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[Music] yeah you want to just point at me when it's okay to start talking recording in [Music] progress good evening and welcome to the February 6 2025 meeting of the Brookline school committee um I'll start actually I'll start by mentioning our remote members uh who are joining us on Zoom uh Val Fus Steven Arenberg and
Mariah noga in addition to the six of us who are here in the room all right I'll begin by moving our administrative business um we just have the consent agenda which consists of minutes from January 23rd and 30th acceptance of Grants acceptance of gifts and approval of a student trip by the BHS squash team to the high school Nationals in Philadelphia February 20th to 23rd uh do I have a second for the consent agenda thanks Suzanne any questions or comments yes does that
include the Ida Grant yes that's under acceptance of Grants it was discussed yesterday at Finance okay Stephen has yeah Stephen yeah I have a number of questions about the Ida Grant can I ask now or shall I wait better ask them now okay um I'm bringing it up if you can just hold on just a moment uh is Dr gens in the room as you
know we the members of the subcommittee only members of the subcomittee is can ask questions now so those of us who are not on the subc commmittee can't participate until the full School the full school committee considers it Dr given is in the room yes may I ask questions Dr given um yes she's uh she's happy to answer questions thank you given okay go ahead Stephen thanks I'm pulling up the document so um last night sorry
I'm pulling up the documentas to use this I'm sorry just give me one moment so Dr gens last night um you discussed
the Ida Grant budget versus submission slide um and I think Val asked you about the teacher salary line item that's uh has a million 56 in it that was budgeted but the submission was zero and you said you didn't know why there was Zero submitted is that correct that's correct okay so I want to ask you more about that so it's my
understanding that there have been several explanations offered for them for that one was that those are the those are the teacher lines that were in fact recurrent positions and so uh the OSS said and this was in a memo to the school committee that they declined to put that back in the Ida Grant because it didn't belong in the Ida Grant and
that they and that that was a case that was made directly to you is that correct or not correct oh sorry um no so the teacher salary line those 12 positions are they or are they not the are they are they not recurrent positions that were previously firsttime
positions under the ID Grant they are positions that were included in the Grant in 24 typically with recurring grants um especially Ida where it's the federal contribution to uh special education costs um they are you typically the same staff year in and year out that are on the grants so so so you're saying that they were already were current salaries paid
under idea and they were in the first place yes okay um so so was there any explanation whatsoever offered to you as to why they were not submitted
the grant was submitted without my review in terms of uh the budget was there any conversation whatsoever with oaf about why there was no teacher submitted for a million dollars under the ID none whatsoever okay thank you um also I also saw that the teacher at the winr house is not going to be renewed is that correct I I have no idea that was in this
document what Stephen there was a line in this document that stated that the winr house or perhaps it was another document that winr house the teachers of the win house would not be renewed was that in this document or was that in another document from last night I I have no knowledge of that then I ask anyone in the finance
committee sub committee the subcommittee do you recall this is Mariah I don't recall that so I'm not sure what you're referring to okay I'll find it and I'll get back to you all right uh I see Sarah's hand up thank you there was something that we said last night that um didn't end up being the case we we were trying to think about how many students were in the Middle School win through program it
turns out there's five and three in referral right now so I just wanted to update that five and and three in referral three in the process of being referred into the program thank you thanks all right any other questions or comments before we vote on the consent agenda thank you m Dr given um okay I don't see anym so let's take a vote uh Jess yes Sarah yes Suzanne yes
Helen yes Carolin yes Stephen yes Val yes Mariah yes and I vote Yes as well uh I'm sorry I found it it was under OSS restructuring it says eliminate program coordinator winther house is that not linked to the Ida Grant or is that something separate altoe you're talking about the position control report that's right that position if you look it was elevated to
a director and the salary from the director came from the coordinator it's just the same person whose position has been a promotion because of the larger scale of winr house I think we actually voted on that as a committee thank you all right uh we go now to the superintendent report including the spotlight on excellence
good evening Brookline happy snow day for those of you that partook and enjoy that our superintendent update for tonight the F frr principal search finalists are here before you after a thoughtful and rigorous interview process we are pleased to announce that three
candidates have been identified as finalists we have Danielle bort Candace Whitmore and SAR Yun these candidates have strong credentials and an ex an excellent experience that would make them successful leaders in the public schools of Brookline we look forward to introducing the three finalists to the F staff and parents and caregivers in the coming week meet with the F frr staff the meeting there is going to be Wednesday
February 12th from 2:45 to 4:15 um and then later that evening virtually we're going to have a session with parents and caregivers uh for them to meet the finalists and give us their feedback from 6: uh p.m. to 7:30 for each of these meetings we will distribute surveys so that feedback uh by staff and parents and caregivers can be utilized to guide the final decision or help inform that I want to thank the
entire F Community for their involvement in this process faculty and parents and caregivers met with me in January to Pro provide feedback on the leadership qualities they were looking for in the permanent leader we had additional responses and feedback through an online survey all of the feedback was synthesized into a leadership profile that guided the interview Committee in their work in reviewing applications and interviewing candidates I'm very grateful to the following members of F frr and PSB Community who volunteered
their time to serve on the interview committee for parents and caregivers we had uh Savon shimy Sarah cner and Emily jofy The Faculty representatives were Amanda Donahue David lender and Jennifer matthys and the district leaders were BHS head of school Anthony Meyer K12 program Arts director director uh Kenny kosal and Deputy superintendent jod
Fortuna joining me in the second round of interviews were members of the senior team including Lisa oconnell Claire Galloway Jones and jod Fortuna I'm grateful to them for sharing their time and expertise in this process an update from the office of educational Equity O's Equity Cycles continue at F Lawrence and rle at this point numerous staff members across the three schools from administrators to teachers par professionals and
Specialists have been trained in multiple modules from pb's bespoke Equity curriculum designed by oee and I think uh Christy Hernandez has shared that with you all before oee would like to re recognize the dedication of f frr Lawrence and rle Equity teams and the commitment for all staff and faculty um participating in this pilot program so I'd also like like to take a moment I didn't build a slide for it but I'll share again um the for the search
process uh for the deputy superintendent of student services that position has been posted uh as of tomorrow will be 30 days um and we are awaiting for that position to close and get the final determination of applicants I think I looked just prior to the meeting and there were 13 applications in my folder um what I'm in the process of doing is building uh the uh initial screening
committee um that committee will have a senior staff um that will serve senior staff member will serve as the chair we'll have a representative from human resources we'll have a high school I've reached out to CPAC for a high school CPAC parent as well as a K8 Elementary uh parent we'll have an I've reached out to the beu for for a high school teacher as well as a um K8 teacher I will have
an elementary principal uh High School administrator K8 director of special education the health uh Services um coordinator and the senior director of OSS as well as the um out of District uh coordinator that will serve on that committee so that's going to be a larger committee um my plan is um and hope it's not thed by the today being off but I'm looking to try to get this committee
together next week um to start reviewing the applications that are there I met with the OSS um uh senior team is what I'll call them of the OSS team I think last week um to get their input and um and give them the opportunity to determine who would sit in these various seats and roles so some are going to uh participate in round one and then summer will participate in the round that I sit on as well with me and um something else
I was going to say oh they asked for an opportunity to actually pre-review uh the some of the the applications confidentially so we're going to set that up for that group to do that as well now once we get to um round two when I get to the point where I'm going to then um pair that down um before making a final recommendation up to school committee what I think we'll do
at that moment when we have two or three that are identified as uh what I would potentially call uh semifinalist before making a selection for finalists would be the opportunity for us to set up um a meeting with school committee members and so I just need to think about um how I'm going to do that process probably in groups of two or three to allow committee members to meet and engage with the um with the applicants so
that's the process for the permanent replacement Helen so the meeting with the school committee that's before you've picked semi finalist would semal finist right because I'm supposed to just bring you one right but what I'm concerned about is that we don't lose candidates if it needs to be a public meeting because well no it won't be it won't so that's semi that's I just wanted to confirm that because that in my experience at
least many times people who are happy where they are but are looking for something else may not continue because they don't want people to know right especially if they don't think they might be picked sure so that's the permanent process for yes Jesse the um 13 applications that you found do those like how are those all current are those just applications that
happen to be collected over a year or two what what's so I'll say it again this this position has been posted for 30 days but so starting um January like January January 7th okay yep so these people have applied within that time frame perfect thank you um Val thank you um what is the plan for
interim assuming that we don't have someone who can start in March that's what I was getting ready to go to next so at the at the last meeting um Jesse um suggested um an idea and so I took that idea to the uh OSS team for them to consider whether they would like to divide up the role and handle it in the interim period until a permanent person
comes or if there's one of them that the group would support and endorse that they could be supported uh by as well so I'm waiting to hear back from them what their thoughts are there but that would be our preference is to try to handle that within internally while we um go for the permanent search so a question there then um to clarify do they have a um timeline so the timeline ideally would
be um bety when did we just say our next meetings are the yeah the 13th not until March okay that's great my question had to do with the OSS team getting back to you about whether they might want to divide it up or support one of the they should be getting back to me with if if not by tomorrow by Monday oh okay very soon then the next couple of days because there'd be all that transition work to be done then so
that they know okay thank you yep any other questions there yeah just relating to that if the OSS team gets back to you saying that there isn't one among them who feels comfortable or if they don't feel comfortable splitting that role is there a plan B yes so there is a plan B um there are a couple of uh other people that I um um may be able to reach out to but I want to hear back from them first so I should know by like I said by
Monday just to clarify so by Monday you're hoping to hear from the OSS team who you've charged with possibly ident potentially identifying a interim and there are other people out in the district that you're thinking about is it possibly y oh possibly okay y thanks no no that's what
I all right so with that I am now proud to go into our Spotlight on Excellence put my glasses back on Arts offers powerful opportunities for us to build fellowship with one another whatever form art takes whether it's written word music dance or in the case of this exhibit visual art work art
provides a window into the experience and thinking of the artists helping us see the world from their perspective art can be a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected in the feelings and moments the art artist has expressed in their work although specific details of our experiences May differ when we get give our attention and curiosity to artwork we connect with our shared experience of human being the work in this Art Exhibit was created by students
at BHS who work in drawing painting and photography classes the subject matter of these Works varies and the student artists have provided titles and brief statements to guide viewers in connecting with the artwork although many years and much distance May separate the students of BHS from the residents of Goddard house art can help bridge that distance with artistic windows and into the experiences of others and resonate mirrors in which we see ourselves reflected thank you for
your kind attention and for inviting us again to exhibit the uh godded house Art Gallery we are joined this evening by Donna sat tanowitz our Visual Arts curriculum coordinator Meredith Griffin godded house art therapist and gallery coordinator Liz Brennan and Lori Lynn BHS art teachers we also have three of our DHS Arts students with her Maria UD ovia I hope I said that close to right
Ellie Churchill and Connor Ro who will speak about how this project has impacted them without further Ado I'll turn it over to miss oods hi everyone thank you so much for having us and um thank you Dr gillery for um giving this project the spotlight on Excellence um I am the coordinator for visual art and um I and the whole department at the high
school really feels like um artists play a critical role in society and so we were very much interested in um moving our students work off campus and out into the Brooklyn community and then Sarah inipit usly somehow Meredith Griffith over at the um a over at the Gard house um emailed me the
very week we had talked about this as a department and asked if we would be willing to show artwork in The Gallery at Goddard house and make a connection with the members of her community so I'm going to um share my screen so that I can show you some of the fabulous work that is in the gallery and um Meredith is going to talk to you about how this project has impacted her community and then Liz and Lori will talk about um how
this has benefited their curriculum and and we'll also give the students a chance to speak about how this benefited them so take it away Meredith hi everyone thank you for having me tonight um as Donna said I'm the art therapist at Goddard House Assisted Living and uh part of my job is to manage our Gallery M uh Gallery M being M for Matilda who is the founder of Goddard house and I really try to find various um you know Community
artists to display their work um but we really like connecting with different organizations um in addition to Brookline High School we also had Gateway Arts um do an exhibition with us I think you might know them u based in Brookline Village because really our residents love feeling connected to the community that's why a lot of them came to Goddard house um as you probably know older adults often face social isolation you know a lot of them might have been
living alone away from family so they moved to God house because of our sense of community to create community and they want to continue to feel connected to community whether that's what they you know their friends and Neighbors at Goddard or the greater Brookline community so um by connecting and collaborating with Brookline High School it has just been so wonderful the residents are thrilled to see the art um I wrote down some quotes to share with you um somebody stopped me and said you
know this is my favorite exhibition we do all year I look forward to it um nobody can believe that this is art created by high school students I usually get oh is this college is this a local artist and I say no it's Brookline High School and the residents are just absolutely Blown Away by the students talent and how well they um the students really are able to express themselves in the written state ments by their artwork um it really helps our residents kind of you know see the world from a different
perspective and feel connected to a younger generation um I love seeing what young people are up to reading the descriptions of the art helps me to understand their perspectives and it makes the art come to life is what one resident said and ever since this exhibit has gone up I've really just kept getting the question when are the students coming when are the students coming when are the students coming I really want to talk to them um so we do have a gallery event planned for next week where some of the students will come to Goddard house and uh get to
