##VIDEO ID:pErWCTYBXPM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e welcome to the Monday January 13th 20202 meeting of the Dennis Jam Regional school committee please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible jice thank you first we'll start with our student representative report all right good evening everybody I hope everyone had a good week thank you for having us so um we have the end of the semester coming up on the 24th so right now sort of um like a cramming week or two for everybody as we wrap up our semester 1 classes everyone's getting there working and a little bit of a scramble but um our formal Winter band held their annual concert on Thursday and they've been in class A since 1994 and now they're in open class which is the highest class in a major jump after 30 years it's a really big accomplishment and we're so proud um and then poetry out loud we have on Friday the 17th um so this contest um teachers begin beginning in eth grade make it mandatory to memorize a poem and then it's optional to perform in the contest so yeah and now Izzy has some sports news hi everybody um this has been a really really impressive week for DWI sportswise so our hockey team played Bourne and won this Saturday and our girls basketball beat monoy on Friday those were just some of our little accomplishments cuz the both the girls m boys track team remain undefeated and this Saturday they went to the Northeast Invitational meet where there was a lot of record set so um Christen Theus at the new School record for the triple jump and then most impressively we had bana Braham who's a senior and she set the overall meet record The New School record and the fastest time in Massachusetts she's currently ranked number one in the state and number 17 Nationwide so the track team is very very excited I think everyone at school is very excited to hear that and we're all very proud of her and of the teams overall and that's sort of all I have on Sports but obviously very impressive and looking forward to the rest of the season great thank you so much um you know going into the ideas of our student involvement our next agenda item is our Community Partnership Awards um we're going to have a presentation uh Miss O'Reilly will conduct about our Pathways program good evening I'm Melissa O'Reilly I'm the Special Education team chair and department chair at Dy um I'm joined here if you guys would like to come up just make sure that you're close to the microphone so we can hear you but they can't hear you on TV got it I'd like to introduce you to the educators of our Pathways to Independence um transition program I have Mary kappo biano Lead Teacher lilan price Lyman and Lori Richards school to careers assistants we also have some student Representatives with us tonight I have come on you guys can wave as I call your name Kira Stewart nalii Rosario Jasmine Cruz and Dakota soua and um we've invited them today here tonight because um they've recently been hired for their first jobs through one of the um partners that we're celebrating tonight so I think it's important to show that um we are honored to stand here before you to celebrate the recipients of our first Community Partnership Awards our Pathways to Independence transition program is for students with disabilities ages 18 to 22 years old who just require some extra time to develop social skills vocational skills in career exploration life skills and transitional skills in planning within this program our students participate in many community-based experiences which are needed to increase their abilities in order for our students to become independent we need Partners in the community to work collaboratively to provide opportunities for them to generalize these skills so what do we mean by partnership or a partner a partnership includes providing our students with Community settings to observe train and job coach partnership is allowing students to work directly with the public knowing comments on social media media can make or break their Business Partnership means exposure to experiences our students might encounter in their future and prepare them for events that can be life-saving partnership is providing our students with materials to practice and ractice within the school setting partnership is accepting mistakes and allowing our students to learn from those mistakes without ever being turned away a partner is dedicating time and resources to our school Community tonight we are honoring three Partners in our community with a badge of honor that I hope will hang proudly in their establishments so when you as members of our public go into our community and see our emblem you'll know that this establishment supports our school district Lillian can you introduce our first two recipients hi I would um just like to briefly start by saying this is my dream job absolutely love it and I'm very dedicated to getting these students exactly what they deserve but I would not be able to do what I do if I did not have the support and encouragement from our department head Melissa O'Reilly so thank you Melissa for G always giving me the green light and I'm shaking here so um okay so now to why we're here when I first got my job at dy I was tasked to go out into the community and um find some job opportunities or in the work space for these guys I straight away Tau of Margaret and Dave damsey not because they're Irish but that helps and um they are they're the owners of the Celtic kitchen and the Celtic Cottage gift store I went to Margaret and spoke of this and she um welcomed us with open arms and has done for the past three years um Margaret's patience kindness and support to our students had made them develop skills in the retail industry from day one she has the Celtic Cottage has provided our students with opportunities including stocking taking inventory assisting customers pricing products leaning up goods and I'm going to faint in um managing the cash register the Celtic college has been instrumental in teaching our students how to work in the retail environment the DIY Community would like to thank and name you an official partner in the pathways Independence trans transition program we are so grateful for your time patience and commitment towards our program and students thank you Margaret and Dave thank you to the Celtic cottage for being with us from the start you are such an incredible part of our program we would love to award you with a symbol for your gen generosity and commitment towards our community but Margaret and Dave are in Ireland at the moment so to accept this award on their behalf is their daughter Amy Dempsey who happens to be a special education teacher in Boston Amy [Applause] all right trying not to sound like a sheep um okay our next recipient recipient of the Community Partnership Awards goes to the crazy roof Boer I would like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to this very very special partner from the very beginning from the very beginning Teddy and Vana has opened its doors to our students providing them with invaluable work experience and real life work skills that they will have with them for years to come we are deeply grateful for your unwavering commitment and dedication to supporting our students the crazy rooster never hesitated to allow us to send students to their establishment whether it was for job shadowing training or handsone experience their generosity exp expands even more than that they have provided provided us with items that we can bring into school example um coffee pots cups trays so that we practice serving skills at our own safe environments you have supported us in mastering some in-house skills too like rolling silverware filling up condiments all of which are essential components to working in the food industry these opportunities have provided our students with practical real world understanding of what it takes to succeed in the food industry but perhaps most rewarding of all is that after two and a half years of valuable work experience four of our students were hired by the crazy rooster for paid positions this is a true testimony of the growth and success of our program and more importantly to the trust and belief that you have placed in these young individuals Dakota Dakota Souza stand over here Kira Stewart Jasmine Cruz nelli rosero these guys behind me are amazing they have all learned to bus tables and two of them have also been host hostessing at the crazy rooster come see us there um Teddy and Vana your investment in their future goes far beyond just teaching them technical skills required for the roles you have instilled confidence work ethic and a sense of Pride and accomplishments for them for them and also for their families you have provided a foundation that will help them build successful careers and that gift is truly truly invaluable almost over so from the bottom of our hearts Vana and Teddy we thank you we thank you for being a partner and providing these students with the opportunity to grow and for believing in their potential we are incredibly fortunate to have the crazy rooster as part of our educational journey and we look forward to many more years of collaboration van and Teddy come on up here and please accept this award as a symbol of of your commitment to our community another big piece to the pathways to Independence program is to build life and safety skills within our Dy Community First Responders play an essential role in keeping our community safe but what many people don't realize is that they off often also serve as teachers mentors and Role Models when students with disabilities are given a chance to interact with First Responders it creates an invaluable learning experience that helps build important life skills personal confidence and Independence and more importantly when students and First Responders begin to get to know each other that relationship can be life-saving it is so important that student students with disabilities learn how to react to emergencies and different situations teachers within a school can describe to students what can happen and what can do but when given an opportunity to wear a uniform hear sounds lift masks and get to know the people under those masks breaks down the barriers of fear that many people face in times of need when students and First Responders are able to work together and create a relation reltionship First Responders will gain valuable insight into how to better assist individuals with disabilities when their face with an emergency tonight we would like to honor the Yarmouth fire department who has spent two years educating our students lilan thank a few years ago I reached out to many of our First Responders in our community to ask them to work with our program the araar department under Chief Enrique as asur uh I I we talked about this I couldn't say it properly um jumped at the