it being 6:30 on Monday April 14th I'll hereby call the regular meeting of the Gardener School Committee to order and ask the clerk to please call the role yes mrs carmier present mrs hurst present mr lefrenier present mrs mrs ward Leighton present mrs palavin
present mr schwarz present mayor Nicholson present dr pellegrino present and Mayor Hawk and Joyce Dr joyce West are here norah Morris the student representative is absent thank you Director Hawk for being here with us today uh thank you uh please
rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
the first item on our agenda this evening is open time for the general public is there anyone here from the general public who wishes to be heard seeing none we'll move on to item C the public hearing for the fiscal year 2026 school budget uh this was posted with the office of the city clerk on April
7th at 9:42 a.m as required by the general laws of the Commonwealth beginning with the budget presentation by Dr pelgrino [Applause] all right well thank you for having me
like we like we had a choice did we hear the kids um sorry so um you know a lot of these slides seem familiar but you'll see um that things are definitely still changing for Gardener Public Schools so um Mark would you want to go to the next
one on this slide it should say updated April 14th today yes oh yes i changed a couple I changed a couple slides we were trying to make we try to make things clear and I realized sometimes that I put in too many slides and it
makes things more confusing so after practicing it one more time today with um Mark Hawk um we decided to take out a couple slides and change one enrollment as you can see um a steady increase in enrollment um you know from
2020 um from 2021 to 2025 um we've gone up over 300 students we're back to um well before um uh FY15 in terms of the enrollment of students um this is a our changing demographics and as you can see this is broken down by high needs groups
specifically this is um um these are groups that were identified by DESIE as high needs oftentimes they need more to make sure that they're able to participate and be be successful in um in school so you um as you can see these numbers this is the same kind of graph
but I just wanted to put the numbers in so you saw the the the change um from 2015 to 20 in the last 10 years we've gone up 500 students um for high need students our low-income students um have
gone up from um actually 50% um our students with disabilities have gone from 517 to 620 100 students when you think that a typical special education teacher has a case load of um 25 students with special needs that's a
that's a teacher um I'm sorry that's four teachers yeah for 100 um first language not English um went up um about 300 almost 300 students and our English language learners have um more than d
almost almost tripled really um in terms of the numbers and again when we're looking at making sure that students get what they need this means we need resources which typically means we need staff to support our students our out of district costs we've
done a lot as you know to put um supports in our schools to make sure that all of our students stay in Gardener and are with their peers we do all we can to keep our students in the least restrictive environment um unfortunately sometimes they need more and when they go out of district um it
does have a cost to the district and it's gone from 200 um 2 million 600,000 in 2018 and now we're up over $6 million um sending and receiving for school choice we are now at somewhat par
um with um 100 we're receiving 154 students coming into the district with 152 students leaving the district do we know why what's that some of these kids are leaving district all kinds of reasons everything from a a teacher
teaching in another you know a parent teaching in another district yeah um to I know a lot of times it was sports related and stuff but they never say that so we can't really gather information on that okay just curious
yeah but to have it go from you know 300 students leaving the district down to 152 um we're definitely going in the right direction unfortunately on the next slide um you still see that it costs more for anybody care to guess why it costs more
for some students to go somewhere else mr hawk is it because of the uh online schools it is because of the online schools online schools are now $13,000 so instead of paying $5,000 to um send a student to a physical building um in a
public school we are send we are paying $13,000 for students to do um online school for Tekk or Wow um the academy yeah it's expensive it's a virtual academy is there a reason like that almost doesn't
make sense it almost doesn't make sense i would agree with that sentiment except that take the almost out no it does it sounds like it doesn't make sense there are a lot of costs to it um and it's the full cost of these institutions so their only um source of income is school
choice so they have a higher they have a higher number and they actually do have teachers who are teaching the students and yes it's virtual but they're live um uh the synchron what we would call synchronous learning were you going to say something else um well I was to say the sending and receiving part is not
based like it doesn't it's not comparable to what it costs for a child to go either place either so it costs more to educate them than what we're sending or what we receive right you know what I'm like what the So that's what like that I'm not saying it makes sense i'm just saying like the
school choice piece in general the sending and receiving amounts don't make sense because after a while like we've talked about this before like you're not always breaking even if like sometimes if you take too many kids in if you're not getting you're not getting enough money every time they come in it doesn't