interact with the residents they get to share their art with us we get to um ask about their artwork you can see some photos from last year's event um in our slideshow and I think that really just kind of ties our collaboration together and um gives the residents that intergenerational social experience that they're looking for and helps them kind of again connect with community and I hope uh the stud students feel the same way that it gives them an opportunity to you know show their art maybe in a new
way connect with the older Generation Um and we really just love having you as much as I'm talking about the residents it's also our Associates um our staff members are so excited to see the work that the students have done and all of our visitors family members they um always have something to say the artwork is right along the first floor hallway so you can't miss it and when the student artwork is there you can just feel the energy in the community um from the art so really thank you so much this
has been a great collaboration and I hope we continue it for years to come Liz do you want to say something sure I'd love to thank you Donna thank you um Dr gillery in um Brookline school committee oh I'm glad that the um the slideshow is starting to go through because I really do want to have the students who are here have
their work on the screen so thank you who's ever um controlling that um uh so I'm going to try to just make this a little shorter because I know that a lot of what everyone has just said is kind of repeated here but I'll do the best I can um so throughout history the artist Quest has been to make meaning we create to express our ideas thoughts and questions about our world large and small we grapple with finding ways to
express our ideas so that they resonate with the viewer prompting them to observe ask questions make connections feel and Find meaning our students are journeying to make meaning in their work their memories experiences observations and questions are fertile sources for ideas to express their work in their work questions and topics our students are exploring in their work this year include what is sacred and when does
something or someone lose honor what do we inherit tangible and intangible how can I tell a cautionary tale how can I examine our history through the lens of baseball and what is it like to love and lose someone these topics and questions are the perfect starting point for our students students and seniors to gather as they speak to our sh shared experiences as humans thank you Meredith
and the Gard house for allowing our students to complete the final and essential step in the creative process that being sharing work engaging how the work lands with the viewer it's scary to put yourself out there but so satisfying when the work Sparks such enthusiastic interest and leads to meaningful intergenerational conversations as it did at the Gard house I was so proud to be Maria's Connor's and Ellie's
teacher the day we visit visited the Gard house the students were patient kind and attentive while answering questions about themselves in their work the residents showered them with accolades and I think our students were actually in shock when the residents broke out in Applause for them we all left feelings so uplifted thank you so much Meredith and the residents of the garded house for your hospitality and we look forward to this year's reception
and continuing this year's um this excuse me this yearly tradition thank you um and then should I introduce the students or Lori would you like to go and then we can introduce the students well I think what you just said was so fantastic I don't have a whole lot to add to that so I just want to um thank you again all of you for having us here tonight um thank you than you Donna and Meredith for putting this show together it's been such a special experience uh
for us and for our students um it's really important in a project-based class for students to have um an authentic experience of sharing their work with the community um Don has been great about doing that at BHS but also you know um building these connections outside of the school in the greater Brookline Community um I had something written down let me just see if there's anything else I wanted to say um you know when I'm uh having the students pick work for this assignment one thing that's great is having them think about
Their audience choosing work that is um meaningful to them but they think will also connect with the residents of the Gard house they really enjoy having that conversation and figuring out like what kind of work they want to share with that Community um and the other thing that I really love about this is that it legitimizes their work to be able to show in a professional Gallery space the students so proud of what they're doing um and I'm really also looking forward to going to the reception next week so
thank you so much okay so I guess I'll introduce um our three Superstars they are amazing um Connor roach Maria udala excuse me udal udalova I apologize Maria and Ellie Churchill hi my name is Connor Ro I'm a senior at Bron high school and I've taken classes through the art program for all four years uh being able to
display pieces is a very rewarding experience for us and especially when it leads to a connection between us and the community uh it gives a perspective outside of the classroom setting with from people with different backgrounds so it's a valuable experience for us and I'm glad to hear that the residents also enjoy it a lot um this experience was one of the first times that I got to have um my work up
in a real gallery that wasn't just at school and I think that was the same for a bunch of my peers and we felt like I felt like when we went there and we got to talk to the residents and share like some of our experiences and explain our paintings like they got to start talking as well and it was really interesting because a lot of the residents also have like histories and backgrounds in art and then they share about that and then they can give advice and I'm just really glad that future students will also get this
opportunity um yeah I think this is definitely echoing what Connor and Elanor said but it was my it was the first time that my work was put up outside of a school setting so that was um a really interesting and rewarding feeling and I also think that because as artists we spend so long working on our pieces that um when we do exhibit them and we get feedback from the people that are seeing them uh for me personally I got to see so many more meanings and themes emerging in my own art that I
just hadn't thought of before so that was a really interesting part of the process and then I also think that because we are in a classroom with the same age group we having sort of the same experiences going to a place where um you know the residents of the godded house are much older than us they have much more lived experience than us it was really interesting to get their insights into our pieces uh as people that have been alive for longer um so that was really incredible to get their
perspective okay so um thank you so much for your attention and um for this um award I guess um does anybody have any questions yes um Mari Mariah oh thank you oh sorry I got called on is that okay go ahead Mar then I don't know it's
I saw a hand no that's okay um I just wanted to say that this is wonderful it's I I just I love hearing um from everyone and particularly from you three students how much you've gotten out of this and and um the art itself is beautiful as well and I wonder Donna would you be willing to share the um the slides with us too so we could get a closer look at some of the pieces that are hanging up I I could I could even put more slides in there if you wish I
would love I could certainly share them with you and um also you could go to the Gard house and see them if in person if you want you just need to um register uh at the desk um and but the gallery is actually open to the public oh wow okay wonderful well yeah I would like to do both of those things so thank you thank you for this wonderful collaboration yeah I'm sorry Mor you um the students that are here today they're AP students
and they will have an end of the year sort of a thesis um uh exhibition and that will be in the PTO newslet so you can see that as well thank you wonderful thank you and if I could mention one more thing the artwork is currently on the Goddard House website so if you go to the Gard House website there's a section for gallery M you click on current exhibit and it shows the student artwork right now thank you Helen well first of all
thank you all of you the teachers students garded house um this is amazing it's really a wonderful um collaboration between a community and and the high school and we like to see that I think it's really important I think people you know enjoy it and it's it's it's just wonderful um one of the things that this made me think about is we used to have exhibitions here in the school committee room of Art and we haven't in a long
time and I I know it's work and I think that may be part of it uh that people don't have the time the teachers don't have the time to bring the work in but if it were possible you know I think it'd be great to have it either here or on the first floor where even more people go through there and can observe um people's work so thank you and thank you all for the hard work you do thank you so much amazing pictures
amazing paintings Jesse I just want to add that um the last 10 minutes have been a beautiful and peaceful break from chaos you know that surrounds all of us really um in all different ways so thank you very much beautiful you're welcome you can't see us very well in this room but we're all sitting here just blown away by the slideshow so yeah thank you thank you so much um we really appreciate it and you can also find us
on BHS artspace um on Instagram where we have a digital Gallery there are many ways to find us well thank you all very much again um I'll read the content Donna of your certificate the PSB Spotlight on Excellence is presented to the BHS visual arts department in collaboration with the Goddard house for your outstanding partnership and working and
displaying your artistic talents so Kathleen will be getting that drafted up and sent over to you um and congratulations again and students job well done faculty and staff excellent work and partnership with Meredith thank you all very much for being here and sharing this with us tonight you're welcome thank you so much all right thank you Dr Galler and thanks
uh all of the recipients of the spotlight an excellent award that was that was great um okay we move on to presentations and discussions of current issues tonight is all about the budget um we have first the fiscal 25 second quarter budget report is that going to be Mariah or Susan who I think I will give a I will do the summary and then of course um Susan or other subcommittee members can fill in what I might have forgotten if
that's okay yep so it's basically a report out from Finance subcommittee correct yes we reviewed the Q2 report yesterday at Finance Betsy do you mind pulling it up on the screen is that okay we're pulling we're pulling it up right now Mariah thank you okay thanks I'll just wait wait a moment till it's up and then that way thank you can you make it a little bigger thanks um so the Q2 report um one thing that is that
I just want to highlight which is great is that it's presented um by cost center in keeping with the budget which is um very helpful um and so for each cost center and um you can see that there is both the salary and the non-salary expense lines um and then there's the approved budget the expenses as of January 9th which is approximately Q2 um and then the incumbrances and then the balance so um if you don't mind just
going to the end actually can you go up to OE I just want to mention one thing that we talked about which is um that the we discussed the um contract for the equity audit which if you can see is not yet um encumbered either because this is January 9th but that was a discussion about the status of the equity audit um and then if you could keep going down and I think we can basically just go all the way down to the bottom um a little bit up to the so
we can see the total chart thank you so um the although in each of the subunits the 15 or 15 subunits um there was not a salary encumbrance line there is in the all unit um it's just not broken out across the different units above um but what that shows us is based on the expenses so far plus the projected salary through the end of the year there
is expected to be a $966,000 um sorry is this an O this is a overage right um Susan yes yes thank you and um and then there'll be more on this below and then um conversely expenses um it appears to be about projected to be about $2 million under spent however scroll down a little bit Betsy if you don't mind um with the uh the 966 th000 above
there is because of the idea another 1.2 million that you see in Grant adjustments so actually our salary deficit um is right around 2.2 million now sorry there's a cat biting me okay sorry um so you compare that 2.2 million if you scroll back up a little bit Betsy the salary deficit compared to the 2.1
million in expense um it would be wonderful if those two more or less netted out however we heard at finance that um that there there the different budget managers have been asked to include everything that has not been encumbered yet so that that um 2.1 million maybe whittel down yet um and Diane in particular is still working on getting all of that information together um but at our next meeting in a couple of weeks I believe um we should
get a better sense of um whether we are how far um we are in deficit for the year so again it's the $2.2 million in salary compared to some amount less than $2.1 million um in expense um and they're still figuring out what that's going to look like so that that expense could then be reallocated towards salary did I miss anything Susan or other Finance subcommittee
members just want to understand the what it mean what the incumbrances mean so at this point are has everything pretty much is are all are all the expenses that we're anticipating in this fiscal year pretty much incumbered by now no okay no that was what the they were doing so that 2.1 will get whittel down as the rest of the incumbrances the final incumbrances they have like one last bite at the Apple basically
okay so we will know more soon all right I guess I won't speculate on whether the picture is likely to be worse or better uh when we wait we we very much um we were asking those kinds of questions and Diane was not prepared to speculate on that okay got it thank you um Val I see Val's hand up thank you I I guess I have a the same or a similar question to what I had yesterday and I I can't quite figure it out looking at the documents
it seems like there's a a $1.2 million salary Gap that is attributed to the ID Grant but I I don't quite understand that because um there is a certain amount recommended from the Ida Grant to be covered for salary and then the salary from that was just over a million so I I thought that that Gap was about
700,000 and and so I'm unclear on um where that extra salary comes from and then overall I'm unclear on on this um because some of the well let's stop there for now on the salary I I'm I'm I'm unclear on on how all of that um is attributable to Grant allocation Susan are you going to answer
that I don't have the mental I don't have the mental acuity tonight to follow through um so I I'll get back to you you know at the upcoming meeting I'll I'll take your questions and make sure that um I'm able to explain it at a time when I'm a little uh not you know I'm better able to answer it okay
thanks can can I ask a a different version of that question that maybe broader maybe there's a more conceptual answer um why would there be a salary deficit at this point right [Music] now are you asking about the 966 I'm asking about the 2.2 million well the 966 is principally $750,000 in stiens that were not
properly funded in the budget if you recall we talked about this last year we might not I don't remember I can you refresh my memory on that yeah so last year stiens stien funding requests started coming in and there was a um it was clear that the stien number that had been held did not necessarily correlate with the number of stiens that actually the total amount of the the dollar amount of the
stiens that were out there and so and stiens are bundled into salary expenses yes because they are paid as right as like extra comp or I don't know if that's the exact word but that idea okay thanks and that's that's part of the salary expense line that's 9 so that's seven that's right so 750,000 of that was the difference between what was actually allocated for stiens and the correct amount for stiens and then there was um four I believe it was Paras that don't do not have a funding source yet
so that was another hund and something or it's like that's the 966 basically is it's principally these Paras plus the um plus the stiped um amount okay so I understand the 966 what are Grant adjustments that's the idea difference but if I understand corre correctly Susan and maybe I'm misremembering part of that is budget there was there was additional
funds charged to the fy4 idea there was additional expenses charged to the FY 24 idea that's around 150,000 more than what it was actually in idea so there's 150,000 there and then the balance a million and change is um is related to the reallocation and the change between what had been submitted for last year um that's the 1.56 line that I was questioning at the beginning of this meeting uh the one point the one million
Z no you were asking about just the 10 teachers the 12 teachers right I don't know that it's directly from that but maybe Susan can say if it's directly for sorry I'm still just following up and trying to catch up Mariah because if we're doing this reconciliation for Q2 I'm not sure how we're then using the full fy2 Ida number do you know what I mean like I it is this a Q2 report or this part I
think is a projection because if you look above if you don't mind um scrolling up a little bit Betsy that show this is also a forward projection see how it has the encumbrance as well as the expenses to date so it's not just through Q2 it's also projecting to the end of the year it's actuals through Q2 with projections well it's unclear right Su is expenses exactly as of 1 1925 those are actually everything