chance to work with our students from there members of the department like firefighter Nan Courier took the Reigns and developed a program program using funds from safe which is student awareness fire education and they also use money um that Chief Enrique said they could from the firefighter funds to develop these learning experiences this year the Arma fire department expanded it and gave us two different programs for our students with different abilities some of our students learns some more advanced skills like basic first aid how to use a fire extinguisher where they're located in their house how to put out a small fire in their home also when to call 911 and even how to use their own EpiPen while other students were still getting used to the lights and sounds and all the bells and whistles that comes with for sponsors their engines and Equipment just the other day we had a situation at the high school where we were evacuated one of our students who usually struggles to handle the fire alarms handled this absolutely beautifully and in fact when she got outside she was asking where firefighter naan was this is what it's actually all about I would also like to thank all the members of the armor fire department who came in on days off to volunteer their time one in particular is Mary Sylvia thank you so much Mary for doing that and all the other guys um This truly has been a win-win for our community um it really does take a village so on behalf of DIY we would love to to to give the Arma fire department and chief Enrique and chief firefighter Nathan we'd like you to come on up here and Sarah I would like to take a moment to recognize the other community members that are Al to our program a special thank you to the skipper Chowder House and the Delaney family Cape Cod crey Hearth and Kettle bra Farm in Ocean State Job Lot we're also incredibly grateful for the following Educators Tammy Ostrom Kathy malasian Rich Chase Chris cunnington Michael Freeman Austin Anderson Tina Andre Ashton Sylvester Claudia Sears Aon Carson and Tracy Shen for welcoming our students and opening their doors to to their classroom words cannot fully convey how much your contributions and compassion have helped our program grow and Thrive and therefore developed our student skills your dedication is truly making a difference in the lives of our students and we are deeply appreciative of everything you do for those of you in our community that know know or have opportunities to share we welcome you whether it's offering your time expertise or resources your involvement can truly change lives please reach out and contact any one of us if You' like to be a partner in our program thank you for your time and commitment to our school Community if I can just ask our award recipients our partners and our students just please approach the stage so we can take a picture e believe we're just going to have a short presentation too they worked so hard to show us some pictures of sou the students in action so we're going to have them show some of the slides and then um the committee has any comments or questions we can add to that as well e so I think they're going to put the slideshow on an auto Loop so we can have any questions or comments from the committee I could start at the end Mr Glenn as the as we're going through yeah can you hear me um I just wanted to point out because it really truly is a community team um I'll point out to Mary Kaa biano which come from a distinguished local public service family and and uh you know as a former firefighter uh EMT uh I can honestly say that the Y fire department is amongst the best anywhere and I mean anywhere um in you know keltic kitchen I go there a lot and uh um Dave Dempsey and Margaret are fantastic I uh I when Billy Dempsey was in the Marines I always got the D sandwich uh because uh in honor of him but the my point being that this group in our community comes together and you can see the love here you can see what our community means and uh congratulations to all of you and thank you so much Mr new anything okay Mr Morris the scientists who do analysis of work study and job placement have always noted that people get in a habit of the same thing over and over again as if they're in a silo but breaks down The Silo mentality is the blending of different parts of our community this is probably the best example I've ever seen thanks again Mr Martin anything I I love this so much that I'm I'm almost I'm almost choked up you know I I'm a special ed dad you know and you know seeing work like this and seeing the outpouring of support from the community and you know the the north fire department stepping up and the crazy rooster and the Celtic kitchen Celtic Cottage it's um I mean it's it's really heartwarming to see and it's um it's a great I mean it's a great program and I love the fact that uh the community is coming in and embracing this and um and congratulations to the the the students who who got their first jobs you know we're we're going to expect a lot out of you you know um you're G to do fantastic um it's a wonderful thing that's happening and I I I I hope that this continues to grow and um the community continues to be involved I'm very very PR proud um very proud that this is in our district and I'm very proud of the community for stepping up and for um and for all of you for putting this together thank you so much just congratulations to all of you on this uh extremely successful program thank you so much for your dedication staff Community Partners um thank you for putting your heart into this and dedicating time and energy to making this such a successful program and congratulations to all of our students navigating this program and um finding success I again want to express my thanks you know work can be very hard we all know that we're all been workers somewhere uh so we understand how hard could work but work has a ritual sometimes it's just joy and you come together to celebrate what makes it unique and special and this is one of those occasions when uh we're celebrating the joy of work thank you so much yeah just as you see the word Joy just the smiles on the faces I can see on all these pictures and in things that are are not fun you know loud noises are something that scares my child um he wears headphones to a lot of different things um and and just to see being able to introduce things to people so uh specifically our you know our youth so that they're not afraid the fact that you talked about the the the U fire alarm going off and student being looking for for a firefighter rather than you know running away and you know all the great partners that we talked about you know the three that we um acknowledge tonight the crazy rooster Celtic Cottage in y with fire department was at the crazy rooster a couple weeks ago and two of the students one sat me and one brought me my water so I I didn't know that they were our students and it's exciting now to to see that I got to see the program um in play and I'm at the um Celtic kitchen every Wednesday so you might see me at the Crazy R because they're closed because they're in Ireland so uh now I know where my my play place will be to go why uh why it's closed and then future from there but um you know the students talked about all of our great Athletics we've had presentations we've talked about our robotics it's great to see the the variety of things that our school offers and as we go into one of the most important roles of our job and the school committee next in the the budget is talk about how important it is that we have the funds we need to provide these opportunities right um we have a lot of hard discussions about what we can't do um you know there's so much that we want to do so I we need things like this to remind us why we're here and this is the fuel we need to fight for the things that our students need um because a lot of you know people say oh you need to cut this you cut that but you know we know we're talking about people if you're talking about jobs or you know we say FTE but we know they're people um or programs because the programs affect the students and you know seeing the students in front of us um you know plays a key role in the decisions that we make um we'd love to have everything we never can um but it it makes gives again as I said it gives us fuel to fight um when we're when others say no we still say yes and we look for the town and support from the Two Towns to help get us what we need so thank you again for uh the presentation and for all of your all the students and partners that have helped us to get to where we are so thank you and Dr Smith just to build up uh What uh Mr Martin was saying this definitely the best part of my day which probably will be the best part of my week um and I think when I think about why it's probably for a couple of reasons one you had to have a vision and you had a vision for a program from from the staff perspective and then you went out and made that Vision come to life right so that shouldn't be under undersold um because it takes a vision uh in order to bring something like this to life so you should be congratulated for having a and celebrated for having a vision uh and then you found people once you have a vision and you can sell a vision then you found Partners to partner with you in that vision and when you have a great vision you can find people to get on board with you that Vision then um you create a great pathway for the students and in that way like then it's got all the great elements of learning I mean like true learning is when we can find something and actually apply it you take what happens in the classroom the ultimate goal is to actually be able to use that in life right I me this is exemplifies that the students have learned things in the classroom and they're actually implying it in the real world and it's actually turned into employment that's to me that's the definition of a high school and post high school learning experience so congratulations from to Educators for Designing and having the vision design a program and then thank you thank you I've said this at this table 100 times that we are nothing without the community support that we get often times I'm talking about it because we're getting donations and this is that but in a very different way right this is a donation of time and commitment to the district um and this is the I don't know the materialization I guess this probably a better word but it's getting later in the day day is getting a little long but this is this again the best part of my day and probably will be the best part of my week thank you and anything from our student Representatives any you know you guys are interacting with the students in this program in the school and you probably see more than we see um or have some yeah hi um I mean I just want to say I see how hard everybody works I know like