's assessment, um, another thing that might happen is, you know, how sometimes your memor is lost on a Friday and so maybe there was week two the kid was really
great and then week three was half of the week and then the the child was very difficult the second half of the week and the teacher does the assessment on Friday and all of a sudden it's a bad week and they might forget. So like having those prompings there to like cause someone to think a little bit
helped. And then like as a suggestion in your teacher evaluation, an interaction with the parent so you can kind of see both sides through the data might help you a little bit. And just simple questions, not you know 53,000 but that way you're kind of getting a calendar a a good balance between the parent, the
teacher or even an administrator when you're looking at those interventions so that the data doesn't get too skewed even though we know it kind of always does. But you know if you have a an example I'd love to see it. We do have draft surveys and I I will share those with uh school
committee so they can see that. But but um I would agree the more specific those questions can be probably um the more reliable that data would be um and probably the more willing they they'd be to fill them up. Everybody's extremely tricky.
Yeah. To write. Yeah. Cuz you want to slant. You thought everything was good, right? Yes. We'll try not to do that. Um so there was there is an addition uh an additional goal uh from last time.
Actually our strategic plan our threeear strategic plan is coming to an end uh this year. So uh we I did add this goal. Um and really just just to kind of summarize the plan there aren't any there aren't
going to be any student measurable student outcomes for this. there are measurable student outcomes in the strategic plan. So really what we want to do is create a uh public outcomes report for the strategic plan uh 23
through 26 and share that out with the community and school committee and launch the 27 through 20 uh 32. We'd like to go to a five-year strategic plan. Um using some of the data from the close out of the uh 23 to26 strategic
plan and through um having some forms with parents, some surveys, interviews with the school committee, um teachers, our administrators to see where we want to start driving um the district moving forward. There will I'm I'm certain
there will be some through lines uh through this and there'll probably I'm sure there will be some some new uh priorities. So really what we need to do is collect and report the progress across the four domains from this strategic plan. If you remember those were curriculum instruction, social
emotional learning, special education and culture, climate capacity. And that last one was kind of like a a hodgepodge of of everything that didn't fit into those those first three. uh we will report out where we are on those
priorities to the school committee and that wherever we are with those will will inform um the strategic plan moving forward. Uh we need to engage with our collaborators to know where the the school committee and the the parents and
uh members of the town really want us to drive this district for the next five years. We can do that through again I've said this but surveys forums committee input uh and then reflecting on on desi standards which we we we try to do I've tried to do for all of these goals. Um
we hope to publish the strategic plan outcome report by May of 2026 and present to the school committee the drafts of the 27 through 20 32 um in September of 2026. So we want to
establish clear benchmarks and progress monitoring dashboards uh by the fall um and ongoing um accountability and improvement for ongoing accountability and improvement. You have any questions? That's a new goal that I did not present for the last time. Thank you.
Hi. Say thank you. Any uh any questions I can answer on that? And is the committee okay with the 5year strategic plan? 3 years was quick. Yeah. Um I think it was too quick. What do you
Were you Do you have thoughts on that? I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I felt like you thought it was quick, too. Um maybe not. I I think that um I think 5 years is a long time to project. I think 3 years
gives you a a window, especially if we're continuing. I'm not disagreeing. No, no. just proposing. So given that the plan that we had was three and I feel like we have some elements on that that we can continue
that we've learned from. Absolutely. You know, framing that as a five can work. Framing as a three can work. Tim anybody? Um, five seems like a long time to me, but you know, it's like uh you can have
a whole turnover almost in your committee in five. So, your continuity is not necessarily there. Your history, your working together, five becomes a lot cuz you're going to potentially lose two people every year. So,
well, we did five because we figured that would bring you through through your next term, right? keep talking. Um try because our our things are three and so
you tend to have I mean we've been very fortunate to have such good committees that are totally for the school and totally for the advancement of the school and I've never had anybody who was not in that mindset. So um but five seems like when what year are we talking
about here? So that's and there's just so much stuff going on in the world. Who knows where anybody's going to be in 5 years. So I think three is there's memory there that people are working on, but that's just maybe me and
these guys are younger. Oh, I mean we're we're we're open. Um it felt like to me the three years flew by. It did fly by. Good. That's good. Mine by good. Yeah, I agree with that. Successes that you can measure right away. I think then you forget about some of the long-term ones.
How how do you stay hot on them? Yeah. Yeah. So then well well you know that's not going to we don't need to decide that now and we don't um we really need to gather the data and see where everybody
what the direction we want to push the pull. So we'll stop there. If five years is too long we can make it three. If not, you can keep it five. Yeah, I think once you go through the close out of what you got going on, the answer of that will become readily
apparent. I would say instead of a five-year strategic plan, I would think that something about the overall goals of where of what our ideals are might be an interesting examination so that you don't get people who are
picking something apart with people who are going the right right feelings and attitudes. If you were talking about other school committees, you know how lucky you are to have a I no no complaints from us. I' I've
watched all the school committee meetings and I um thank you discussion is always about what is best for kids or budget. Thank you. Do we want to approve and we're all holding on goal three. I think
you might approve goal one and two and letting board come through. Well, I think Jim's recommendation was good because then that way we don't need to change the goal. he would be able to update his goal if he wanted to after he's done his work. So, I I'll make a motion to approve
um the superintendent's 2025 2026 goals as presented tonight. Second. Any other discussion? Any other questions? Not any before we take a vote. All in favor? I
better than last time. two steps for you. Well, you know, we had a we had a sparse agenda and um I I get those done. So, that's that's my excuse, but uh I should have had student outcomes. Should have had I should have had student outcomes on both of those. So, my apology and I
haven't the first time and I appreciate the reminder. We can always redo them. We always um ongoing business, we did that. Chairman's notes. I have none. uh topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in
advance of this meeting. Um I would uh I am gonna have a chairman's note. Excuse me. Um the uh Holdenwood run was awesome. Um James Renda came and did it at age three.
Oh, he's four. He finished way Oh, he's four. Finished way before I did. They were gone. packed in their car and left before I was still breathing hard. But we did a great 2K, right? Yeah. I mean, he was on my shoulders for the majority of it, but he did finish
it. Well, we had a three-year-old with us. Yeah. And to to and parents, and that was that was fun. And so, we spent a lot of time actually looking at leaves and mushrooms. Okay. Cuz she was collecting leaves and giving them to me. So, I that's my excuse for
it taking forever to do a tooth. My line was that you did an inventory of every acorn. And anybody who missed it, it was a glorious day. You shouldn't have missed it. It was really awesome. Um, so that would be my chairman's notes. Um, I did have um one unanticipated
item. The parent portal for Aspen will be launching this Thursday. Parents will receive an email how to log in and they will be able to see um attendance and grades um as of this Thursday. So, that has been a a hot topic. Um, it has taken
a bit longer than we had anticipated to get that up and running. Um, Aspen needs to speak with several different programs and we had some some hiccups with that. Um, so my apologies to families who haven't been able to check on grades up until this point, but that should be
rectified again this Thursday. And thank you to Mr. Temo for and the all of the tech department for for getting that up and running. Overall, we are much happier with Aspen. Do we have a need for executive session tonight? We do. We
do. Okay. I would entertain a motion to um close regular session to go into executive session. The executive session will not have um we will not make any votes and we'll return to open session after the executive session for the sole
purpose of adjournment. I make a motion of exactly what Joyce just said because I know I will mess it up. I think I did it. Okay. Not what? All right. So, we will take about a 3 or 4 minute uh recess uh to allow people to
leave and we can just stay here. You got a motion. Is there a motion for that? You did? Yes. Second. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you, Charles.