except the approved budget are actuals right now in that the incumbrances aren't actuals the encumbrances are well I mean I guess they are theoretical they are actual is for1 1925 right but you're say someone leaves tomorrow like if someone resigns tomorrow then their salary is not paid out through the end of the year so it's more like a projection on the salary side and the same thing is true with expenses if a contract is encumbered and not needed it's still a
projection they're incumbrances they're not actual right but that's a half year is what I'm saying right that's a half year as opposed to the number that's down below which is a full year you understand what I'm saying the I don't because the last colum not this column I'm I'm scrolling down to where it says 1.2 Grant adjustments that's a full year right but so is the table as of January
is that as of January or is that through January salary deficit as of January or through January that is the projected salary deficit for the year is I think right okay thanks hopefully I got all of that right but Susan can correct me afterwards if not but I'm pretty sure
I'm close yep we got a thumbs up from Susan thank you right there any other questions on this uh quarterly report before we move on to next year's budget uh Caroline yeah okay Caroline then Jesse um I think I just wanted to kind of repeat part of what we talked about or and was a question for me in um
Finance subcommittee which and it's not necessarily a question for Susan right now but it could be so there was some discussion about whether due to our extreme situation in this fiscal year not to mention next fiscal year um what what if any spending was being Frozen um I made the personal statement
that I would hope that any freezes are not going to obviously touch mandated services and that whatever kinds of measures we need to take at this point and whatever choices and priorities we make at this point that we're prioritizing student facing classroom teaching um so I don't it's hard for me to put my finger on what I'm
talking about because I don't I don't know all of what gets spent say like through central office PD obviously some PD is essential we want to be rolling out our literacy curriculum I don't know how that works but I do know that we have a a really big problem here so I just want wanted to kind of state that and I and I think um I guess I would just make a a
um a a plug for as much transparency um with us um and with the public as possible as we address these things um we did as I think someone mentioned before just as an example in the office of educ ational Equity that there is actually $103,000 contract
that's about to be signed or potentially to be signed um and I without questions yesterday we wouldn't have known that um and that was budgeted for $60,000 so I'm using that as an example because it's a tangible and we know of it so so I just hope we have um transparency on encumbrances and and choices and
um as we as we work our way hopefully out of this Jesse then Stephen and then let's move on to um FY 26 right so um one question maybe I just missed it at the finance committee meeting yesterday um or maybe in the explanation again why is it that in the Ida Grant the only uh line item without a submission is salary why was it zeroed out has that
been answered already well then that's that's question number one sure there it's the first row
it was it was the one that was presented at the finance subcommittee meeting I think this is the same copy right in your report was submitted without the inclusion of the salaries for the teachers except for we can't hear you very well online oh sorry you have to push that button on the Black Box it'll go great yeah I know all right so uh the grant was submitted without the inclusion of the teacher salaries that
had been on the grant before right right prior year and when we built the spending plan for uh the Year we're in now um those salaries were allocated off to that Grant just like other salaries are allocated off to the beep and other you know um when the grant was written the grant was written without uh that body of teachers included in it that's why it's zero that's what I can share about and in Prior years it was it it was
submitted with salaries yes typically it is with Sal salaries it's the largest part of your expenses yeah does it come out of oss the idea Grant request it's for individuals with disabilities government's contribution to to special education costs so the application and the requests are coming from OSS is that I mean am I missing um different Grant
uh different budget managers um usually take uh responsibility for submitting information on the grants typically we work collaboratively with the budget managers and when we put the proposal together as as you'll see as you read through this you know um the grant information is included in our spending plan so did someone just miss it 12 people's worth of salaries I mean in other words is there some process that safeguards that year after year if idaa
grants are being applied for that teacher salaries are included I mean I mean wouldn't have gotten flagged wouldn't have someone noticed it I mean well I mean you know everybody here and in senior leadership was involved in the development of the spending plan um I can share that uh the finance director provided the uh Deputy with a list of the staff members who were allocated to the grant okay and um asked uh and said
that she would be more than happy to sit with her and help her uh go through the Grant application process so I can I can say that that that happened in the summertime um so there was awareness okay and in fact the folks that were on the grant n FY 24 were also so uh you know involved involv right I mean so it's okay I I don't have any
understanding about why the grant was written the way that it was I wasn't consulted about that okay all right and I guess my my uh my second question was um I read through the email from Town Council about the ability of Sub sub of school committee members attending subcommittee meetings not being able to say anything because of open meeting law
considerations that was difficult at least for me and I I think I'm aware of other um school committee members who attended the finance subcommittee meeting which is now under such intense scrutiny but basically couldn't participate and so my I think I read in that town Council um email that or document that one approach could be to like TN a subcommittee meeting with a school committee meeting that basically allows all participants to participate which
probably would help two things one is we would have all been able to participate in the subcommittee um with questions clarifications so that we're not bringing them all up at a full sub you know school committee meeting you know a night later or a week later or whatever so I'm wondering um why wouldn't we move with all you know alacrity to um potentially adopt some plan like Town Council suggested so that we can continue to do sort of the thing we were doing before which is you know um like
I'm on curriculum with Suzanne but if we have another subcommittee member that a a non-s subcommittee member but somebody else from school committee that wants to participate it's it's open like you know give us your suggestions ask your questions and things like that thank you Jesse can Andy can I respond to that real quick go ahead Mariah yeah yeah just um I'm I was grateful to Betsy that she came up with a plan because I hadn't gotten caught enough caught gotten caught up in my emails to um to make a
plan but with that said there was definitely some tweaks that I would probably make to the plan and I will share those with you um Betsy but yes I I think you're right Jesse especially for Budget season and finance certainly we'd probably need to jointly not notice the meetings to make it um as effective as it needs to be I think all nine of us were at the finance subcommittee meeting yesterday and five of us had this you know sit there with our mouth shut so well but I think that's the case now I
mean I think once we have this guidance it's not just Finance right it's any committee so Jesse curriculum will be the same way if there are five people and policy will be the same way if there are if there's a quorum of the school committee that's fine oh I'm just saying it's not specific it wasn't specific to the finance I only mentioned Finance Val because it's under such intense scrutiny right now and the joint wisdom of the whole committee can't be underestimated agree suzan yeah I just want to say that
this is probably U it's a little more complicated than it sounds and it may actually be a conversation that we need to have at a separate as a separate conversation you know if it's a joint uh note posting then I believe we have to be sure we have a quorum of school committee members and in this case we have but maybe in other cases we wouldn't so we don't necessarily want to assume that every subcommittee meeting is also a school committee meeting for
finance during budget season it's never a problem yeah that's what about finan so anyway that's just you know it's it's kind of a bigger conversation because we've just gotten new information from Town Council so at some point we need to have that right well I was just going to say they wouldn't be joint meetings we would post them as two meetings and if it turned out um I think it might have been in the been in the memo um that they wouldn't it wouldn't be joint meetings there would be two separate meetings and if it turned out we didn't have a quum of
school committee at that meeting the subcommittee chair would just say this is just a finance subcommittee meeting if not though um we would just if it were a school committee meeting because we had a quorum we would just need to designate someone as a chair if for instance Andy weren't there I don't I don't think that's an issue either it'll be a lot of postings there'll just be a lot of calendar entries there would be two separate meetings you know so um can be done but it's well I think in in respect to there's no actual risk huh so
the to Suzanne's Point there's no real risk well I think the one thing we should all be aware of it's a lot more work for Betsy and I think we should be at least if we know we're going to the meetings we could tell her ahead of time and not have to um you know for her to post both if she knows that it's not going to be uh a quorum of the school committee um that that would be my suggestion I think it should be a somewhat unusual circumstance where we sort of notice it as both types of meeting well you know five five and four
make a difference sometimes right so you know yes that we were all there but at other meetings sometimes there's a fifth person that person may not want to talk so it may not be necessary they just want to listen and learn the other the other situation that keeps coming up is sometimes policy is joined by another member who has a special interest in a topic and May in fact have drafted the policy that's under discussion so they should obviously also be able to speak
we used to have as a committee of the whole and anybody who came could speak uh if I remember correctly Betsy at one point when Robin was here sorry uh we had it a as a committee of the whole so anybody who came and so there wasn't but how did we do for a forum well yeah this was yeah yeah to be continued but yes the
situation yesterday and today is absurd this can't go on uh Stephen you've had your hand up for a long time and then let's move on to fiscal 26 thank you so there's two things that I still don't understand one uh first of all Mariah thank you for explaining the stiens in relation to the salaries that that cleared up what was previously the third thing I didn't understand the first thing I don't understand still is the grant adjustment line in the document that we were just
looking at I don't understand what that means perhaps it's linked to the other thing that I don't understand which is the I I understand that there's confusion about the salary line Susan thank you for your explanation about the process that was or was not followed that resulted in the zero in the submission I also understand from what Dr oconnell said that there's another explanation that the school committee received I I don't want to try to
litigate that all I want to say is my second confusion is my understanding is that the idaa grant was for a certain amount and what we received we received the same amount of money pretty close to it no matter what so whether or not that million was submitted we received an amount that that shouldn't make a difference whether or not that amount was submitted right we whether or not that amount was
requested we received an amount as if it had been requested more or less is that correct in other words if we had put in that submission for the for the additional 1.56 million in teacher salaries we would have received around the same Ida Grant either way is that correct do I have do I have that correct I'm getting a nod from Val is that correct Dr given or or
Mariah yes so Stephen the I let me see that Sarah the idea amount um submission that total doesn't change it's how the grant when the grant writer submits they put amounts in various lines right so my question then is why does it matter whether that was submitted in that line or not isn't that
money somewhere why would it affect the bottom line whether or not that money was submitted as teacher salaries can't we just find out where that money is is that what's meant by Grant adjustment or am I am I conflating two separate issues in either case those are the two things I'm still confused about what does Grant adjustment mean and why would it matter in the end whether or not we submitted for the
teacher salaries in the Ida Grant given that we receive the same amount anyway Susan are you answering that or do you want me to um either way You' like Mariah if it's all right with you I'd prefer Dr given to answer that's fine yeah if she can that's great yeah the grant as it was written um the expenses that were written into the grant were not expenses that were part of the fy2 spending plan so it's not a matter of this was in
the spending plan and what we're going to do is instead of having this bucket of things in there we're going to put this bucket of things that's not the way the grant was written if it was written like that then we wouldn't be in the predicament we're in but in fact the grant included new things that were never cont plated before the grant was written so in other words three new teachers were added to the grant three
PA professionals were added to the grant those were not things that were in the original spending plan so if we're going to spend money on things that were never part of the conversation then it pushes the expenses that were part of the conversation out and then we have to come up with another funding source so that is the reason why um we have the situation that we have so if we had put the 12 teachers in
there and they were funded on the Ida Grant we would have been vastly overspent on the Ida Grant is that a fair conclusion from what you're saying because there were other things in there too no we wouldn't if it was written according to the spending plan uh then we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now then I definitely don't understand what you're saying you're saying that there were other things in there that we
were using the Ida grant for I'm saying that the grant was written for things that were new like what like three teachers three pair of professionals um there were contracts that were brand new contracts we hadn't had in previous years not all of them some of them and so those new expenses need to have a funding source
and so if you had allocated out um a million dollars in salary expenses that are real we're paying people that were part of the Grant and then you decide that you're going to write the grant for something entirely different that after this after the budget has been approved then either we have to lay off those teachers or we have to find another funding source for them so the what you just those examples you just mentioned and I'm sorry if I'm slow to understand that those teachers
those contracts those were after the fact expenses that we ended up spending the Ida money on so that if we were then to pay those original 12 teachers we couldn't have afforded them under the Ida Grant you you can't afford both of them you can't afford that I'm asking you where did those expenses that you're referring to come from stepen can I try and help here no
I'd like an answer well I'm gonna give you thank you thank you I think I think what Helen I think she's just going to point to at least an interpretation of the um table that we have in front of us I don't know if it truly answers your question but literally anything that's a zero under budget was not planned and then if it's
has a an amount under submission then that's I think Susan used the word new I mean I but submission what's in the Grant application that's my understanding so I if I look at the first part that discusses both both mtrs and non mtrs salaries they're not zeroed out there's a million dollars there Dr given is saying you can't afford both those 12 teachers and this
extra set of things these three teachers these contracts and so on I'm saying these other things are these after Thea identified expenses that we that we've came up with where did they come from as Ida expenditures Helen do you have an answer for that is that what you want to answer yes because the budget originally was 2,699 th000 with zeros in those where
you see the zeros in the um in the uh huh yeah no not just no there's no zero in teacher the budget included the 12 teachers salaries it included winre house it but it did not include the three new teachers did not include the pair of professionals if you look on that um same spreadsheet it's a zero if you look at out of District tuition there's a zero if you look at supplies
there's a zero and other expenses is a zero what happened was when they submitted the grant our budget had it this way when I assume it was the office for um student services that submitted the grant because it's under them they put a different uh accounting of how they were going to use the money and there was 300,000 less then I the recommended I don't know what
that is actually there's a there's multiple things going on and I think that's why it can be confusing right so one of the things something changed again in the recommend the submission between the submission and the recommended it all comes out comes out to the same number on the bottom line but right so there's there's a number of things happening right so I when you approved the budget you you you had made