Miss cappo I see you all the time I like really can acknowledge this is an amazing program inside of school I really didn't know about any of this community outreach outside of school so I think that this is like so amazing for students and I think that students should be more educated on this because it's it's so great to see we get to see the hard work every single day at school between like our schoolwide events and everything and I think this is just a further Testament to how hard everybody works and how hard the students work and the Educators and I feel so proud to be part of a district that can really just like prioritize so many students and I'm I'm excited I'm so happy to see how well everybody's doing so thank you guys thank you it's okay you don't have to if you have something you can she's ready I was just thinking like as they were presenting like how beautiful it was that like everyone on the committee said something that connected to them and like the program and I don't know who it was over here but they said that it brings like it brings tears to your eyes because it's just it's it's amazing and I'm I'm really happy to be a part of like a district in a school that I don't know it just feels like kindness is just like spreading everywhere and it feels feels really good thank you um you know I'm in another organization and they talk about the three ways to give you know time Talent OR treasure right you know some people have availity to donate money some people have the availability to to Mentor or show or um you know and there's different ways that we can give and we hear about them each week all the different ways um it doesn't always have to be money um you know the volunteers that we have every day in our schools and then you know the mentors that we we have in our schools through programs like this and some of the other programs we've heard about that the high school does and some of the other schools do I know elementaries have uh a reading program where they have volunteers from the community come and read to classrooms it's just such a great feeling to know that you know people really love our community and we we talk about we've talked about in our strategic goals and our our goals of what it means to be part of this this Dy Community or the dolphin Community as we call it um and it's great to hear the examples and a lot of it is graduates of Dy right we talk about all the amazing people that have uh graduated and and give back in some way um I've seen people zoom in from you know science schools across the country to classes in the middle school and all the different people that come to career day or that own businesses or had even if they're not graduates their students went through a program so they give back um in any way they can because they're they're their children have gotten something out of our program so you know it's it's a really great feeling so thank you to to everyone our partners and our definitely our staff and our teams and our and our students right because you know a lot of the stuff we talk about doesn't always involve the students but it's great to hear from the students and we know it's not easy we know it's not easy having to present every week and when we put you on the spot and you know coming in front of a group of people you don't know it's you know it's not easy for any for us so we appreciate it and then uh the next on our agenda again is you know what I talked about before it's our our 2026 budget and I'll pass it over to Dr Smith about some of the decisions we've had to made based on you know where our funding is so I don't know how I'm supposed to follow that but yeah yeah and and here's the budget yeah all right so um I guess the good news where is that this is largely not much has changed between last week and this week so I am going to go through it fairly quick quickly the large um task uh that the committee has uh for today is that is today is the day that we have that you all um have to vote the tentative budget that's your task today there so there is a motion at the end of the slide deck and there are a couple of um additional slides that I've added just some more additional information between last week and this week um and there's a couple of narrative points that I'll add as we go through but I'm going to move a little quicker through the slide deck than I did David and I did on last Monday please stop me at any point that you want but there again not much new we haven't there the big new information will come when the governor's budget comes out uh at the end of this month so when we get to the budget hearing in the uh beginning of February that's when you'll we'll have some much more new information to share so first just starting with the Strategic plan as I mentioned before this is really driving us and setting our direction for the next five years and gives us our priorities and areas of focus uh and really this is where we've really tried to drive all the prior uh all the proposals from uh as we move forward as a district and really what's shaping all of our Direction and and really should be giving us our priorities in budgeting as well this is where we are in the calendar so you know we had that last meeting and then as I mentioned before approving the tentative budget is today's task uh this is all the information that we'll get in the budget the governor's Budget on the 22nd well yeah it'll come out on the 22nd and we'll start incorporating it on the 23rd so again a lot of information still to come to us uh that will be incorporated into the budget uh this is the current budget on this is a pie chart that really just shows how money is allocated and really largely to show most of the budget we don't have much uh is in fixed cost right the salaries are a huge chunk of it then there's a whole section on Transportation utilities Capital costs tuition that takes up almost 95% of the budget um is is in those three main main areas as we head into 26 there are really four main things that are driving the budget implementing the Strategic objectives as I mentioned the Strategic plan is a Big Driver as we move over the next five years um we have contractual obligations we're benefited by having all of our major contracts settled uh but and we do have some service contracts for transportation for custodial Etc um we do have some contracted services for some needs that we're not able able to meet with our staff or with some unfilled positions um and then at a district um special education costs both for the service and for the transportation um and then student need continues to drive uh the budget as well as us level funding the uh supply lines across the district so Staffing uh again showed this graph last time but it's really to articulate the Staffing patterns over the last 10 years or so showing uh the reduction in Staff last year yes Mr new if you could you give me the difference in student population 2015 uh there is a slide on coming up which has the enrollment uh moving forward yeah uh so then the next shows just us compared Staffing to teach or Staffing to student ratios these are out of a hundred um by different positions so this is by teachers par Educators leadership student support and clerical Dy has the Little Green Dot as I mentioned last time this is using the dart tool that Desi provides and you can run it either by districts with similar demographics or districts with similar wealth and it'll give you about 10 I think it's either 10 or 12 comparable districts so then I um sorted those by ones that also had similar enrollment so that because it would have been too crowded if I'd given you 24 comparables um the there was a public comment um made at the end of our last meeting around the some of the similar wealth districts that were up there like that that we didn't really compare to those and all I can say is so I grabbed how it is calculated by desie so desie again uses a term called relative wealth relative wealth comes is from the dark calculations it's calculated by an algorithm that equalizes both property value and medium household income as used in the chapter 78 formula to find the most numerically similar districts so for Dy the per pupil um expenditure is 22,7 32 and the relative wealth of our district according to this calculation is 154.32 29 their relative wealth is 1643 per. Watertown their per pupil is 24,5 181 and their relative wealth is 171.123 956 their relative wealth is 136.6 and then fouth their per puple is 22,88793 [Music] [Music] it's all I mean per pupil is literally just the amount of your overall budget divided by the number as I was listening to public comment uh she was uh giving us numbers as to the amount of students that were elll also all the way down the line so they were much less than our district so that would potentially equate to why our per pupil expenditure is a little higher because we have a higher number of students with with needs perhaps but some of the district so like thalouth has a higher per pupil not by a lot but has a higher per pupil Watertown has a higher per pupil but Marblehead has a lower per pupil so it's all and then the other districts the other remaining ones so uh it's blurry uh let's see barnable thank you barnable Randolph SAS and West Spring Springfield have similar demographics to us so that's why those ones are similar demographics and a similar size size enrollment the other ones are similar relative wealth and similar size enrollment uh oops I'm I'm turning the pages on my paper but not on the slide sorry okay so uh here's your uh graph on enrollment over the going all the way back to 2013 so you can see there was a steady incline or decline rather up in through the pandemic and then post pandemic we've been on a steady incline we have the highest enrollment we've had uh in the last decade over the last two years um we're over 3,100 students in the district um as of my last check a couple weeks ago over 3100 yeah it's like 3184 I think it was the last time I checked the percentage of high needs students I just double I know they're going to be releasing the updated data soon I just checked this morning they haven't released it yet so this this data lags by about six months or so so it you know that that number has been steadily increasing in the district um so I don't have the 2425 data just yet so it goes all the way up till 242 uh 2324 rather um and then that breaks down um um into there the high needs is made up of these four um uh groups of Stu Oru uh categories of students and and and a student can be in any can be in all four two three one of these can be identified in in these now I have the 2425 data because I ran it internally on our own um students but I don't know the algorithm that they use to get from here to um High needs I don't I don't know how they that calculus works on the state side so I can't figure it out