cover the cost that they are costing the district right so yeah we still don't we haven't been accepting students all the way through grade seven right um we just can't do it we can't fit the students inh going like a physical building someone
going to another phys I I understand all that y and the different costs y seems cost should be so much less if I could argue with you John I would they do limit how many kids can go yes that's true it's not limited school
choice it's just a supply this is another example of something that you know you're looking at this graph and it seems like so much money and everything but you don't understand all the layers of it and you know and I think that's
what happens sometimes with the budget is people aren't understanding the whole big picture of it and what it entails and it's not easy to do i'll be quiet now yeah but I I think our goal is just to continue to have that
number go down by trying to meet um um uh famil family's needs um just to go over the just for the um I know you guys have seen this slide every time um but to go over our budget process the way we do this is um schools and directors all
submit expense bud budgets um to Mark uh Mark Hawk and um from there we actually um we talk about those reductions and addition any additional staff so we actually go through we we have them um
list out um give us approximately $200,000 I think it was this year worth of cuts typically from positions and what we do from there is we also say "What do you need that you yet don't have?" And they put those on a list and then as a group all the
directors and principles all get together in a room um and we have some very um energetic um sometimes heated discussions about what's the first position out of all the positions in the district that's the most important position to go in next and we do that with each one so we have a we have a
district prioritized budget and so all of us are working together to make sure that we have the best budget for the entire district not principles working for their individual schools and so oftentimes you know one of the first first positions that might go back in is um an elementary school teacher um might
be the first one back in the budget for example the high school teacher knows that's a big deal where it increases class sizes for all students in that grade if we have one just one teacher up um then they meet individually with the business manager and Yes
oh yes thank you um meet individually with um superintendent and business manager and then um we meet with all the directors and principles and we develop that process and the last bullet um we actually didn't do this year because we didn't do that we didn't need to
so Mark you want to take over from here certainly on this part um this just shows the uh restorations additions reductions um the two that are highlighted there's actually four positions there and those are mandated
because we had students come in that had those a two paras and two rbts in their IEP the uh third one was a vacant position coming into the FY25 budget so we needed to reduce the FY25 budget so we through attrition left it vacant but
it is um needed we have one two three four guys taking care of four buildings and all the grounds um and then the bottom two are additions a GES kindergarten special education teacher
and a GES ESL teacher English second language teacher so additions to this year's budget was 329,000 and then we get into a couple slides with just a heck of a lot of numbers on them showing uh the salaries over the years and how some things change some
things you'll see in information services which is about 2/ird of the way down has gone from in FY20 about 212,000 down to zero that's because we have outsourced our entire IT department um so there's some changes like that
the substitutes line members of the finance committee will know um it's been underfunded i don't know if it's been intentionally or unintentionally but uh we think we have a more appropriate number which is why there was a 33% increase in that
line expenses same thing uh couple of them will go up and down but they're mainly flat unless um something like transportation i don't know if that's ever going to be flat costs that do not apply to net school
spending this is um for better or for worse all on the city's dime and uh with the new transportation contract it increased 117,000 uh for regular transportation and for special education trans transportation 272,000 for next year this does not add
an 11th bus another bus which is desperately needed would be another $88,200 for another bus for another bus $88,200 for 180 days of service sure transportation
many people are so where's the money coming from we have chapter 70 the required net school spending uh funding over net school spending net school spending is the minimum that the uh municipality is
allowed to spend they can always go more and then last year we had the homeless emergency money this was the for the migrant shelter in town it was $104 roughly um per day and we were able to supplement our budget with $160,000 this
is not going to be there next year so where does all that money go on the left you'll see the chapter 70 money this is new money coming into the chapter 70 the student opportunity act 2.7 million net school spending is
753,000 we deduct the 160,000 from the homeless money that we used last year and then uh hopefully 300,000 over net school spending um and where did it go so quickly salary expenses 1.6 million
um regular expenses 943,000 the additions of 219,000 the non-net school spending 460 we take that out because that is included in the expenses so half of the expense increase of 943,000 is the non-met school spending
or transportation increase and then the big one this year was the indirect costs which we'll get into next um budgeted indirect costs over the prior fiscal years uh you'll see it goes
up and down trying to uh it's indirect costs the main driver of indirect costs are health insurance and then the second one which is far behind it is retirement expenses and then there's other little things in there the um the school