a decision to include for example the winthrip house when it was presented and we talked about it last year we had estimated it would be about 250,000 for the three teachers you remember that yeah we had it in the chart and everything and so um it's it's my understanding that and and you know commonly you would get more money in Grants you know um from year to
year but in this particular year we didn't get more money and so one of the pressures is that instead of getting more money for the grant we got less money so that created a piece of the problem right because if you write a grant I'm just going to use round numbers let's just say you have um a million dollars right if if you are expecting and allocate a million dollars of expenses and then you only get 900,000 then you're going to have a bit of a problem there right you're going to have to find a funding source for that
100,000 or you're going to have to cut something so that was part of it that's part of this equation less Revenue than anticipated it's a no fault situation it's just a situation right so that's a piece of um the challenge that we have in addition to that the staff that we're allocated in the spending plan just like we're going to do in this budget cycle we identify what our total needs are your educational
plan and we translate that into a spending plan a spending plan includes the use of revenues besides taxpayer dollars once the spending plan is set and the revenue is set for the year we don't get any more money typically and so if we had and it wouldn't it this would be true whether it is the idea Grant or it is any other special Revenue fund if if we don't get enough Revenue
to cover those expenses we have to either cut or we have to find another source within the four corners of our um allocated revenues and so it's a combination of a couple of things that have happened that cause us to be here and it's not one p piece of it it's a combination of each of these and that's why I you know and I hear what Val's saying and I will give you I will show you how the various parts are
influencing the deficit I get it you want to hear that you want to see that and I will give that to you I just can't do it right here tonight all right um just Stephen I mean my understanding is that the general fund budget was built on the assumption that certain expenses would be covered by Ida the Ida as submitted did not include those expenses that's the issue and when you it's not really about
where did the money go that it's that we undertook more than we can actually cover because uh some of these expenses you know we thought it would be it would go under Ida it turns out we didn't actually submit for them so when you say expenses you mean salary expenses as well I guess the salary thing is the biggest part of now I guess my question is and again um I just got this tonight to look at so I'm trying to catch up um page two of the Ida Grant adds up to the exact
amount that's in the 2339 that Helen just referred to the submitted amount yet and some line items even match yet their top two lines are for salary just under a million dollars but it shows zero and submitted so is it a mistake and I mean is there a mistake in this summary chart we're seeing or something because page two shows two lines of salary one for professional mtrs and one
for non- mtrs so if it's here in the submission why isn't it in the summary for submission it's sorry oh it's under yeah okay that's where it's under win house we should just winthrip house salaries I separated that out so that the school committee could see that their wishes were honored winr house was added the Middle School winthrip House was added um with
the understanding that the grant would pay for the winthrip house so that's submitted of 190,000 in the in the T here and and so what was submitted in the grant was the 191 however um the actual cost when you add up how much it costs us based on the hiring it's 328,000 so there's like um yes $80,000 Delta there right but how
does that relate to the I didn't write the grants a lot of the questions you guys are asking I cannot answer was not involved in it I didn't even get an accounting of it until the middle of December okay so you're asking me questions that I'm never probably going to be able to answer for you well I think that's part of it Susan is like how how was it that there was no communication on this grant between July and December I think that's sort of the
overarching question and and it's one I share also with that I think we'd better move on to U tonight's centerpiece which is the presentation of the superintendent fiscal year 26 initial budget request Dr gillery
all right we are back again to walk through our initial uh budget uh FY 26 budget um thank you you to the uh leadership team principles uh budget managers all who were involved in prep
preparing the budget as well as submitting uh the various narratives and requests as such what I'm going to do um is read an abbreviated version of um my executive summary to the budget greetings Brookline as we plan for the upcoming fiscal year I want to provide an honest and transparent assessment of our District's Financial Outlook our Brook line education remains strong despite our financial challenges
which is a testament to our faculty staff and administrators and the commitment of our families we remain steadfast in our commitment to providing a high quality education for every student and we must also work through the financial constraints that will shape our decisions in the months ahead the FY and I'm jumping down the FY 26 alloc is currently 141,000
$32 which represents an approximate 3.59% increase over our fy2 allocation of 136 m847 618 the initial budget request as presented is $49,990 $1,616 and recognizes a projected shortfall of roughly 8.2 million this $8.2 million includes contractual
obligations newly requested positions and the structural deficit or Gap elements and we'll get U more into that at the presentation tonight I will be working with the leadership team to make recommendations to the school committee on lowering the Delta between our allocation and final budget in the coming weeks despite these challenges we remain optimistic the strength of our school lies in the dedication of our
talented Educators and staff the resilience of our students and the dedicated support of our community working together we will navigate these R Ste Financial Times while staying true to our mission providing a world-class education that prepares every student for success thank you for your continued partnership and supporting our schools and students so with that we will start our presentation our agenda tonight is uh look at building the budget looking at
the FY 26 budget guidelines alignment of the school committee guidelines and the Strategic plan FY 26 enrollment projections Staffing expenses and we didn't actually put additional considerations in um but have some closing um initial closing thoughts there so building the FY 26 budget Susan I think this is
you okay thank you all Susan would you like to come and have a seat at the table is that easier for you
sure how's that can you hear me okay all right so um the budget um has been in a process of evolving um to uh comport with uh desie um um and standards um and the Department of Revenue um accounting code classifications um it also we have been
moving towards kind of industry budget standards for presentation and um and so some of those standards include that that the budget is designed using a pyramid approach which means that you start with an executive summary of information and then as you go deeper into the document you get more more detail um so what you'll see is the first maybe 10 pages or so is that executive summary and it'll give you
high level information about um enrollment and Staffing um as well as financial data um included in the presentation is uh written narratives and tables and graphs all of those are um part of the standards for um uh School budgeting uh in addition to that um we have been um working towards uh modifying our accounting code system on the backside
to be able to align with this and so you'll remember last year we went through the budget process um there was um um account codes that we began to collapse because there were let's say five or six different um account codes with titling that that uh got confusing as to where you might be budgeting versus spending so you might have a line called uh technical tools you might have
a line called online tools you might have another line called uh digital literacy tools so you you know the titling became ambiguous and so uh what we did is we um worked to um consolidate account codes into these categories that you see Pres presented here in the budget um and so uh one of the things that makes it challenging to to do um is
to take data from 23 um and then have it maap to the identical accounts um in 24 which they were changed uh for the your 24 budget and then in 25 this last round so the thing that um I think you'll find helpful is that there is parity between 25 and 26 very tightly and in 24 when we close the year um we were able to map most of
our expenses in 24 to that same accounting code system so when you look you won't see these wild uh changes from one year to the next in general there's still a little bit of cleanup that we're doing but I thought it would be important to point that out uh um so I already talked about this um that yeah so we can go to the next slide so what you have in front of you
is the um FY 26 budget Bill those of you that have it uh here in the room you have a hard copy uh those of you that are remote should have it electronically and we'll have your hard copy as well as well getting out copies I think to the uh AC as well um and this is published uh online in our budget uh budget Central page as
well okay and the school committee meeting materials page so when we look at FY 26 um the budget guidelines and I won't read them all here for you but I'll just give sort of the broad brush Strokes um there were budget guidelines that the school committee adopted um number one up there is Staffing and enrollment and the one that's highlighted that we'll talk about a little bit in um deep a little bit
later is ensuring class sizes at the high school remain closer to recent historical Trends leverage our K uh 12 enrollment forecast to identify where positions can be shifted and maintain K8 class sizes within guidelines uh for number two under educ Equity what's called out there is to continue to fund esy programming that increases access to esy by providing coordinated wraparound
opportunities including but not limited tocl therapeutic recreational activities and enrichment and then funding an educational Equity strategy to be articulated by the office of educational equity and approved by the school committee that right sizes resource is directed towards educational Equity whether they are centralized or decentralized and then under number three for FY 26 align the school
Improvement plan process as part of the budget cycle ensure that the PSB budget reflects each school's priorities and goals as described in their sips such as improving student outcomes enhancing teacher development or expanding extracurricular activities all spending should support the broader mission of the school be tracked against goals and regularly measured and reported and because um or continuing an FY 26 return
to a prior practice of holding Reserve funds for a limited number of Staff this can be done over multiple years and we'll see a number of staff that are being held there and we can have a discussion and dialogue about that and by FY 26 uh because of the importance of the Strategic plan in driving all decisions uh developing dashboards that allow stakeholders to plan uh track the plan's progress so one item that I did discuss
there that's in the budget guidelines is the focus on the literacy initiative the budget guideline for FY 26 um states that the school committee affirms its commitment to full funding of the district's literacy initiative including curriculum materials and professional development aligned with the science of reading the district response or the alignment to that is that the first phase of the literacy implementation was funded through the I fy2 24 Ida Grant as
this initiative will address 2023 Department of education's disproportionate share finding the supplemental Grant materials for phase one are being purchased from tit the title for Grant as well this phase will be implemented is being implemented in the 25 uh will be implemented in the 2526 school year and includes the introduction of fish tank um Ela and grades K through 5 in FY 26 phase two of
the implementation plan is funded think we have a typo there uh is uh from the FY 26 idea as a strategy to address the 2025 Department of education's disproportionate share finding the uh phase two of the literacy initiative focuses on implementing a middle school literacy curriculum and supplemental materials for tier 2 supports funding for the tier 2 materials is included in the FY 26 OTL budget Ela and the general
fund budget for Staffing and enrollment ensure class sizes at the high school remain closer to recent historical Trends leverage K12 enrollment forecast to identify where positions can be shifted maintain Cade class sizes with within budget guidelines the budget was developed using forecast enrollments for FY 26 historical trends for class sizes at the high school and the K8 guidelines
of 22 for K through2 and 25 for uh 3 through eight Staffing and enrollment in class sizes class siiz data is provided for each School within the school section of the budget document educational Equity I've uh read these I'm going to try to be a little bit more judicious with the time here and just uh for the esy um guide a quick question on class sizes are the numbers
in the blue here are those Maxes those the maximum numbers what page are you on the one you just read from um page 11 oh the the GU you're asking about the guidelines in other words the forecast and enrollments historical G for class size guidelines of 22 students and 25 students um for K to2 and 25 for 3 to eight are those the highest we we can like that that's our maximum that we're shooting we or we don't necessarily call them caps but what we try to do is is be
respectful and not go over that we also are are mindful that not all of our classroom sizes have the same physical space and so some are smaller some are larger uh but what we try to do is be respectful of those and treat them as guidelines as such and so if for some reason we're going over that um then that's um that tends to be again another one of these budget hits where you know for example if we're in a fourth grade
classroom and we need to go up to let's say 27 then we would look to try to provide an additional resource um to that teacher like a an additional par professional some form of support as such even if there was enough room in the classroom for 27 like if it's a 30 desk classroom when you get to a certain number you'd be thinking about another staff person just trying yeah okay um where was I um so looking at educational Equity um
esy is part of that so funding all Legacy and mandated summer school programs are included in the initial budget proposal these programs are funded through a variety of sources including the operating budget as well as grants Ida metco title 3 as well as revolving funds um OE and their educational strategy OE has been working through a prelim preliminary Equity strategy focused on exam the examination
of data processes and operations resources uh through school residencies and policies and procedures building uh capacity through the equity lead pilot Equity cycle pilot at three schools and as well as professional development and the educational educator diversity uh program a partnership through um maintaining existing Partnerships and expanding the pipeline I was trying to think of the name of it but I'm drawing a blank right now but uh
you've seen presentations on that as well before for the budget um the alignment of the Sip I think back in September the school committee um was went through all the sips with the schools for the FY 26 budget process School Improvement plan goals are also included in the school section of the budget along with the brief narative from the principal highlighting their funding requests and then return to the prior practice of holding Reserve funds
this initial budget includes eight and a half um FTE or section set aside and they are going to be sitting in The Oaf budget line um and we'll walk you through that a little bit later to address any anticipated shifts in enrollment now remember um the the guideline that the committee put forth was hold the reserve fund but this this uh fund can be built over multiple years so we've initially held 8.5 and
given this $8.2 million uh Gap that we currently have we can think about is that the number that we should be holding uh at this particular time doc Dr Giller we can't hear you what I think when turn to the side I'm sorry that's okay uh what was the last thing you heard well that that's not ringing much of a bell um but what I was saying was that
currently we are holding 8.5 FTE but the school committee guidelines suggests or says that we can U build these um reserves over a number of years that we don't have to build it all up at once and given the size of our um Gap right now at 8.2 million this is also an opportunity for the committee to give feedback on whether or not we need to hold 8.5 at this time lus are we asking questions now or
are we gonna wait uh sure um my question Mar sorry to interrupt I think I think we should just wait um okay you if you don't mind that like Dr G to be able to sort of finish his presentation and then we no that's why I asked thank you okay thanks and the last one on budget is um about uh dashboards and so OTL has been sharing their work I believe is with open architect is the vendor to um build um
dashboards to track the school uh the Strategic plan progress all right Dr given okay so we built the budget around um an enrollment estimate of 7,1 53 uh which is a change of 64 students overall um but it breaks out differently
at at the various grade levels so um for beep it means that uh we're anticipating 27 additional uh students than what we had uh as of October 1 of this year um at the elementary schools we're seeing um a little uptick of course the 77 is over multiple schools it's not in one school um so it's trickled across uh schools as well as um grade levels and so as we built the budget um you'll see