for us um plus the the number I used for economically disadvantaged for us was the free and reduced number which is not the same as economically disadvantaged they're close but they're not the same um but what you can see here is a steady increase um in students whose first language is not English um we're up almost to 30% this year year um and that's been steadily growing um you see an increase in the English uh learner percentage we're up uh to 18% of our students basically one out of every five students in the district um and that uh free economically disadvantaged number tracking somewhere between 50 and 60% uh pending depending upon the year while special education stayed pretty stable between 16 and you know 18% over the last decade plus this is a new slide uh I was interested in in looking at this so I tracked going back about 15 years tracked uh race and ethnicity data in the district and uh so you'll see just a a slow uh change in the race and ethnicity uh demographics in the data in the district so you can see uh basically the percentage of white students has dropped from 2 and and and I could have gone back further but the the the breakdown in the data starts to change before 2007 like all the different um ethnicity categories that they give you so it's kind of where I stopped um but this trend kind of continues as you go further back in time but in 200 78 school year 81% of the students in Dy were white and getting into or at the end of last school year 63.2% of the students in Dy were white with the largest increase in non-white students being Hispanic and uh black uh African-American students has increased from 4.4 for uh Hispanic to 12.8 and 7% uh to 14.1 so uh either a triple uh in um rep uh percentage or a double in percentage depending upon the um race race ethnicity group this slide was in the last this is showing our out of District um either tuition or well the stack bar graphs are showing both tuition and um transportation costs and really just trying to show that this is escalating um in what it's costing I have a different slide which isn't in the deck or a different graph that isn't in the deck and uh to which articulates the percentage of our budget so in FY 20 or 19 20 21 and even 22 um these costs were roughly around 6% of our budget they're now creeping up to about 9% of the overall budget so the um not only the costs escalating but they're escalating at a faster rate than our overall budget so they're e they're um these costs are taking up a larger percent percentage of the overall budget all right so this is also a new slide I spoke to this last time but I didn't realize I didn't have a slide in here so for the public to understand the prioritization system uh so we did as I mentioned we met with all the the budget I mean all the department leaders principles etc etc to get a list of uh uh initial budget asks and then we used a prioritized system to uh to determine um or to rank order those and this was the uh the priority rubric that we used on a fourpoint scale in order to rank those um those asks from each of the Departments so over the next two slides are those asks the um the fours and the threes are on these slides the fours and the threes are included in the tentative budget and the twos and the ones which are on the next slide are not now what I will note is so on this slide so this is the two slide you will notice under prior twos in the one slide you'll notice on prior number two at the very bottom um the DYI transfer classroom teacher to math intervention that is a budget budget neutral item to which the finance subcommittee made a recommendation prior to this meeting that we move that item so they made a motion to recommend to the whole committee that we move that item from a priority two to Priority three so um that was a recommendation made from the it won't affect the tentative boat vote because it doesn't affect the budget um but they did make that recommendation we need to take a vote on that after this or does it need to vote specifically no it doesn't affect the bottom line so I think you're think you're okay there um all right so yeah g to keep myself up all right so this is uh how it plays out in the major fund codes again nothing on this has changed from Monday um excuse me so right now the overall budget is sitting at a 4.89% increase the operating budget then The Debt Service is separate this is how that plays out each of those fun codes that basically it's that previous um table in a pie chart showing you how each of the major fund codes plays out in a pie chart and then we move into assessment and M most of this we don't know yet because we don't have a major factor in the assessing but we do know this part of the equation which is the foundation enrollment the foundation enrollment is set by the regional agreement it's a 5year rolling average we already know these numbers so we do know when we get to this portion of the uh calculation that has shifted again slightly towards Yarmouth so uh Yarmouth will be 69. 333 oh no that's too many thre 332 per um and Dennis will be 30.6 68% and you can see the shift from last year you can see that's a last year Dennis was 3099 so that's 310 of a percentage Point shift away from Dennis and um three t0 of a percentage shift towards Yarmouth and then you again this just shows the trend over time um uh the the line graphs are the averages so that shows you the shows you how the the the trend has been moving further and further away from Dennis and the increase is gone more and more towards Yarmouth over time so what we're still waiting for is a huge part of the picture here that missing line up there on FY 26 which will be our re Revenue uh from the state the the the state aid the Chapter 70 funds you can see the the trend over time there there the pattern going all the way back to fy20 there was a loss of money for a couple years in a row then a big jump then another good siiz jump but you notice the jumps as David's pointed out a couple different times the jumps have been getting smaller so you know does the jump get smaller again or is it GNA going to stabilize we are in the student Opportunity Act phase we have benefited greatly from the student Opportunity Act but uh really Nobody Knows the state revenue isn't hasn't been great this past year so we'll be interested to see um what this looks like when when that number comes out that will be that'll be a huge huge factor for us as a school district um you know this is the same thing represented visually and you can just see the the the decrease in the increase for lack of a better phrase um and one thing that we need to be thinking about and which I know in the joint meetings that we've had with the towns that I've been starting this conversation s SOA is a six-year implementation really need to be planning for the offramp of SOA you know what happens when it levels we don't want to keep building on same as I don't want to find myself in a place where I was last year you know all of a sudden the federal money went away and everybody's like hey how weren't you planning for this so I want to start I've been already starting conversations and I will once I go back to the select boards I'll remind them again when I'm pitching this budget hey this does have a shelf life the student Opportunity Act and we need to be planning for what does that look like what do what does life of the schools look like when all this state aid goes away so now I'm just beating this horse thoroughly dead but there are um several things that we're still waiting for chapter 78 Regional Aid Transportation uh reimbursement school choice tuition um charter school aid Etc um and the required contributions minimum required contributions from each town as David has said it multiple times both towns pay well above the minimum but it sets sets the foundation um you know it's like the the bottom of the pyramid it's not really a pyramid but the bottom of the two columns like where do those start that we stack everything else on top of so the state gives us those numbers and then once we know where those numbers are set then we stack the rest of the formula on top of those and without that number it's really hard to figure out where the assessments fall um and then this is essentially the expense side of the same same thing and then we do still have some some debt to assess as well there's uh one more year remaining on the high school bond and then we've got uh couple different moving pieces here for this building including a bond and then the ban the bond anticipation note as we are moving towards getting to the final bond for for this building excuse me and then that just brings us to the next steps which haven't changed too much since the last time which is we're waiting for large one as we're waiting for the revenue or and the um the other information from the state you know I've already met with the leadership team and talked about a hiring cap for next year and really it's working on this idea of a an average um and so if you have a hard position that you have to hire for you can go above the cap but then you going to be looking for somebody to bring in below the cap so that you ultimately end up sort of at this this average place um David and I will be working to then calculate those savings based upon all the retirements that we have getting a clean list from HR all the retirements are um that we'll be able to do between now and February um already started examining some of the priorities for some of the funding positions or some additional ways to fund some of those positions uh repurposing some FTE had a short conversation with the um Finance subcommittee on at least one of those um earlier toight and then um also met with the finance subcommittee to talk about the priority list and the finance subcommittee made a recommendation to an adjustment to that as well and that brings us to uh a motion for a vote and or any questions the next slide just says questions so instead of jumping past this I'm happy to take questions Jenny I move that the school committee adopt a tenative FY 2026 budget of 84 m738 N9 8,647 452 operating 4, 9,647 debt second second okay we have a motion in a second discussion more questions um marn my first one is a question uh on slide 10 Again going back to that notion of relative wealth um I'm still stuck with how uh desie sort of Compares us with some communities I wouldn't think would be in a mix so relative we is it based on income as well as property value so we're treated in a sense unfairly as a vacation Community because that excuses the price and value of Housing and therefore affects how the state calculates our available Aid um it could be yes we benefit from the from SOA and get Aid a different way um based upon our demographics but in this place yes they they're they're saying that based upon the one of the factors they're saying is your