resource officer the uh insurance on the buildings and so forth um so it like pinning jello to a wall um $1.7 million increase I don't think anyone saw coming and took a huge bite out of our budget it's pretty typical with most of the
schools school districts round up mainly my health insurance so yeah it's health 99% health insurance the school resource office said whether we pay the salary for 6 months or 10 months salary and benefits
for 912 10 12 101 12 56 so yeah we don't pay it for the summer okay the city picks that up uh so out of that 1.737 million
1,689,000 is health insurance so balancing the budget uh add up all those numbers the total funding the total school budget non-net school spending uh indirect costs total net school spending leaves us with a deficit here of
$474,231 that's counting um the mayor's $300,000 over net school spending so I just wanted to talk about this slide so one of the things that um that's happened um is from FY this is
just um slides so the blue on the bottom represents the minimum local contribution and the orange is above minimum net school spending um and if you'll notice and I I try to put lines
of best fit um for FY20 through FY26 so you'll see that black line on the bottom that's the best fit for um the minimum local contribution and the green line above is a best line fit for where we were above minimum net school spending
um and as you can see if you remember this thing called COVID in um FY20 um we got a lot of err funds and so what happened was a lot of our um funding was able to be substituted using ESSER funds
to get us through and to make sure that we weren't um reducing staff and we were still providing supports and actually more supports um considering that all that our families and students were going through um and so what we need to do though is we need to plan to start to get back up
above that million dollars above minimum net school spending um the reason I say that is because the minimum net school spending is the least amount you're allowed to legally spend on the schools however what we've seen is most schools need more there are richer districts
that get doubled the foundation budget we're not asking for double the foundation budget but if we can start moving our way up to each year adding more and more on so we get to that million dollars above it's a big deal i want to give you um an example school is
Monty Tech monty Techch is getting their budget passed at $600,000 above minimum net school spending 600,000 what was the accurate number there Mark $66,410 in per pupil is $4753
$4753 if we had that money for the number of students we have that'd be about how much $1,18,845 1 million right yeah yes so that's what we should be shooting for um and actually having the mayor step up
and and give that extra 300,000 is a huge step in this direction um so I'm thrilled that we're taking that next step to start going above minimum net school spending and if you notice way on the right there that last one the line of best fit there's actually some blue
above and the reason that there's a little bit more blue and the minimum has gone up is because we're nowhere near what our expected spending is so we do need to start infusing more and more each year thinking of 200,000 300,000 more over
what we're doing already um plus whatever the increase is if we want to get to the level where we have the supports that we need in the schools any questions on that oh go ahead i was just saying that slide took place the four slides
next tried to condense all right and this kind of shows the the delta down the bottom the change um in the minimum contribution the change in the total amounts that we were getting each year um so that's why that last one is
750,000 because the state said you need to start catching up to what you're um what we're expecting you to put into the schools okay so as a brief tutorial or refresher of how all of that came together this is
the chapter 70 determination for FY26 um we'll start with number one on the left the 2024 equalized valuation it's updated every two years by the Department of Revenue and it's the full and fair cash value of all the taxable property in the municipality the uniform
property percentage is applied the same number for all the communities uh you multiply those together and you come up with the local effort from property wealth the 7.4541 million the 2022 income again from the department of revenue and the
uniform income percentage and I hit the um which is again uniform across the board so you come up with the local effort from income 8.6 6 million you add the seven and the 8 together to get 16218,000 is the combined effort yield
which is the sum of the property and the income effort based on desi calculated property income percentages um the foundation budget for FY26 is 48,38,232 the maximum contribution no matter how much the mayor wants to put
in is 39,854,000 so let's not go hog wild um and then the state has a target local contribution 16.2 million so you take the lesser of the maximum of the 16.2 which is 16.2 and uh then below
that 11 and 12 are the percentages that those numbers uh equate to um on the right hand side number 13 FY25 required local contribution the municipal revenue growth factor again from the department of revenue and you multiply those
together and you come up with the FY26 preliminary contribution which is 27.85% which is below their target local share number 11 on the left side so you bring those numbers down the shortfall is 2,765,000 or
5.72% shortfall so if it's between 2 and 1/2 and 7 and 1/2 they add a 1% I don't want to call it a penalty i'll say it's a uh mandated catch-up fee um so it's 128,725 that they add on to our uh
numbers for coming in below what their targets are so now our new shortfall is 2.6 26 million and the required local contribution is [Music] 13,581756 or 28.11% and that's how those numbers are