that there's sections that have moved and shifted from one grade to another grade um in some cases sections were reduced uh so we've given you a map um as you dive deeper into the document to see where those uh shifts um occurred um at the high school and um we we were aware that this would uh becoming um this year is a decrease in
um overall enrollment there uh of about 40 students and um uh the outof district um remains um uh consistent uh from the October 1 enrollment which was certified at 66 students so that's what the enrollments are looking like um overall a little bit higher um but uh statistically not um
any uh huge variation here that would um you know cause us to have concerns like you had in the past where you were having three and 4% increases in a year um it's it's relatively flat so Dr gillery mentioned that um in the initial budget proposal there were positions that were requested and so we've um broken it down by office so the
superintendent and school committee um is not requesting any changes in Staffing at all uh likewise uh the office of administration Finance is not however uh that is where the reserve sections um are are being held in the budget so that 8 and A2 shows up there uh but there is no actual change in um the office of administration and finance
staff um in the office of educational Equity um they're looking for two additional um met col aons that would be funded again this is all funds right so um that would be funded through the metco grant um the office of student services um in collaboration between the office of student services and the building principles um the initial budget request
was for 20.9 FTE 5.9 of those professional staff um and 10 par Professionals in the office of uh teaching and learning um that would be 10 additional staff five of them um sections at the elementary school and five of them for for El or English language um education uh staff and um we also had 10.3 reductions so that would
be um you know changes in enrollment three at the high school uh three reductions at the high school because of the uh decline in enrollment um as well as some other and you'll be able to look back um there's an analysis chart at in the beginning section in the executive summary which walks you through in in pretty specific detail about what schools um and what uh specific um positions are being
requested so that's um the high level summary of the Staffing changes there's also shifts which aren't included here so as I said we're we're still doing some cleanup and so um you know there's there's staff for example at the peer School we've been trying to keep all of the uh met Co staff in the um uh office of educational Equity section um but last year I didn't properly label some
of uh the positions And so there's a Meco person that that has been in the pier school now we're going to put it in the met in the metco section so there's no change in money it's still funded from the metco grant it's just where is the FTE showing up so there's some shifts um in the budget uh document there but I'm not counting shifts as as as new requests okay so major cost drivers you know my
experience over the years is that people you know really want to understand what's causing the increase you know it's it's it's difficult when you look at school budgets to look at um some of the line item detail and really make sense of it um because your costs can very wildly depending on um how veteran your staff is so if you have a teacher that's at the high end of the scale they
might be making aund let's say 20,000 and a new teacher coming in might be making 75,000 so you you if you have a number of of turnovers you can actually see a smaller increase net increase in a line doesn't really tell you how many teachers you have right which is one why in good uh budgeting practice you provide the analysis of Staff um but also underneath all of that
are all of these costs and so what I've uh done for you here is to share um what those budget drivers are and so you are are always going to have breathing costs of a contract and here um in this upcoming budget out of the general en fund okay um or impacting the general fund is um about 3 $5.3 million in of expenses now those are breathing costs
so next year we'll have a similar number probably a little higher because uh of you know compounding uh effects of of money um moving forward um the next category is this um what I'm referring to is the structural deficit um we talked about that earlier in the current year and it Rose into the next year um and um and and also part of that is that some of our grants are shrinking a little bit and I've I've kind of
captured that so in the initial budget presentation it's level service um meaning that whatever Services we're providing in the current year we're providing next year um whether the funding sources changed or not so that's some of the challenge that we have to Grapple with so it's not just idea um it's it's title one is a little less um we're getting a little less money in um um Early Childhood uh Early Childhood Grant um so the initial
proposal includes all of the expenses and so some of them are bleeding over into um the general fund at this moment new positions those are the ones that I mentioned on the prior page um uh the estimated cost of those again these are estimated costs right that's assuming that people are hired at the basic Master's six on average and if that's not true then that becomes um greater
but for budgeting purposes that's uh what we're estimating the uh impact of those new positions would be um and then uh there's some salary adjustments um so in order for me to be able to identify what the breathing costs are I have to like really methodically go through a process of rolling um our salaries so I can capture each component but after I've gone through that and I've locked in I uh to go back and then track for every little
thing that uh which hundreds of different transactions um I'm just capturing those under miscellaneous adjustments so in other words if somebody's on a leave of absence in the current year likely the the person that's covering for them is a younger teacher and usually teachers that have been here for a while are the ones that are going out for various reasons well when the veteran teacher comes back it's going to be an increase in the in the budget likewise when when teachers retire um then you get the
opposite effect right you get a higher teacher and hopefully but not always um you're hiring somebody at a at a at a lower level and that is and I want to say again not always right we saw that kind of with the Winthrop house right we we budgeted for the Master's um six or seven range and um they were hired at a much higher uh level and sometimes you that's necessary right sometimes that's your candidate pool you you know when you're looking for physics teachers they're
physics teachers and if you get a good one you're going to pay the price for whatever that is you know there aren't many of them out there so there are some um positions in which you would definitely um you know uh need to pay higher than that but um and then the last line here is breakage and so we've talked a bit about breakage um meaning that over the course of time we will not have all of our positions filled and so I'm um building in um a reduction um for
that purpose um it's like kind of the good news bad news with all of the redesign work we have done in the area of recruit recruiting um and retention efforts um we actually um have been able to keep um our positions filled for most of this year last year we had professional positions that were open for almost the entire year and um and we're not having
that problem and also uh last year we let's say uh we'd have 25 you know pair of professional positions open and we've really uh closed the gap on that significantly so um as a result you don't get as much breakage and so I'm I'm actually reducing the amount that we're carrying and breakage um to reflect um uh the fact that we're we're we're filling our positions so uh so on on the on the
salary side um when you total up uh those drivers um it uh it's totaling up to you know about $9.5 million dollar worth of our um uh cost increases for the year okay and then on the non-salary side um we've talked all this should be fairly familiar I mean we've been talking about this uh for the last several months that um the special
education costs uh for a a district which is tuition and settlements um we have a current year Gap um and so uh this Gap that we're experiencing in the current year is now um rolling forward into the upcoming year um but at least we believe it includes all the cost of that we're currently aware of for um a a district special education and then for those students who are traveling um to um schools outside of uh Brookline you
know we have to provide the transportation and so we have um higher uh special education Transportation costs so a component of this is of course the contract will increase a little bit but um the the bigger part of the special education transport a is in relation to um the out of District uh students that we're transporting um and then there's you know always uh increases in online
subscriptions and other things um um and so when when we're looking at that holistically across all schools all departments online books and subscriptions um uh as we've rolled the budget up um account for 529,000
is um this has increased a bit um a little bit on the OSS side um for the settlements related to settlements and and all of that um we have a new Deputy coming in and we want to make sure that
they have you know adequate resources to support them as they uh make their transition in but uh the bigger part of the increase is related to contract negotiations with our labor unions next year and so um all of the contracts for beu expire so we'll be negotiating that next year so we've increased the budget um by a little over $100,000 to reflect that need um and then other educational expenses and so these are all your supplies and materials and you know the
cost of copy machines going up and and all of that um categorically uh amounts to about $440,000 so on the non-salary side it's about $3.6 million and when you add the two together that's what makes up the $3,146 th000 um increase in our budget um the revenue um that uh estimate that was allocated to us uh by the town is um
141,000 sorry 141 million uh 760,000 um and then when you uh net out our expenses it it um identifies our our budget gap of um $8.2 million so between now and um when we approve the ultimate budget we we need to get um in line with our Revenue allocation the only other
adjustment I believe that will probably be made and it hopefully it'll go favorably but not necessarily is when in in the beginning of March um the town will get the rates for GIC and so that will be kind of the last um refinement for uh what our potential Revenue uh will look like you know keep our fingers crossed that it comes in at 12% or less um 12% is what the assumption is in in the in the budget right now um and so if
it comes in a little less then we'll have a little more revenue and then we don't have to reduce our expenses um quite as much so that is really in a nutshell um the high level um uh you know budget uh initial budget um that you have before you tonight and so over the next weeks what we're going to be doing is is um coming
up with recommendations you know the school committee we're going to ask you um how much recommendation do you want us to bring forward to you for your consideration what to take a look at in the budget um where you notice that this title this particular slide says reducing the Gap um because we may get to a point where we get close to the allocation but not quite get all the way
to it just based on our need and as an example um and what we've been talking uh about at the senior Team level is we're certainly uh behind in the budget Bill process because we would typically be bringing this presentation to you um in January um and we will have done some whittling down of of some things there but um what we've looked at at this juncture is uh some of the new requests
so we had uh a meeting with a senior team as well as building um principles and we looked at so for example that 1.8 million uh that Susan referenced here in new positions we've already eliminate uh we've already identified reductions in that uh already so we'll be bringing that to you um as well and so we we've gotten some consensus around that but there are certainly um if you take a million out
of that you know now we're at 7.2 million um that we need to um look at as such so we will be um um going through that iterative process um as we go through budget so with that we stand for questions meanwhile so would it be right to summarize what's in front of us right now as what it would take to maintain our current level of service meet our special education obligations and have
an 8.5 FTE Reserve yes okay thanks um and some new um like a small number of yeah the the teachers but that's mandatory also want to be clear about that that's not just like special education these students um we have to provide the services and we're not able to uh with and you'll see as you get get further into it look at um there's a
some information that um Jody's sharing in her Section that talks about El and the um increasing demands um on our staff over the last year um and so yes and she would argue if she was here that 10 is really what she needs in order to meet um the requirements but uh at the time we were putting the budget together she she said there's no way that we could even contemplate that but she also wanted to bring it to
everyone's attention that it's a real it's a real Challenge and um we're not able to um meet our obligations uh with those students either all right Helen you want to lead us off yeah I just um first of all thank you I mean this is really hard to put this together it's hard to you know to figure out what we do with it and we certainly will work on it we've done it in the past we'll do it again this time um I I just had um a question
that you may not know the answer to um how many kids do we have out of District now as of October 1 out of District was 66 that's what was certified okay so that's close to our regular number that we've had had over a number of years if I remember I think it was certified at 65 last year I believe yeah so yeah I mean it's no I mean between 60 and you know 66 I would say that you know maybe
a 10 six kids different then why there was something for out of District uh that you had like a million dollars and there extra was that because of increase in cost or more kids it could be placements it it could you could have it doesn't NE just because we have 65 and 66 just means it's even the same right you know kids the tuitions go up they go up in the middle of the year right and it could be a different okay it could be
different children also but I was just trying to get placements and if you know students not um uh growing and achieving their goals in a certain placement you know perhaps they need to go to a different one so I I don't know um and and certainly uh don't have the details on yeah that's fine no that I mean 66 is a good number and I'm I'm pleased to hear that actually um and I think it's much less than other districts in many ways
we try to keep our kids inhouse which is appropriate um the other thing that in the past uh when we've had this sort of problem and we've had it over the 33 years I've been on the school committee we've had it a number of times I tell the story how the first time I came came on the school committee we had a $52 million budget this was back in '93 and we had to cut $4 million out of it so do the math and the percentages it was that
was the worst committee I ever I mean the worst meetings that I had to sit through um that being said uh one of the things over the years that we have done and I'm not sure if we're doing it now we've encouraged our principles to hire at Masters plus three instead of Masters plus six and if it goes you know if their average of the new hires that they have goes over that they need to get permission from the superintendent to do
those hires I'm not sure if we're still doing that or not but that's one way of maybe controlling some costs so just a suggestion had a question oh okay yeah I can't see right now anybody's hand if you're remote so just speak up if you're not in the room are you calling on me I guess so if your hand is up and then then Carol it isn't up but it was earlier okay go ahead okay so my
question do you mind going I don't know which slide it is do you mind just going backwards a little bit um that that one that well that one too the one that's about the 8.5 FTE yeah so last year I thought we held four FTE for Reserve right no we didn't have any reserve last year oh cuz you put them all allocated into the high school well the high school well what we did is uh the
initial proposal was to put in five the school committee added two more so there was yeah so there was seven FTE allocated to the high school um in last in the in the budget that we're in now and they have used all those sections yeah but they weren't in reserve they were they were committed to the high school we had nothing at the elementary level okay and is the 8.5
FTE um is it are you counting that as Unit A or Paras or a mix or what what is what kind of FTE are those it would be we would use it for whatever purpose was necessary right but um in the budget it's 8 and 1 half um teachers okay and then is that available for only general education or is it also being used as a special education
reserve for example if additional oneto ones are requested they would be for any need that we have okay thank you can you go forwards to the slide which was the summary of all the additions I think it's forwards yeah that one go back one this one um the office of student services line you have a change of 20.9 but then on the right it only adds to 15.9 that means that I left something
out when I was capturing it okay so it it's it actually adds 20.9 but just the the comment says incomplete give me a second let yes okay okay I think um that's all the questions I have for now um and of course I'm sure we'll have lots more opportunities to go through the details of things in the coming days
I found the error uh you were saying you you found the error y it it's 15 parz not 10 oh all right Carolyn page 14 of the budget book Mariah thanks um so as a new member I'll sort of just piggybacking on what Mariah