access to property value gives you an advantage over a place that doesn't have access to the same property value and my next question has to do with the priority list I don't know if you care to comment either the chair or the superintendent whereas there a discussion in the finance subcommittee meeting about sort of looking within threes and sort of then having a list of the priorities within priority threes so to answer that specific question no we didn't have any conversation within the threes no the the threes are currently in in the tentative operating budget threes and the fource yeah anyone else Jenny I just to just to Marilyn's question about the the wealth the way that it's calculated that's one of the reasons why starting what two years ago I think Dennis's minimum contribution went up significantly because of the way desie started recalculating um the wealth right and obviously you know when you look at dentist property values and and the discrepancy right that you would see between property values and actually the number of people residing right full-time in dentist and their and their annual income it's it's a strange calculation but yeah that's what happened go towards the end Mr Glenn yeah just to follow up that was that was my first comment too about the relative wealth and uh do they when they make that calculation um they don't separate the two towns do they no it's it's relative wealth of the district so it's both and it's kind of it's not comical but you know it's all relative I mean they're using that that phrase um and that goes to the perception of what we are um and people have said this to the legislature that we have to adjust this formula we've been saying it for a long time but you know the communities that benefit uh more from it not being that way you know they don't say anything but you know we know that there's it it hurts us and uh and it's a you know it really is that's where we need to get to our legislators and and the like to say you know this isn't accurate it's it's not a good description of who we are and you know we need to relay that to the towns and the finance committees and and the like but my other um point with the um the the district uh the auto District tuition and transportation costs um that since 2022 basically has gone from up three to four million um from three to four million um you know basically what it was um and you know so now it's closer to 7 million um and that's you know it is what it is but it accounts for you know twice as amount of money than it was in in just a few years 2022 um and the other question I had was just um the governor's budget the January 23rd date in the state revenue the 4th Wednesday is that the same date yeah okay um so the Chapter 70 the regional transportation all that comes all that gets calculated and that's a drop Deb date they have to give it to us by then okay thank you yeah the governor gets special Grace in in their first um year but that's not the case right and we've gotten every indication so technically they can do it early but we've gotten every indication that the governor is going to take up until the last minute that she has this year well that could be good news too Mr new anything can't see that far yes thank you um so my understanding is we have a higher enrollment is that correct we have a higher percentage of students of ethnicity which has own special concerns that go along with that uh we have a higher percentage of students with needs um we have 30 less uh FTE positions uh based upon two years ago uh and the enrollment is higher than it was two years ago and uh Transportation costs are up considerably okay that makes me understand why we have a budget the way we do Mr Morris anything just the wave okay I'll keep going Mr Martin was Landers follow up yeah I'll say one more thing um so Marilyn you know one thing that we did say at finance committee which is what we say all what I say all the time is you we'd like to have all the things that you know everyone is requested from Priority four down to Priority One and you know the fours and threes have made it into this tentative budget I think we all need to remember though there can be a lot of movement between now and when the final budget is voted so we can't go up from from this number so this is why we you know pick this number um but once we know all the retirements and once we know any savings and once we know some you know the real projections there can be movement and this also doesn't mean that things in Priority One and Two won't necessarily happen there just be there may be other Pathways you know there are things I asked about in finance committee I said you know can't we do this why can't we do that and Mark's able to say well actually there's a grant for that you know or that's going to be in our Capital plan and you know we're going to work on these things so just because you know they're not a party three or four specifically detailed in here now doesn't mean some of these things can't happen so and it's important you know for everyone to express to Mark and to David and to the rest of the committee you know if there are things that you think are you know high priority and what you're basing that on you know and then we can try to you know move some of those things up as there are funds available so looks like he wants to say something yeah the point of order really is this considered a public hearing right now okay no we'll have our public hearing on February 4th I I have nothing to add I think you know the explanations that were given and you know the same information from last week and like I said it's as Jenny said this is the the highest we can go um you know we know what the percentage is say for the towns but until it's just it's just a waiting game and I know that you know the town appreciated that we've been talking to them since August but we we don't know these numbers until January 2some so we've all been talking about fictional ideas so know we have an idea of where we are it's just we really won't know for another couple weeks Mr new thank you I just another question because I hear this all the time about salaries salaries salaries salaries 72% of our budget is salaries and benefits and the majority that goes to instruction or as supportive instruction uh question where is our salary structure in relationship to the other districts on the cape are we in the middle on the top end on the bottom end um we're right about the middle at this point um I so it depends upon the unit um so the most recent units to settle are seu and um the Dy rsaa which is our par educator and administrative assistant unit um and both those units when we settled um our goal was to get them to the average on the cape they were both at the very bottom um by a fair margin and our goal was to get them and so over the life of that contract that contract it works to get them now that's based upon some assumptions because you don't know where everybody else is going to settle um so you're sort of making some assumptions on how those other contracts are going to grow um and the teachers when they settled it placed them at a at a fairly advantageous they weren't the best paid on the cape but they were pretty competitive but I also know a lot of other contracts have settled since then so they're sitting you know still competitive they're not at the bottom but you know D the last contract settled Dy went from the bottom to not being in the bottom anymore um and um but like I said I know a lot of other contracts have settled so they're they rate about average on the cape right now so given that Nationwide over the past year the average salary has gone up somewhere between four and 7% uh to face cost of living and maybe outpace inflation uh our salary structure is probably on the low end of that yeah I I mean I mean on the low end of accommodating what the needs are for somebody to move to our district and teach or work in our district yeah I mean that's that's the challenge right is is the it doesn't Pace the housing that's for sure um and and you know you see it um and I was I just before coming over here was finishing watching ing um the Yarmouth select board initial budget presentation or the the town administrators initial budget presentation to the um to the yarma select board and they were going line by line and they're doing they're like slowly working their way through a wage and class study and they've had to move you know seven eight n% on several positions just to keep their Staffing um competitive so you know it's it's not a problem that the school district is in alone right our our our partners and and I know Dennis is either doing one or just did a waging classification study right so they they're and they Dennis um made the decision to move um their health insurance from 60% to 75% coverage right so they're everybody's looking for different ways the Yarmouth Police Department's looking at a um uh like an incentive incentive Pro program I forget exactly how it works but essentially try to recruit lateral transfers like essentially like a a like a a actually I think it's both both Public Safety I don't think it's just the police department I think it's both fire and safety but like a like a recruitment bonus um like for a signon bonus and again I don't I don't know all the details on how it works but just from having sat in enough of the the meetings to be there for a different purpose and and they're there to present on that um and so I I I know everybody's working with the same problem or working against the same problem right now I guess my point was with 70% 70 plus perc of the budget going to salaries and benefits we're trying to attract uh the best talent yeah possible to come and work in a wonderful District I mean what we saw earlier today gives great credit to what the district does and we have so many programs that are Stellar uh when somebody leaves we want to replace them with somebody that has the same qualities and uh if we're competing with another District that is paying more uh and maybe on the other side of the bridge where housing is less it makes us it makes it difficult I would imagine for you yeah and and I you know tangental aside but you know I went another one of our fabulous programs to which you know about you know our music program I went the high school had their formal concert last just last week and I was sitting you know listening to the concert and I went up to Mr Pendleton afterwards and I said you know I'm going to be coming back to you in somewhere in the next several months as part of this Capital plan that the school committee is going to be developing and I need you to be thinking about this Auditorium because the quality of the music program does not reflect the space that I'm sitting in and we've got a beautiful Auditorium here in this building but that High School auditorium is in need