arrived at just quick note that says 48 million for the foundation budget that includes I think that was money tech as well we are 45 million in change money tech is three million and change so the Go ahead no did you want to say
something go ahead yep this is um you can't turn on the news without hearing something about the federal government so these are our total federal grants that we sort of um have baked into the budget so it's $2 million
and 16 and a half round up positions so I don't know that we are fearful of much of this perhaps um title two title two is question um the other titles and so forth and
this is money that we have now so going forward it's just a uh a consideration we just want people to know um what this what it means so title one for example um has about $800,000 in tutor hours these are you know folks who are in
supports who are in the classrooms with teachers Um so that's a big deal when the when these um federal funds get cut um just a question when you have the grant period to September of 2026 that's because of the federal budget timeline
right yes thank you and if you notice too this also supports FHA um HFA um HFA um tutor professional development um professional development and
supplies okay so right now the funding gap as of today is um $474,231 um that's assuming that this 300,000 over um net school spending um so this slide now this includes a
deficit of zero so um this is the budget that would include even that deficit within the budget i don't know if there are any questions before we talk about voting so just to be clear that this number
37,676,548 would require the city to put in $774,231 and that's basically level services correct that would be with no cuts in there if if the budget has is um is has
that um 4 37,000 um I will have to cover that through some onetime money and cuts thank you very much at this time we'll open the public hearing beginning with the members of the school committee and then opening up the public hearing to any members of the general public who
have any questions comments concerns on the information that was presented at this time is there any questions from the members of the school committee when you say one-time money what do you mean um anything from any kind of grants
or revolving funds anything like that so those things typically cover your capital improvements um you shouldn't really use them for operational costs but in this case we you know we may do
that you know for the short term any other questions comments from the members of the committee Mr what on the title programs grants i'm from what I've been adhering the president is not going to touch those
he's so from what I heard he's not touching most of them title two um from what I understand is title two is typically for professional development and teacher improvement um so that was I think $100,000 for us thereabouts maybe a little over 101,000 or something um
that may go and if if so I would have to cover some of the PD and figure figure that out we have that one through September 26 at the end of the federal fiscal year yes yeah
any other questions or comments from the members of the committee at this time we'll open it up to the members of the general public is there anyone here from the general public who wishes to be heard on the matter of the fiscal year 2026 school budget please uh come up say your name
and address for the record amy Dut um 192 Central Street apartment 105 um I wrote down my Amy Ducet please help me do you you're welcome so I wrote down a couple
questions um I wanted to know if the costs for uh online learning for sending kids out um do those costs also increase for kids who have IEPs that are doing online learning and does that make it go yes they Yes they do so some sometimes there's Yeah there's a differential they
they call it yes okay and then I also wanted to know about um the busing in particular because I feel like we get a lot of um you know waiting for a driver or this bus is now picking up these other kids buses are running late and I
know there was mention of adding another bus to or the hope of adding another bus but how does that also then keep the drivers too if we're still having this significant issue with drivers and like having to shuffle kids around all the time that's that's a really tough question to
answer i wish I could answer it easily but unfortunately it's happening throughout the state um you know there's some other districts you know um more towards Boston which are having even more events we were fortunate where I don't think really had any um events canceled for buses mark do you know of any not recently no um um and although
when a bus driver calls in sick um they don't they they're trying to get more and more drivers i don't know if you've seen the they even put up like the little try those stansions or whatever um to try to get people to apply um there's just not a lot of people that that are applying for the jobs but
they're trying what it what they they're doing what they can it's a contracted service too you don't run the bus company yeah and that that was my concern too is like is it you know the agreement or the contract to pay and is more money enticing is it not but then
that led me to another question of um the the district uh kind of reinforcement behavior plan for the kids there was a point a couple years ago where we kind of started getting bus drivers on board with that and the monitors too which I felt was starting
to help facilitate some of that connection and keep stuff well you know similar across the board for for the kids um is that training still included in the budget or could there be a wiggle room to bring that back yeah we still we still work with them with PB um the
positive behavior interventions sports um so we should be still doing that well they used to do like the sometimes for like the younger kids they would also give out like class dojo points cat cash and things like that as incentives for kids to behave on the bus and I know one