just said what is the process from here in terms of school committee opportunity to ask lots of questions and make lots of comments so a couple of things um what's enormously helpful is as you read this in the next few days if you can send questions that you have um so this is the process that we used last year and then um let's say five of you have a
strong interest in talking about you know X Y and Z then we'll prepare the next budget session to be able to answer those the questions related to those particular topics so um in that way we can kind of move through also in in this particular budget season we have some significant reductions that need to occur and um so you know we've been working you know to try to build consensus around you know what what
options might we want to contemplate and I'm sure that the school committee probably has some ideas too so if you have some some areas in which you you would um you know like us to consider so that I can cost things out you know certainly send that along as well so that um we can assemble a list and then we we we went through fairly methodically um a process of of discuss discussion around those various um
options so okay and I see Jesse has a two finger but so are are you just piggy back two fingering off that's an advisory committee thing right yeah it is okay okay well it's conducive to nice dialogue do you want to I mean yeah my question can you hold off or or is this all right because I just want to respond to Susan's response thanks Susan
so so that's helpful although for me it raises questions of like so that's fine if I can send questions in email but a I mean I just want to make sure you're saying that because we also get told don't send questions to staff and I don't and so and I say this respectfully I'm truly asking like in terms of ease
of questions being a answered and and discussed like I personally think like in person is more conducive um to robust and and nuanced answers um and I think open session is is always preferable so if May that's my my my question like I mean I I have like 12 questions just from this presentation and and hopefully I won't ask them all but hopefully they'd
be welcome even if that's tedious for other people but um I mean I would hope that that I would think that level of of of Engagement um would be expected so so I guess I'm asking partly rhetorically and partly operationally like how does that happen and someone can answer or not answer but um yeah the idea is that in order for us
to have a meaningful conversation we have to know what people want to talk about and if and in my experience if if the administration just comes and does all these presentations to you it may not be at all what you want to talk about so getting some idea about what is you know what folks are thinking about is very helpful um especially if the majority of you are you know really want
to take a deep dive into a particular area so that's what that is it's not that I'm going to be responding in writing it's it's rather it's to help prepare for the deliberation component of the work that we'll be doing so but we can talk about I mean there I can imagine you will have as well as Jesse and you know perhaps even Sarah though she was here last year may have more questions generally than others and maybe we can think about you know what what is a the difference between stuff we want to have a deliberative
conversation my questions are my questions are mostly specific responses to what was what was just shown but so that's a helpful start I guess um I would love to just throw out a few um so can you go back to the salary slide okay major cost drivers breathing costs extra steps Lanes so that's
contractual obligations new positions where is is unaligned in here in this slide all of those things are incorporated into that yeah so when I see contractual obligations I'm thinking Unit A and Unit B not like the folks who work here curriculum coordinators they have contracts too
they're just not collectively bargained okay so but the but raises okay then I guess when I see contractual obligations in my mind I'm thinking about contractual raises where other changes in salary are discretionary so is are there are discretionary raises assumed and built into that 5.2 col Cola would be in
breathing costs the principal adjustment that you voted the other day would have been under the adjustment the Loa returns retirement miscellaneous salary adjustments okay miscellaneous salary adjustments okay thank you we received a letter a couple weeks ago [Music] um from a lot of um Educators with
concerns about project Discovery and that seemed to indicate that they were concerned about whether that program would continue so I would love some information on that at some point don't want to put anybody on the spot um but I did want to respond to that um I'd love background um oh under Legal Services I hate to have to ask this question but I think I
do um so I'm wondering how the 50,000 and change for settlements compares to other years and whether this is anticipating potential settlements arising from the delays and interruptions that have been experienced it's not related um we just felt that if with a new Deputy coming on board yep with all the activity that we
can see with on the settlement lines and such we wanted to make sure with somebody who doesn't have the last couple of years worth of um knowledge and relationships that they they have access to the resources they need in order to support them in their first year um I'm also just curious where it was stated that this is level service bye
Karen and that all the FTE that were restored at BHS in fy2 are being used but now I I think this showed three FTE reduced at at BHS so how does the idea of level service and eliminating 3 FTE at BHS align that's that's a great question so when you say level service it doesn't mean level
funding right so what we did is we build it around your guidelines and so because they have fewer enrollment to keep consistent with that we would consider that to be level service and sorry without me looking for it what's what is the anti ated 40 40 fewer students at BHS okay thank you and where and yep sorry to interrupt I think you've asked maybe three or four questions so far and um we have several
other segments so at 840 we should be moving on to pierce GMP um and then we have executive session and I don't want to keep okay then I guess my first question hold on so yeah I just like to make sure that everybody gets a chance to speak at least once and and then we can come back to you if there's still time before um before 8:40 all right unless you I'll give you one minute to sort of wrap up what you're asking or saying right now and then I'd like to give everybody else a chance to speak who wants to speak okay then I'll say
two more things one is I guess that speaks to like this is our fiduciary responsibility our next meeting is entirely devoted to discussing this great so that's one answer to that great so and then with the change that's suggested with you using the Meco Grant to fund is it funding two new positions in oee and so I would love at some point if
not now just a little more granular detail on that like do we have a surplus in the metco grant typically what would be like what might be the tradeoff of using metco Grant funds to fund to new positions so I would definitely want to understand that a little bit more in terms of how that Grant is used I see see Claire's hand up
uh was that to respond to this question please go ahead then hi yes I think um hi Carolyn I think it's important to understand that um the mecho is now under the oee office and that those are actually Meco positions so they're not position positions in the office of educational Equity but the Meco program Meco department is now under the office of educational Equity so that wouldn't be funding two new positions in off in the office of educational Equity that would still be
myself and Christie but these are positions mecho advisor positions that have been typically funded within the department okay thanks it's still that so that's not clear whether they're new positions or and how the grant they would be new positions so right now we have um advisers who are sharing buildings this would allow for each building to have a Meco advisor all right thank you Stephen thanks I just have one question
and this is for Dr gillery um given that we're we last saw a projected deficit for for this school year of of $8.5 million how has that impacted the process for putting together this budget presentation if at all sorry did you just say that the deficit for this school year is 8 and a half million I'm sorry for the excuse me the the last budget presentation we saw for the next
school year was 8 and a half million that that was the deficit how has that impacted um this budget presentation so if you will recall what I shared with um with the new ask that were here the new positions that were requested that was a deep conversation that we had as a leadership team Monday and saying given the magnitude of our budget deficit
projected deficit knowing that we need these as Susan articulated some of these are mandated Services um the staff went through an iterative process to say what of these can we actually scale back so we'll be bringing those uh recommendations of those thoughts to you as well but people uh our our leadership team are really um grappling with this as well and understand the magnitude of it but um so there was this when we were
going through the budget Bill process it was what people will typically do is ask for what they feel they need and they deserve which is rightly so um but then they went through the process of saying there is no way that we can really add these pieces as well but we we do want those captur and so uh folks are very aware and they're they're looking at um you know for example looking at ratios uh there have been recommendations of um positions that are I had on the last
slide attrition so some of the retirements do we need to actually um fill those positions um we're looking at case load uh alignment as well so our our folks are going through all of those pieces and processes does that help you Stephen yes so this is this is more like a wish list prior then to uh calibrating it against the current what was that I said yes and no so um
there there are definitely asss that are in here as you know one of them is the five teachers for El but we haven't had those right uh but we know that we need those so um if there is a way to get those in but you know Susan has been very deliberate about you know whatever you put in we have to find something else to take out and so she's been helping us think through uh that process as well because you can't just add um for imp perpetuity as
well okay thank you Jesse yeah um this will be quick um to the idea about you had mentioned having school committee members submit questions can we maybe I mean this will be to the chair then can we come up with some kind of way of sharing that in a document that we all see so that let's say Sarah's not agonizing at home coming up with like seven questions and then Jesse's agonizing somewhere coming up with nine questions and seven of them are the same or if I had read Sarah's I'd say oh she you know oh six of those
are what I what I wrote down so I don't spend all this time shipping things to Susan that she has to now um you know sort of filter and sort between nine inputs so maybe if we could put our heads together separately about how to um collect all this information because a lot will be coming in that way it maybe simplifies it for Susan and then you know sort of put some um categorization or grouping on that okay just as an idea I don't know whether lus or Susan has an immediate suggestion on
how to do that I um otherwise we can think about it offline over the next day or so maybe because I don't want to run a foul of open meeting law um because asking a question can Verge on deliberation when it kind of makes your own opinion pretty clear um but you I think we might be able to clear of that and still have this efficiency Mariah do you remember I I don't even recall last year um how how we handled that I want to say I want to say I want to say they
sent them to me and I that's what I was going to say is I want to say they sent them to me and I pulled them into a batch of questions and and I'm happy to do something like that this year sort of categorize them and sort them but what I don't think we did was Fe them back out to the entire committee um I don't think we did that part I don't think we did that part either yeah yeah so it doesn't necessarily solve the point that Jesse is
making um I wonder if to make it not a deliberation that well I won't say it now I'll we can take it offline but I have an idea all right um second second question question um Susan talked last meeting about a list of bad ideas and the question was when are we going to see those and for all the principles must have also been asked that question at your leadership team meeting as to what
would your bad ideas be why wouldn't we want to wait two three weeks out to see them if they're available can they be shared with the school committee tomorrow or you know after this meeting tonight why would there be a delay in seeing those because that could help guide our thinking as well great question but but as you can imagine with a deficit of that size that involves people and if those people haven't been contacted or made aware of that that would be not a good thing to have that
shared before they know about that M okay so in other words some process to get there a bad idea could be that we have to trim staff or something you know and that would not be something that should be publicized if it if it even gets to that and we're hoping it doesn't it will get publicized but the process would be I'd like to know that prior to that going public of course of course if that was an option I mean we're not saying it's G to happen Okay so could I follow up on that Jesse so um I'm trying
to set expectations then for what we can hope to achieve at our next meeting like next week which is almost entirely devoted to the budget and it's you we have two hours which contain a public hearing on the budget followed by our discussion and then at the end of that we're supposed to vote to send a budget to the town admin administrator should we expect that we're just going to pretty much send this um with with the substantive discussion to about you know what we then have to do to come after that Mariah do you remember the language
that we used last year around this time because we had a Gap a significant Gap at that time but we didn't we did and and I it was something like it was something like whereas the school committee acknowledges that its current budget is X and the allocation is y and we will seek to come closer to that or or it was something along those lines what I would say though is that and and and we've been for many years now we have not been trying to make our
budget fit into the town allocation for the February 15th deadline we've been deliberate in extending that timeline to our own process but I would say that um what makes this challenging is that we had understood we would get the um I don't like the term list of bad ideas so I'm not going to say that anymore um I well we had um strategies to increase revenues and decrease costs and I think I'll just use that so so we had
talked about having that at our January meeting and it wasn't ready and we talked about having it yesterday and then it wasn't presented because it wasn't ready but we've had two Finance meetings where it hasn't happened and so now we're a little bit behind the eightball for our meeting next week so I I think we might need to I I mean is it going to be can it be presented next week it should I don't understand the point of a budget meeting where we haven't gotten sort of like this level of meaningful
information when is that that meeting is Wednesday or third no when is that the next meeting Thursday tonight am I sharing Still You Are oh
Jesus we'll work to get there can I just ask what that means we will uh process through um the ways to uh increase revenues and decrease um expenditures um and contact uh potential staff of programs that may be impacted by our meeting next week prior to the meeting next week thank
you and my um third third one was is just a formatting thing maybe it's my older eyes I'm not sure but all the org charts are basically unreadable in this print uh because of the size of the font and how much stuff is getting in there or maybe just the type of font that's used as well as some of the graphs the one on page 16 for example not readable so yeah so I mean whoever's I don't know who the graphic person is that's putting them all together but um I would take a
look at that and I can send you the page numbers uh if you'd like Susan or something but I mean I don't know who does it but I mean it's not readable so we should fix that thank you right is there anyone else who hasn't spoken yet who would like to well I think in interest of sticking with what we're saying is that we don't want to um really we're going to save our deliberations for next week I think that that means that maybe we hold off on the questions and submit them does
that make sense it's okay we have 10 more minutes allotted for this segment so um you know people should feel free and if not then Carolyn is welcome to continue um I just didn't yeah I wanted to make sure that everybody had a chance to talk um I'm not trying to cut this short um okay go head Caroline I'm not seeing any other hands I have my hand up oh I hand sorry Suzanne I was facing away from you and didn't see you yeah no that's okay thank you um I just I just
want to say that um so when we look at this is a lot to look at and it's kind of fun you know you go through with your pencil and you kind of say your questions and so that's fun um but we don't want to get so but it's hard because so we don't want to get bogged down in every line item otherwise we will never get through it all um but we do need to think of some big areas that that we have some thoughts about and it could involve Personnel in fact
I'm sure it will and so um I guess as we read this instead of thinking of you know $1,000 doll here and ,000 there you know what what is that big topic what is the big bucket that we can think about uh and have a really in-depth kind of hard discussion about that uh and I don't want to throw out possibilities but U you know there could be there could be programs that have to be discussed or there could be positions