of some serious love and like that's going to be part of a long-term strategy and part of a capital plan like our students can put out a great product and they need the space to do it in right and I said you know we can't build a new one because it's stuck right in the middle of the school but that doesn't mean we can't invest in a quality space and upgrade the space that exists in there right and so that's tangentially connected but still these are all part of a long-term strategy for the district and I'll put in my plug for Capital Improvement at this point Improvement uh the music area was the only area down in that Wing that wasn't renovated during the renovation that occurred in uh 2000 one 2002 2003 because they needed to use it as storage space so yes thank you for your than Mr Morris and then I think you put it down and then Mr Glenn one of the things that renov ation is isn't aside was they discovered that the supports for the stage floor were not put in place which is why the students putting on Productions reflect how spongy it felt walking across the stage also the H HVAC for the library and the outer part of the building were never hooked up we learned that in the renovation the advantage of being on a building committees learning all the flaws that has to be corrected but looking at budgets we have to remember that the way the municipalities put their budget together is they can swap positions between departments with little impact on the per unit cost you can't just swap individuals from one school to the other because there's categories uh and there are collective marketing issues so the finance Committees of the of the Two Towns get a line by line series of documents of the various departments health issues for example cut across all the budgets But Here We tend to have to Bunch our budgets by School each school doesn't stand alone by itself but has its own unique profile one of the things that was useful we used to be able to get the copies of the material sent to the select board and I'm I'm going to make a request through the uh superintendent that we get those budgetary items just didn't electronically sent over uh but we also have two towns who have the same Department structure but entirely different price range and assessment impact so we have a lot of work to do every year to explain how our budget is put together with traditional educational factors and and the more we publicize what we do accomplish like like this evening's presentations the better it's going to be for winging the towns people over at town meeting even if should we have a disagreement with the municipal and financial committees so end of speech Mr good yeah just to follow up what Mr new and and the superintendent was saying um because it it needs to be thought out because we're we're communicating with the finance committee in the towns um here um and sometimes they don't recognize if they do if the police department does a an incentive um you know a lateral uh transfer that's like us giving a a step increase I think we even did it with the bus drivers at one point we we let them start off at a higher rate um and so the towns need to see that because we can't separate all that stuff out whether it's health insurance or uh any incentives that we do we kind of do have to do it as a whole I mean we do it with the different uh bargaining units but um the towns need to see that you know we have those same issues and and for us to um get people you know to stay here to retain people to recruit people um um we have the same problem so I just was kind of echoing what what you have been saying but just to emphasize it to the town so that they know that we're we're in a we're in a pinch just like they are and that they can see it so thank you and just to piggy back on that and what you know the superintendent has said at other meetings when we look at our budget versus the town we hear the two and a half percent right well that's all of our entire budget plus 2 and a half% year after year when you look at the towns they have all the stuff they don't include in that you know we talked about Healthcare and other items that aren't included at each department maybe their departmental expenses are two and a half% but they don't include all that other stuff they have funding other funding sources we have one funding source it is what the towns give us the contributions that's our only funding source and everything we spend is on the is on our screen and divide it into these departments there's no other money uh other than capit capital or other ways but there's there's no other money that we have to spend or not include in what we're asking the towns for so when we're asking the towns for money and we're asking for more than 2 and a half% well we already said that the transportation has gone up our contracts have gone up 3% in one in certain areas 72% of our budget is labor well they're like well you're over two and a half percent well all the whole both towns are over two and a half percent but we're looked as one specific amount of money versus monies that are separated everywhere and I think that's where it sometimes can get get caught up and you know discussions when towns say that we're always over 2 and a half% we're always asking for money that's because they're it's not we're not not necessarily willing to give us what we need to fund it they're just giving us this two and a half% year-over-year regardless of what the increases are nationally or locally for uh you know utilities you know what our contracts are what we need or the increased you know cost of living so and those are the conversations that you know we'll continue to have in front of each town and in front of town meetings if we need to and and ask for votes because you know we looked at these priorities fours and threes and we talked about well we want ones and twos too there's and but there's so many things on these that weren't on these two pieces of paper that didn't even make it on right um and to see that we have to put uh our music program or winter percussion or some of these things as priorities rather than these are things that make us up who we are um you know talking about that performance and in there and um you know talking about our needs and talking about the programs that we had the students early or where we've heard the rest of the years all of these things that we are and to take something away from what we are um you know because of you know funds is hard uh you know things things are r rapidly increasing as we saw with the the charts from year to year the same number of students being serviced the 46 students but the amount is $4 million in difference same number of students being serviced um and we're paying $4 million for it a majority of it in transportation and I know that Dr Smith has talked about it before you know transportation is coming from off Cape where there's there's so much limited transportation and some of the some programs that ran or further away were sending kids off off Cape uh for the needs that they need for people that live in our towns um because there's just not the ability to do it and it's it's just hard when we we go there and and we're looked upon as uh a body that is just wasting money um and at the end of the day the 84,7 38,9 we're asking for is nowhere near what we need to be where we want to be um it's it's the amount you know it says only $440,000 were cut off of you know priorities one and two but what about the other two million we didn't even put in um this presentation because we cut it in September when we thought we were going to be 9% over um and the things we've cut year after year but you know it comes to the point where we need to stop cutting um and start having what we need for the the students that are representative in our communities so I I know I went on a tangent there but Jenny I'll call the question question okay call the question so now you have to so we can take a vote so um we second so we will take a vote on the the motion so we had a motion in the second we had plenty of discussion and now we'll take a roll call vote to approve the tenative FY 2026 budget uh Mr Glenn I Mr new hi Mr Martin sorry Mr Morris double I Mr Martin I miss Landers Miss beus hi and I vote Yes so motion carries okay great um next subcommittee Representatives liaison report we have our school committee liazon to select board start with the town of Dennis we have anything to add Mr Glenn anything from town of armouth I know that they had their preliminary budget and I know we discussed a lot of the stuff yeah I was I was going to say everything that um that the superintendent said um you know there was some discussion about uh uh me small um and the feasibility study um and uh mes also um and where they stood with um the projections of what they felt from your combined meeting about where they would go and and and it seemed reasonable um you know was a public comment from the finance uh Committee Member or chair so um but all of that stuff that you had said was was right on track so thank you great next to school building committee um anything additional nothing new since last week and then the policy subcommittee we have a first reading reading and a vote um I move that we suspend policy bgb policy adoption and move forward with the reading and vote of policy ikf graduation requirements and competency determination second first and second all those in favor say I I I any opposed any abstained motion carries unanimously in the next one I move that we adopt policy ikf graduation requirements and competency determination as revised and presented to the committee first and a second any discussion oh we need to read it okay so it's an adoption so we'll read it'll be our first reading and vote only yeah if you Dr Smith you want to give some background to where it came from or originated so um for the committee and the public so at the last meeting we discussed that uh we need to this the with the passage of ballot question two that the the need for the school district to make the determination on competency uh we needed some policy to set what is what is competency how do we now determine competency and and and uh the last week I given a presentation on some of the key things to consider uh some of the differences between competency determination and graduation requirements that they are two different Pathways um and some things like we can't use mcast for uh competency determination that that would really sort of violate the spirit of the law um and but that it did have to be based on Mastery of of the skills and standards and Frameworks that were assessed by the 2023 mcast So based upon that I I think I'd mentioned to the committee that we I had met in a couple of groups of superintendant been to a couple of desie webinars there's a bunch of chatter on the superintendent list serve plus I met with the high school team to take all of that and um mesh it together to try to come up with a policy to put in front of what ended up going through the policy subcommittee the policy subcommittee was had a scheduled meeting already so I was able to get it done for them to meet um and we had uh as a district already a policy for graduation requirements so built it on top of the graduation requirement um policy and added a competency determination section so the the graduation requirements didn't change other than when going through this process the high school uh alerted me to the fact that the graduation requirement section of policy was outdated that it needed a couple of tweaks for some things that have changed since this policy had been um up U last revised including that applied technology is a graduation requirement at the high school and that world history is included in the history and social sciences and that computer science can be substituted in a couple places so you'll see that in red on the first page um but the big changes are on the second page which include the competency determination and as you'll remember our biggest need is for the current class of 2025 any student who hasn't received competency already through the mcast so what trying to cover here was like three try it's like I don't know like the Matrix maybe isn't a good example it's like I don't know it's like mental jiga trying to wrap my head around all these possible scenarios so because you've got students in the class of 2025 who have either passed the mcast prior to December 1st of 2024 um or who haven't then you've got students in the class of 2026 who have either passed the mcast prior to 20 December 1st of 2024 or haven't and then you've got students in the class of 2027 who've yet to take and Beyond who've yet to take the 10th grade mcast so was creating options for all of those students so students because if you've already earned the CD it can't be taken away from you so if either of these two young ladies had already passed the mcast already earned their CD the passage of the law couldn't take that away from them but if neither one of them had the district had to provide them with an option to earn the CD prior to their graduation and then any class beyond that there needs to be a pathway to competency so this tries that is in line with the law which now says it has to be based upon the what was assessed in the 2023 standards which is again remember in the 10th grade test in ela and math tests two grades tests nth grade English and 10th grade English and test the math tests ninth grade which is algebra and 10th grade which is geometry test that's the test and then in science there's an open field run on what you could have tested you could test physics you it's it's one of physics chemistry Technology and Engineering or biology we don't really offer a full test Technology and Engineering course so in Dy that's why you have these options you have English n and 10 you have geometry and an algebra or honors integrated geometry because it puts both those courses together or or then and you have biology or chemistry or physics unless you put your yeah I know good luck with that um so that is and then the rest is sort of providing if you don't pass then students just like so we like if you didn't pass the mcast right you had options for retake well so we wanted to create options for well if you didn't pass ninth grade English is there a pathway yes there's a pathway which are already things we kind of had established there's an option for summer school there's an option for credit recovery all these things can give you a pathway to uh getting um your CD so this policy tries to capture all of those options um with the understanding that in a couple years the state may give us further guidance and we may have to revisit um this uh and yeah I think that's everything Jenny um Mark weren't there some students who had taken the retake in sort of that grace period between so there were like 16 students right that yes or something like that but we were waiting on results to know yeah so we'll find out and so if any of those students meet the CD so if they took the test prior to um and the the lawyers helped with the language this did go through Council okay so just for in case anybody has that question it did go through Council they gave me a couple tweaks on some of the langu language so if it does if they took the retake before December 1st yeah that's why it's like administered prior to December first so even if the results come in after as long as the test was administered prior to because the law went into effect you know January 3D I think it was or January 4th um because there's another retch take scheduled for like March that one they can't use for the CD um but the one but the results haven't come in yet so if any of students the results come in and they get the CD it they can use that CD because they took the test that was administered prior to the law going into effect Mr GL so I I feel for you on the confusion on this um the you it seems to me that when you talk about the spirit of the law so the spirit of the law was that the mcast didn't prohibit people from graduating but now that the law is in place we're going to keep people from graduating because we don't have anything in place for those so yes and no and maybe sort of so there still has to be some type of competency the determination that is baked into the state law and the federal law we have to determine it based on the standards it can't be based on that test anymore but it has to be based upon the standards it has to be based on certified coursework that measure the same things that those tests measured so for us that's English n and English 10 Algebra 1 and geometry or integrated geometry honors and then either biology physics or chemistry no I understand that I maybe I just but yes some students may still not get a CD well I understand about going forward I'm talking about this group that's caught in the middle that they somehow should be grandfathered because if we're allowing some students to graduate because they passed the m c um then we should we should still allow them the opportunity to go on what the old rule was in other words they should be able to take another test in the spirit of the the law and my other question was so we got that from uh the mass Association of schools superintendent correct no just from the council that you got no this this came from a group of regional superintendant oh I'm Sor from uh meeting with our local high school team um there was some other superintendent putting some stuff around on a list serve like there's been very little guidance from and then there was a there was a webinar sort of from desie on what you can really more what you can't do than really what you can do that that's that's my main point so desie does this all the time okay they they say it it's edict edict edict until it's a controversy then it's guidance and then it's local control and then later on they'll give us guidance okay in other words when it's controversial and they don't want to deal with it they kick it to us and then we got to go to so now there's going to be 600 districts with 600 different ways to do this and you know when we were talking with our with our uh Educators with the the the phrase that came came up to me that struck me was autonomy um versus uniformity okay and that's what we have here either we're going to be autonomous okay or we're going to have a uniform standard Statewide um and and and we expect out of our Educators all the way through and that doesn't happen they pull the the rug it happened with with the mass debate and and kids going in and out of school that that they they always do this well if we're going to take control of bit I don't want their guidance later on to say well that was wrong yeah I guess my in in this particular case the state the department Ed didn't make this particular one like this this particular ballot question came through a different Avenue and was it the world's best crafted article I'm not sure but we're stuck with what we're stuck with and the voters the m Metts voted for it and then apartment of Ed is stuck scrambling just like everybody else because this took this vote which was voted by the voters of Massachusetts took away the department of Ed's Authority Department Ed was the Arbiter of the CD and this took it away so now we're stuck and the timing like we got stuck in the middle and we I can complain all I want about it but the reality is the voters said hey it used to happen over there it can't happen over there anymore and now it has to happen in the school districts and you've got nobody I don't know if nobody thought about it but we're stuck with X number of months to figure it out and it's not a lot let have a question it says a vote but on first readings do we vote on first readings that's why so the first vote we took was on was a motion to wave doing a second reading was to wave our policy that requires a second reading because this we're considering this an emergency situation because we need to get this in place ASAP so the first vote we took was waving the policy that requires a second reading so we're going to vote on this tonight and I'd like to try to bring the conversation back to the substance I mean we got here how we got here and now we have to do this and um I have some questions about so so we're sort of putting a stake in the ground here and saying that English 9 and 10 Algebra 1 in geometry geometry honors biology or physics or chemistry we're we're putting a stake on the ground and saying these are the courses that we believe can be used to determine competency for our graduates okay I mean it's mirroring really right what what mcast was testing on and that's sort of where we are okay I mean I'd like when we have time you know and and space and more you know guidance from all sorts of stakeholders to be able to look at this again and make sure that this is really where that we really want to just pin all our hopes on these you know six classes um because I you know I think there are a lot of other ways a student could prove competency and that's not my forte but um you know I also think that that I I have some concerns about our ability as a district and our ability at the high school to um administer this um you know this is going to take a lot more people power right than just looking at mcast scores and making sure that you know people have met those scores um and you know before if you didn't pass if you didn't get the passing score in the mcast you retook the test and then you retook the test retook the test and we provided support we are supposed to be providing support for students in that position now here we have students who do not meet the required passing grades in the above prescribed courses May enroll in summer school