that have to be discussed that are that are not a single position but a again kind of like a category or a program so as you we go through this I just encourage us to not get stuck on the $500 for stamps or something you know but think about you know the big picture and how are we going to find this kind of money and so that's just my thought on that thanks
Mariah thank you um this is quick my comment was just that if staff are bringing the strategies to increase revenues and reduce expenses to us next week it might be helpful if we were clear like we were last year um about whether we are asking them to bring to us $8.2 million or some other amount that would give us choices so that's really not it's not it's a
question for the committee I guess of what they're asking for next week would anyone like to wait on that Helen well even though it's more difficult and I I know that you know giving us choices can be difficult there there may be some things
that that the school committee feels are more palatable palatable than other things and so having a few choices might be a good idea if it's feasible say more about that so I think in the past we've had like you know 15 items that add up to 10 million as opposed to 10 items that add up to
8.5 and it's you know a menu so to speak it's an awful way to talk about it it's not what I mean but it may be helpful uh to be able to to figure out what makes sense may not be necessary I mean there may be ways that you look at it that that we don't need to do that
um um and just a quick clarification if we're reading when we're reading through this book and we have a question about a specific line item who do we contact in the next couple of days like what do we do what do we do like if I have a question about I don't know General supplies in OTL what do I do you know I know it's not a $2 million item here it shows it as I don't know what what whatever it is General supplies you
know $20,000 but you know 10 10 things you find at $20,000 is 200k so I'm just saying if we have a question about what goes into something how do we find out what it is because we can't all of us can't be like individually um contact ing uh Deputy staff or Diane or anybody and say what is this and what's the history on this and why are we doing this like how much should we spend on something in the year before and what was rolled up in it so yeah I mean to
Suzanne's point I mean we want to look for big things but if they're small things that nothing's small really I mean 10 bucks is small but I mean if it's 10 or 20 or $30,000 and we we'd like to know what it is can school committee figure it out I mean how do we get that information I think it's collecting the information I I think through Mariah um and then we can okay yeah yeah I think we're asking staff to do a lot in the coming week um without that I mean question Andy go
ahead Val yeah Susan is there a like an Excel backup to this that has all that detail that you could share or is that not how this is built out do you know what I mean like is there a version of this when you open up all of the tabs that has the detail as opposed to the summary um the way that Diane I I do the salary side and I'm not going to publish people's you know some of the details
there um but which is why I give you the Staffing roster and I'm happy to answer questions related to that um on the non-salary side uh Diane um enters dollar amounts into a big database and then but it's not I don't believe it's like descriptive and then she twists and what do you call that Mariah pivot table
pivot table things around and gives me the numbers so I'm I don't really get all that involved in the non-salary side um but that's my best uh explanation for how she does it I can ask her tomorrow what what she you know what she can provide of anything there that would be a great in Excel there's a you know there's a summary and then there's all the backup data right I don't I just don't I don't do a pivot
table I don't do that that piece so I'll I'd have to talk to her about what what might be available and the other thing that's hard especially if you're looking at Trends and stuff like I said the account numers changed which is why she puts all this stuff in these this database thing that she has um so that she can then convert it into you know this account codes going to this you know so it's it's a little messy so so Helen um if I could go back
to your suggestion that uh in the past there have been times when at this stage of the process uh potential Cuts were presented that exceeded the actual shortfall so that choices could be made I mean that does seem like a better way to support decision making but in in in those years what happened to staff who saw that early on that their positions were that's were were were in you know were being called into question and then in the end yeah maybe those positions weren't cut but then how uh how did
things go for for those I can tell you what happened so when people find out you know if it's their positions they will come and at public comment or usually at the public hearing talk about how important you know which they are I mean there's nobody that that we have on staff that's not important we can start with that Baseline um problem is we have to make some choices um and people need to be able to talk too and I think that's what happens
usually if they're uh and even when there aren't I mean let's say even if we get just a a slate of cuts there still will be people that will come and and talk about you know how important the whatever that that position is of what it is I mean you know we've you've seen it last year with the World Language or with um edtech Tech yeah I'm sorry Tech edtech yes yes um so it's you know this
is hard times this is not easy 10 and Jesse I understand you know the 10 and 20,000 but that's not going to get us there um and I and I assume our staff is already looking look at that yeah those small numbers are easy it's easy ways to take away you know some of the deficit um I'm hoping that you know the the building Department's ask asking for an additional 147 million uh thousand, for
next year I don't think we should do that right up front I think that you know if they need it we we will need to find it within our budget later on but at this point we've given we've increased it quite a bit over the year so I mean that's a small amount too 104 but that at least will start to get us towards uh you know a quicker way every 250,000 every half perc of uh the GIC
that goes down or or goes up is uh 250,000 approximately uh that's split I think 6040 between the town we get the 60 they get the 40 so that can be some monies that you know maybe eventually we'll get those smaller groupings can get to a million um and then it becomes hard yeah just wanted to continue the conversation
about how this impacts morale is even without referring to specific people the educators are already talking about this this you know from the point at which the budget Gap was announced that impacts already so it's really important conversations we're having right now of how to figure out how to go about this this is essential to um excellence in schools right yeah and it's people's lives it's their Liv about their jobs are are not able to bring you know bring
their best selves to work and and we all know that you know every other district is facing the same thing I haven't heard of one District that has a surplus or can even meet their budget I don't know if you have and you're uh talking with other superint attendance uh but you know this is this is something across the state everybody's facing this and that doesn't make it any better um but but it's it's definitely an issue yeah I mean I don't see any other way for the skull committee to
have a role in a real role in decision- making other than to ask for options that exceed the actual uh shortfall that we're facing but we should just be very mindful of the the destruction that this is going to cause no absolutely going far beyond the positions that actually end up being M being eliminated uh Stephen I see your hand up yeah yeah you pretty much said what I just said is that I I don't see an alternative other than to request options so that the school committee can make a meaningful decision but I would also add that I
think we can provide a little bit of guidance and I think that guidance is pretty much to stick to the the the beginning of the budget book and the guidelines that we've already put in there I I think as long as they stick as closely to those guidelines and the priority order in which they're listed I think that's all we can request all right Mariah then Carolyn then I'd like to hear from our public commenter of the night there's only one
um and then we should move on to pierce GMP I will I will take my hand down so Carolyn can okay go ahead Carolyn thanks Andy I appreciate you extending the time super quick I just want to sort of um Echo and second V's wish for something accessible I know everybody's working really hard but structurally it it would be great if um if there was some way for us to have more of a look at inputs at
least at some point there's a really big difference between what's available to see in the school department versus like the town where you can see how much a a bag of grass seed costs um um and then just in terms of um you mentioned Susan positions just to be and I mean this respectfully it is public information um I believe salaries
so and I think generally speaking for me it would be helpful to see just like a comprehensive I've asked for this before a comprehensive org chart with an organized compilation of the payroll I don't need names but just like Deans coordinators like how many what the salaries are um for me that would just help round out my understanding
thanks all right thank you U so we can move on to our public comment um Erica Anderson is our speaker this evening got it thank you so much I appreciate it my name is Erica Anderson I have a daughter in the 10th grade at BHS and I have twins who are in the seventh grade at Ruff and Ridley and I appreciate the opportunity to speak I am here and I will be very brief um to
essentially read a letter that was sent to the school committee earlier today by Colin Stokes and I believe we are up to now about a 144 signatures of parents um of current and former students in the district and it specifically addresses the day of racial reform and solidarity that is held at the high school and that's the specific thing that we want to address and it does tie in with the budget discussions which I know is what obviously we've all been
talking about tonight um because diversity equity and inclusion is an extremely important thing in our schools and in our district and it's an extremely important thing to so many of the parents and the students really to all of the students but to so many parents too and we want to make sure that that is foremost in the school committee's mind when you guys are making these very difficult decisions about the budget because we know that where we spend our money demonstrates what we value and our district values diversity it values equity and it values
inclusion because when we can serve all of our students it enriches and educates everybody all of our students and I think that doors which is what I think many of us know that the day of racial reform and solidarity is called by in short um is one of those things and it's not something that's new I think a lot of times Dei feels like something that's kind of a new catchphrase and it's something that was popular for a while and now you know in these last few weeks we've definitely heard how it is
something being slashed from budgets everywhere and we don't want that to happen in our district doors has been happening for almost 10 years and we want it to continue and so I want to read this letter that has been submitted to the school committee we are parents of current and former students in the public schools of Brookline and we write to thank the students faculty and administration of Brookline High School for the powerful day of racial reform and solidarity event that took place on January 28th just a week earlier the federal government demanded that school systems
censor and Pander to the simplistic dogma of Christian nationalism but our community's young adults gathered in their classrooms to hold an intentional conversation about race and racism many teachers and administrators with steadfast leadership from head of school Anthony Meyer worked for months to respond to feedback and adapt this year's event nine Brave students of color allowed their firsthand testimony and Analysis to be the basis for discussion our children all had
different reactions to the day but a Common Thread was respect for those students 239 students responded to a feedback survey after the event 238 of those surveys were positive they appreci apprciated the space to encounter New Perspectives and exchange ideas this is as close to a Smash Hit as Can Be Imagined for a group of teenagers all of Brookline should be proud of this demonstration of our values not just of justice and dignity
but of open dialogue challenging discourse and honest reflection these are core academic principles that underly all rigorous scholarship we ask that the spirit behind the days of dialogue set the tone for the budget decisions ahead that you remain grounded in the voices of those on the margins who are deemed different or lesser and whose rights are currently under attack let us ensure that they receive the resources they need and let any burdens be shared among those of us
who are already thriving we are grateful to the district's leaders who have supported the days of dialogue and other Equity priorities for many years we ask that superintendent gillery and the school committee to continue this tradition it represents the very best of line in the face of efforts to narrow our children's Minds we stand behind it and as the letter has been submitted there are I believe as of six o'clock tonight about 144 signatures from parents of current and former students
thank you thank you very much Miss Anderson all right we move on to our school Committee Action which is a discussion and possible vote of the on the pier School building project GMP contract Amendment with kigle uh so I'll turn it over for this to Helen and the Pierce project team and I think we have some of the project we do hi Andy um we do have some of the uh Pierce project team with us um
I just want to catch people up a bit on where we are um on January 31st I think it was the um um building commission voted um favorably to on the um guaranteed maximum price for the Pierce project of uh 65 it's listed here but it's so small I'm sorry it's not I'm not going
to even with my magnifying glass I don't think I can see it it's approximately 165,000 and we do have a an exact 165,166 that thank you that's just a few zero rounding yes $65,900 282 um which is the final uh guaranteed maximum price um then uh yesterday the
select board also voted uh unanimously to support this uh after some questions and I actually have some of the answers tonight for those questions um and uh basically what we're this is to the budget came in uh close to 3 million under uh the bids came in close to 3 million under the actual um budgeting
budget cost of what we thought it would be at and so we're very pleased with that and in that as I mentioned last time and I won't bother repeating there are well I will repeat a little bit there there are some added uh costs that being one the um town uh fire chief has requested that the two garages next to the um that are adjacent to the new
school but uh if you think about it when you come in from Washington Street there's the library garage and then there's the other garage that town garage uh they don't have um fire uh Sprinklers and um um fire safety or have not the the updated one so there is included in this this cost that's already here the cost of um the um estimated cost of the fire
protection presently we're doing a um a study of it uh the project is paying for it and um it's something that the town may have to do and we just don't know uh so we're we're waiting on that also included in this is the cost of um the mitigation for the geothermal Wells the cost the value of the cost of the subsurface uh which was estimated I
think um at 40,000 we did it like at uh closer to 125,000 will be added to the park that those pieces would be um reconditioning the area by the slide uh at the Pierce Park if people are familiar with that and also um adding a poured surface where there's presently uh wood chips up on the top in the playground and adding
more trees into the project along with some fencing um there's also uh a piece of this that we're working collaboratively with DPW who needs to do some phosphorus mitigation and the project will be able to do that uh but it will be paid for from funding that the DPW has but we're incorporating it into the project collaboration so um I'm sorry I'll make the motion and then we
can go on um just I just want to include one other thing um the um so the um there were two add alternates one was for the windows uh replacing the windows at the uh Pierce primary the historic building uh for approximately I think it was 600,000 and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong on any of these numbers or I
think 656 is the replacement of alternate one for the windows thank you 656 um and the other piece uh was for the photovoltaics that we have presently the building will be for uh ready to to have solar uh on the um uh the roof uh however the we're working together with the sustainability coordinator Alexander Veo to see what is
more coste effective whether to own and operate our own uh U photovoltaics or to uh lease the roofs and that's sort of a discussion in process the next uh building commission may be discussing it or the one following uh the other piece is that it um it came in a bit uh higher uh in terms of cost and we feel that it might be better to do it after the
project with the uh company that just does uh solar U equipment so the money um the the amount that it would cost we still have some wiggle room in the in the budget um but at this point the building commission did not want to include it and so we're not bringing it Forward here there were some questions about the windows um in the um at the um Pierce primary and so I
asked Charlie Simmons if he could tell me when they were last replaced they were replaced in 2007 which is approximately 17 years ago we thought it was 10 years ago and there 10 of them are failing and so there was a long long discussion at the building at the selectboard about the replacement uh they were very concerned about it uh I think if they hear that it's 17 years