credit recovery courses or be scheduled to take additional coursework by their guidance counselor and meet the same curriculum framework standards this is a lot right I mean we're talking about possibly you know um inre to summer school offerings um these Credit Recovery courses Maryland says we have some already um but this sounds like I mean this could really expand what we have to do in terms of offering summer school credit recovery and getting guidance counselors to work with Department chairs to work with school admin to get kids all these additional cour workor that they need so this is a lot and I know you brought your high school team in to talk about this and you know are is the high school team concerned about this um no they they were the ones who suggested most of this most of it was um that most of this is part of the graduation pathway anyways you know if you look sort of look at this compared to the graduation requirements the graduation requirements for most of these push Beyond right so that I've got to pass English nine 10 and then 11 or some in 11 and 12 you get some options as what but you have to continue you have to take four years of English right take I think it's three or four years of math um so you they have to continue on uh it's just we're prescribing what specific courses map because because that is the part that is specific in the statute as it's now worded is it has to be coursework certified course or coursework certified by the district that was I forget exactly how it's worded but essentially what was assessed by the 2023 mcast so it has to go back to those standards that were assessed by those mcast so a course for English n and English 10 that's focused on those you can't like just substitute in a like a poetry elective because it doesn't hit hit all the grade 10 standards you can't just put in statistics because it doesn't focus on algebra and geometry like it has to be the appropriate aligned standards appropriately aligned course um final question has to do with this wasn't you know I this exercise had to do with the competency determination but in the process you're also doing some upd to the distribution credits um and you know we've heard from um a staff member um who has suggested that there should be a way for um our El students to um to be opted out of or to be exempt from a foreign language credit requirement and we haven't fully fleshed that out um in principle I think I'm in support of something like that but I just don't know how that gets administered and if we can do that at this time if we can make any changes on the Fly and I'd like to hear what you and Maria you know if you have some insight into that so the graduation requirements the um the principal can wave any graduation requirement at any time um so that's much easier but this again the CD because the graduation requirements are entirely locally under the local control and always have been of the there only like basically fette is the only one that's baked in in law um everything else is com and know yeah it affects it affects your U Mass core completion percentage which does get reported to the state and does show up in your accountability ratings the number of kids or the percentage of kids who don't meet the mass core and and Dy does try to keep the a high percentage of kids but the principal can wave certain graduation requirements in order to help a kid graduate um it it doesn't say that in the policy but it it is a a perennial right of all High School principles um been baked into everything that principal's ever been able to do um it's probably in the handbook but um and then um so but the CD is separate the the principal cannot wave the CD the principle does in in our in the way we constructed the policy the principle does have some um uh sort of like the final Arbiter over because we did write you know these courses or their equivalent so there is some flexibility in the in the in the um in the especially for students coming in from other places that's the one thing we wanted to try to capture too is a student coming in in the 11th grade from somewhere else what if they didn't offer um you know yeah or whatever just something that's named something else but had the right appropriate standards um we just want to um offer some flexibility as well marily I guess mine are more uh friendly suggestions or amendments to the compet determination so I'm looking at that last paragraph for the class of 2027 and Beyond I'm assuming somewhere should have been the word uh passing only the following coursework or passing the following coursework which would be consistent for 25 and 26 where passing the following course workor is mentioned um and then the other thing it's my understanding since we on policy adoption there is a phrase that says policies will be affected upon the date set by the school committee this date will ensure that affected persons have an opportunity to become familiar with the requirements of the new policy prior to its implementation so I would suggest that at some point we at the very end perhaps having this policy will be effective at whatever date the superintendent now might recommend for us uh I would recommend like as immediately as possible because next phase is we need to communicate this to all um specifically specifically to those 16 students uh their families we need to get it into as necessary into multiple languages uh and make sure that everybody understands what they need to do to get to the finish line so would you consider January 14 2025 as sufficient yes do we need a reading of this you said I know we have it but we've never actually read a full policy into the record we've just said each of us can read the policy as it's printed but that's just what we've always done okay so we did we have a motion in a second ask question yes we have a motion and a second on policy ikf okay Joe did you have one last thing before we take a vote yeah so I just want to be clear so this is a policy we can update a policy at any time correct so the urgency here has to do with this group of students correct so the the the the January 14th date I'm fine with the future year stuff you know we can put it in and then take it out later or whatever I'm fine with it either way I I just want to make clear that the that that's what we're doing and and we can see how how the things are going along and and we can update it okay so I'm good with that okay so sorry one more toas if you don't mind Marilyn I want to comment on your question about the language and I see what you're saying that this paragraph doesn't say um or passing the following coursework um but I I think it's just a sort of a clarification I think you can rely on the passing language the previous paragraph and just say this is just a qualification saying taking out the mcast portion from that paragraph and saying now it's just the cour work yeah and I think the first paragraph says demonstration of Mastery of the information so I guess we consider Mastery as passing if you look at it that way if you're okay with that and and if it went through Council then I so I would be good with that okay we'll do a roll call vote U Mr Glenn I Mr new hi Mr Morris hi Mr Martin hi M Landers Miss beus hi and I vote Yes so that passes effective tomorrow January 14th 2025 thank you very much um and hopefully those 16 students will find out they passed and this will be for nothing um but we have to have opportunities for those that can't retake it uh super tetto report all right thank you um I will be brief it's only been a week not much has happened since the last one but two things so one I just want to acknowledge a donation just going off of my last comment about the generosity of our community um we do have in the packet a memo from Mr deppen thanking several Community uh organizations that supported the uh baker school so we just want to specifically name those org organizations the Dennis Highlands Golf Course um made several donations or of gift cards totaling $2,467 um to support uh during the holiday season just again amazing generosity the West Dennis Garden Club donated 10 100 gift card $100 gift cards to TJ Maxx the cape meals uh Cape kids meals donated 10 $20 gift cards to stop and sh sh and then the Andrea Holden Foundation uh donated $15 $100 gift cards to stop and shop um again these all supported families are in the holiday season um and just another amazing example of the community support of both directly to the schools and then to the families that uh attend our schools and then just briefly just want to let the committee know that uh very quickly uh the through the collabora the superintendant are going to be or are organizing a legislative breakfast um for superintendent and the commit and school committee members it is on the 24th of January Dy will be hosting um we're going to be hosting it right here in this building um it came up really quick uh the the exiting collaborative director Paul Hilton um reached out was working with Senator Sear's office and then and they kind of shot back a date and it was the 24th um so it kind of evolved really really quickly um we're going to host it uh starting at 8:30 we'll start in here um and then we'll move into the new Auditorium basically before lunch comes into this room but we'll start in here uh and move into the auditorium uh we should be all wrapped up by 12 if anybody is available and wants to join just let me know um so I can have make sure you're on the on the guest list and we let you know in the door just teasing but um but anyways just let know complain about the budet what's that it's the 24th Can We complain about the budget then yeah exactly um yes yes you can um you can have their ear um but uh we we're expecting to get a good size amount of the cape delegation there uh and then we're working on putting together a um a couple of talking points uh prior to that the the cape superintendent has uh drive a couple of points um and try to move some important topics forward so uh that's really all I've got for tonight um but I'm happy to take any questions on that if anybody has any seeing none we'll continue on school committee business we have our consent agenda uh as Dr Smith said the donations to the Ezra Baker School anyone want to move the consent agenda move the consent agenda motion second all those in favor say I I any oppose abstain contined uh bills requisition payrolls have here has been outside calendars uh we have uh no school next Monday the 20th is Martin Luther King Jr day and then on the 29th uh we have a one and a half hour early release um public comment do we have anyone for public comment I'll refrain from reading that if there's no one here to say it um and then Title Nine anyone for number nine I move we adjourn we have a motion we have a second we have a second all those in favor say I I thank you so much for all your time