presently 17 to 18 years depending when in 2007 they put it in um that um the idea of of trying to fix them uh with no warranty rather than getting new ones and having a building that would be airtight and and more um um sustainable because we would be doing uh better Windows uh but is that is that a normal 17 years what they expected I don't
think so I think they expect more but the warranty was only for 10 years I think windows can last longer um but if you think about it by the time we finish with this project there'll be over 20 years old so um well I guess warranty is different than lifetime yeah life expected life meaning the expected lifetime is like on your own home 30 years going to look into whether we could get any from the
the company but it's not clear or what it would cause to airtight them well make them airtight uh it's apparently I don't know okay that part that's beyond my my pay level I'm sorry um so those are the the pieces of the P um that we're asking you to vote I will make the motion to vote to approve phase two of the GMP including alternate one for a total value of
152 uh for a total value of 152 mil 43,2 63 and uh including the previously approved phase one that you voted last year uh uh GMP for the total final GMP value of 165 milon 193 282 do we have a second for that motion okay thank
youan all right so we have people here from both the con uh consigli and from uh our owner project manager and I'm not sure if there's anybody else here I can't see is that the the four of them yeah okay okay so if anybody has any questions yeah just one other piece just one question these aren't summed together or anything this is 165 is the total correct of the original um 168 million that was budgeted budgeted okay
or estimated not budget estimated if I could just make a clarification the the 165 is the total project cost and that is inclusive of the previously approved phase one so this one includes phase one and phase two but it is a total project cost of 165 193 282 about yeah yeah and this is just the
construction the construction correct yeah it has to be because the override was to be very clear that is just the construction that is the contract with kigle and that is what we're voting today because the bids have come in these are fixed prices and if we sign the contract by February 10th they have to hold to these prices I will make one comment sure um I will vote for this um but I do just want
to say for the record there were the was a conversation about the add-ons including the windows um and I get it they're failing um and they're 17 years old and they're 17 years old and we have a whole whole town worth of school buildings with lots of you know older things failing things so it just it I'll speak it just feels a little like Mission creep in terms of from my perspective personally so I just want to
say it in terms of our responsibility um to voters taxpayers and and sort of fiscal Prudence we do lots of work at lots of schools um a new dishwasher went into Baker but we didn't expand the cafeteria that's a little exaggerated an example but it's a little bit of mission creep we have a really serious deficit in our operating budget we have a really serious gap for next
year the select board has convened what is a override study committee so for me I feel like um I would go with with Prudence rather than adding um and we haven't even Broken Ground on this project so uh I would rather leave wiggle room I'll vote for it but I do have to say that that's my my thinking on on that ad well I would like to to
respond to to what Carolyn's saying first of all we do have wiggle room we have a 10% correct me if I'm wrong a contingency we have a construction contingency we have an owner contingency that's above and you know incorporated into the 165 million so those are pieces that that you know if something were to run over if there were a change order fortunately the project to date the the first GMP has had no change orders I don't know if you guys
realize we haven't had to vote any change orders and that's a testament to the work that the Architects and the contractor have done together to to avoid that uh that piece um the other thing with the windows sometimes uh being Pennywise and pound foolish is not the the best thing to do in addition uh if we had to do them in 10 years from now we wouldn't get reimbursed from msba for it so all of those reasons are
important for us to to do it now and get it done with the inconvenience for the school of redoing Windows is huge um and you know we'd have to to close up the school for the summer whatever this is a brand new school I mean everything inside is going to be brand new the rest of it should you know if it if it didn't need it in the beginning we thought it didn't need it why are we closing the school for it it wouldn't it be done while the construction of the new building's happening it's a different
organization building wa who's talking I am Jessie is Jesse oh I'm sorry I was looking over here I thought no I'm saying is that why are you mentioning that the school have to be closed and it's an imposition wouldn't this be done while the oh this is going to be done now if we voted but if she's saying if we do it in in 10 years have to inconvenient over a summer yeah that's what I was trying to say no of course not no no okay and just to be clear I believe the project uh Team said at the select board meeting yesterday that we
do not know that there will be this would be reimbursed no that's no that will be in re this will be reimbursed this is eligible all right Val and then I have a question thank you um Helen I just want to make sure that that this is inclusive of All Steel costs all Lumber costs and that's then guaranteed price is that correct um I'll leave that to the whoever wants to answer it it's it's
inclusive of everything that we know at this time right so there's um um we are in the proc you know we'll be assuming that this gets voted tonight will be in the process of or conly will be in the process of of buying steel another concern is Lumber uh coming from uh potentially from Canada but all known um costs right but it it is not protecting us currently about future
tariffs we're trying to get the job bought with the hopes that we can get in front of that right but that's what I'm saying if we sign this now before the 10th we are ahead of any potential tariff is that right yes okay thank you that was actually my question too that what is the meaning of guaranteed and guaranteed maximum price like are there any contingencies that could leave us footing the bill for for an overrun um we were the guaranteed
maximum price contract does does include um contingency we have construction contingency within that but that is the guaranteed maximum price unless there were excessive change orders to the project but if that were the case we have owner side contingencies to mitigate that we on the owner side we have our own contingencies um a construction contingency and what's called an owner's contingency as well okay but like
geopolitics accidents anything like that like the the guarantee is still the guarantee that is borne by consigli and not by us well that would be a force measure situation if we had um you know a tariff right nobody knows if or how much these tariffs uh would be so we're going to have to navigate that uh together so the price of steel Rises dramatically because of tariffs weak we
and ninigi might have to be might have to cover that that's correct but we do have so what does guaranteed mean here if it it leaves us subject to probably rather predictable contingencies in this case well so what happens in a project oftentimes you know winter conditions they they account for a certain amount let's say we have 30 feet of snow for 10 days or something like that and they can't work you know that may be an issue um I think maybe it's best ask
kigle what is your plan to try and work through some of the uh tariff issues what have you been doing already and what what would you think to do on this project once we you get the okay hopefully tonight uh so in terms of the tariffs for Alex maybe introduce yourself oh hi my name is Alex rosek I'm the project manager for kigle I was also a former student of the pier school as well so
wonderful yeah uh so I will I will note that for structural steel we have two options we have one Canadian uh option that has told us that they will take care of all of the tariffs for the structural steel and we also have another option as an American Steel option so that they would not be subject to tariffs and then we've also confirmed with our concrete sub uh that they will not be exposed to tariffs as well so
those two are kind of the bigger costs uh in terms of in terms of tariffs so to help mitigate any of those questions at the very least thank you thanks other questions all right let's vote okay um Jesse yes Sarah yes Suzanne yes Helen yes Carolyn yes Val yes Mariah yes stevenh yes and I vote Yes as
well all right I think we're the last of the three boards to vote on this right so now it's uh we are we are we and that's usually the way it is uh with a project like this the select Board needs to you know oh usually before we do y oh thank you Helen and thank you to all the members of the project team who joined us uh for this disc very much thank you anybody at home who's watching there is a Weekly Newsletter that goes out from kigle to the neighborhood and anybody
who signs up for it um that you can find out what's happening with the project what's happened that week what's going to happen the following week um it's really quite helpful with pictures about what's going on so thank you thank you guys for coming I'm sorry you had to wait it's all good thank you very much thank you have a good night thank you got all right this takes us to sub committee and leison reports um Helen Capital
Improvements I don't think I have anything more than that that pretty big all right uh right now yep I'm good excellent Val anything on the driscal building Pro project oh we are doing quite well um Suzanne curriculum we have not met yet for this month we'll meet later in the month okay um Sarah de J I'd like to note that the February 12th meeting is canell thanks uh Mariah
Finance um in addition to the report we gave earlier I would just like to note that we had um conversation too about uh um the position control report and some questions we have you C out um questions we had about Staffing there too and I think those will be
followed up on in our budget questions all right thanks government relations I guess that's me um we have our annual meeting with legislators here uh on Monday at uh 4 o' okay policy Stephen um no update since our last meeting and with apologies our next meeting previously scheduled for 211 is cancelled okay uh any additional updates
Le on reports Jesse um yeah this relates to My Le on activity with CPAC um I sent an email to um Dr Giller and um some staff uh earlier today we have a um Community CPAC meeting tomorrow morning at 8:30 um and it's the first one that they're going to be running hybrid so lots more people that can come to downstairs will be online and some of the questions that I'd like to be able to there will be a
segment where Stephen and I I'll be I'm hoping to be there in person but Stephen may be remote and I'm hoping to uh we're on the agenda actually to be um to answer questions from the whole special ed parent community about um the current situation and so um I want to use this opportunity to maybe ask a brief question maybe or two that'll help me tomorrow morning with the with the community um probably just ask Dr Giller and he can tell me or um
because I'm not sure I'll get an email response tonight orless he wants to um but I mean it's going to you know there's not a lot of time left so about 4:30 or so something today maybe I wonder if the this could happen offline after the meeting instead of right now okay that's fine um then we are good thank you all right thanks Jesse good luck
tomorrow you're welcome thank you all right um lastly before we go to Executive session we have new business uh does anyone have new business okay I don't see any I actually have one item um so earlier today I heard from uh the beu president um expressing some interest in uh working with the school committee to come up with a joint statement uh that would affirm a safe and inclusive PSP uh
in the face of recent executive orders from the Trump Administration um I don't want to deliberate on that right now but I would like to ask whether anybody wants to volunteer to um be the liaison um work with the beu over the coming week and see whether it's possible to bring something back to the school committee next week uh to deliberate on I'm happy to do that if is that with Justin or who's the that would be with Justin yeah um or with um who with whoever you know
on the beu is is working on a on a statement can I ask a a question yeah Caroline so is that a typical for like for if we're not going to deliberate whether we want to have somebody work with the be is it typical that if they ask we just like is
is it typical for the school committee to make some kind of statement in collaboration with the beu for for someone to be assigned like that I'm probably too new on the committee to really know that um but I wouldn't say it happens all the time but you know um I did receive this communication there's interest um I would like at least to explore it uh and Val seems interested in in having that conversation and again you know
something can be brought back to the sko committee next week we can either go with it or not or you know I mean if somebody else is interested in collaborating on it that's fine too well I was going to propose Sarah as well since she's the uh the J chair not not to your exclusion but Sarah if you were interested in doing it I was going to suggest that you would be well well positioned to do it as well so Val were you saying together or were you saying instead of you because i' I'd like to have you there
actually um sure I think it's it'll probably be by phone or Zoom or right right however be you wants to meet you I just think that you have very relevant experience so but I would love to do that to get as well um okay well thank you both um so yeah well let's see if um let's see if we'll have something uh to discuss next week so sorry I I have to like so this was not noticed and we don't have an opportunity
to discuss it and I think it's something that would be the idea of I'm interested in the idea of a statement collaborating with the beu which is politically and structurally affiliated with the MTA um is not something that I'm comfortable with
um so it it's a little it feels a little strange that even having school committee members discuss with the beu is not something that you're comfortable with we're not we're not we have nothing front of us right now yeah um and we we could well if you convince enough people next week we could decide not to move forward okay so I I guess you'll I think we're on the verge of deliberating as it is so and by the way to because this if
you're worried about it not being noticed well I received this communication at 4M uh a few minutes later I emailed the school committee just to alert you all that this would be coming up I think this is very legitimately new business yes but it's the a decision and so I would I would no decision has been made two members have volunteered to talk with the beu president or anybody on the beu who's been working on this they will come back to us next week and report on
those discussions then we will deliberate that will be noticed uh if in fact you we're going to discuss it okay my understanding of what you sent at 4:00 was the idea of assigning somebody to collaborate with the beu not the statement itself and so yeah I I hear what you're saying but the wording I I I sort of maybe saw it
the same way the wording of your email I mean the email was noticed early I get it but it said whether the school committee would like to designate liaison to work with the VA so that's like a that be a discussable so I took Carolyn's point that that that might require a vote I don't think we actually need to designate anybody what has happened is that I reported that the beu expressed interest in working with us on a statement and asked whether anybody was interested in working with the beu uh two members so far have volunteered to do that and I
think that you know if anything comes of these conversations then we should deliberate about it next week in a noticed way okay I have another new I I have new business too which now is inspired by this so I would like to um put out there for future discussion the um the fact that the MTA the Massachusetts Teachers Association
has developed curriculum that they are trying to get into schools um about um the conflict in the Middle East uh the curriculum is is biased and political um that this you cannot say as a new business you're opinion if you're asking that this be docketed that would be a different I would like us to docket that at some point the the concern about that
curriculum coming into our schools okay that's noted I see Mariah's hand up uh thank you I've been meaning to mention this for a while but I keep forgetting so I'm going to bring it up now under new business which is I thought it might be interesting at one of these meetings in the near future if we did what some school committees do which is they hand around the warrant so everyone can see the kinds of things that those of us who review the warrant which is mostly me but also um Jesse these days um see and
so it might just be interesting for people to have that experience as a group and and I thought it might be something where we could talk a little bit about the kinds of things that we see it is a fascinating exercise to go through the warrant um okay um any more new business all right I don't see any so I will propose or rather I will move to meet an executive session pursuant to Mass General laws chapter 30A section
21A for the following purposes purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to potential multi-district litigation relating to social media harm if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares and purpose 7 to review and approve executive session minutes from the following meeting January 9th 2025 do I have a second second I heard Jesse uh thank you um let's vote Jesse yes Sarah has stepped out uh Suzanne yes
Helen yes Carolyn yes B yes Mariah yes stevenh yes and I vote Yes we will not be returning to open session good night