bus driver too was even interested in like you know could they have a prize box for kids or something to help them engage because of sometimes the kids are just they're not okay on the bus or they have a hard time writing it and trying to help with that too that so that's a great suggestion i'm going to make sure that that continues to happen that's
pretty much costneutral that wouldn't that wouldn't really be a big deal awesome thank you okay i'll just also say to the uh school bus cost that you mentioned uh we went out for bid this year for our school buses and we got one response um and it had a mark what was
the increase $17,315 which was a 50 what was the percentage increase ballpark uh 13 yeah about that time so that that increase alone was there and gardener is
not alone on that one um I I think if you talk to any city in town you'll hear that they've received either one bid or one reasonable bid and then a couple unreasonable bids start the uh legislature last week just sent an official request to the Inspector General's office to
review bus bids statewide um we'll see if anything comes back from that but that's just one of the main costs for that legislation yeah and is there anyone else here from the general public who wishes to be heard on
the topic of the FY26 school budget director Hawk just one note i think uh Dr pelgrino wanted to mention the MVT MVP students oh yes thank you um this year we actually have another source of income which is chapter Don't get too excited it's chapter 74 um because our
kids who are in the MVP program with um Monty Tech um which has been a great program our kids are and juniors and seniors are participating in um electrical and carpentry and we're hoping to expand that to plumbing as well um seems like a great um program so
all that money that comes to us for chapter 74 goes immediately right to Mount Washington Community College sorry Monty Tech to um support their um uh their learning over there for their um courses so we take care of the um academic courses they take care of the
vocational courses thank you Mr schwarz on the the bus bid was that a cooperative bid or just the city of just the city of I thought in the past that we try to do a cooperative
bid that was years ago and it uh failed completely we thought if we could have a Boston type bid or a Framingham type bid with 30 or 40 buses it was us wining money maybe even narans and we got zero
interest no bids so we had to scrap that thank you any other questions comments concerns from the members of the public are the members of the school committee twice is there anyone else who wishes to be heard third and last is there anyone else who wishes to be heard
seeing none I'll hereby close the public hearing at this time we'll move on to item D a vote on the school budget for fiscal year 2026 in the amount of 37,676,548 move motion made by attorney and seconded by Mr frenier to approve the
budget as presented by the superintendent at 37,676,548 is there any discussion on that motion um seeing none we'll put the matter to a vote and Miss Hillman can you call the role second here okay
this is a roll call vote on approving the FY 26 Garden Public School budget in the amount of 37 million 676548 and we'll call the role and we'll start with Mrs cormier yes and Mrs hurst
yes mr repier yes mrs mrs ward Leightton yes mrs palavin yes mrs ws yes and uh Mayor Nicholson do you wish to vote yes you'll vote yes okay that's one two three four five six seven yes thank you very much moving on to item E the
consent agenda a motion carries and passes thank you all very much should have said that moving on to item E the consent agenda this was included in your packet is there a motion on the floor regarding the consent agenda mr frenier is there a second on the motion motion made by Mr freddier seconded by Miss Ward to approve the consent agenda as
presented is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all in favor say I i oppose nay motion carries item F subcommittee reports beginning with the finance subcommittee mr lefrenia thank you Mr mayor the finance committee met on April
3rd uh let's see we discussed the expense report um the committee asked questions regarding the uh the report and Mr hawk answered them uh usually it's it's pretty much most of those questions were part of that uh presentation for
the budget um see project update the G high school auditorium is 99% complete maybe by now 100% I don't know is it 100% done now 99.2 too okay very close
um and we have a proposal for an overhaul of the elevator at Gardener High School um the uh elevator is the original elevator to the building uh it's having repeated
breakdowns um so that's going to be a fairly big cost but again it is the original elevator um and it comes to a point where you're just throwing money at it and money at it and money at it so eventually what you spend to fix it's
going to be more than the cost of rebuilding uh new business is the committee review the and an updated budget again this is something that was just presented um and while all schools held expenses
uh to approx approximately the same as last year the costs associated with the custodial contract transportation Chromebooks uh were the biggest expense drivers and that was it for our
discussion mr friendier is there any discussion on the finance committee sub uh finance subcommittee's report seeing none moving to the policy subcommittee mrs hurst um the policy committee met on um March 12th um we
reviewed several policies that were just didn't need any changing or updating and were marked as reviewed um we um had four that we needed to table for our next meeting because it required some more
information and tonight there is policies for first read um I think there's five for first read tonight all right any questions on the policy subcommittee
report seeing none we'll move on our student advisory board member is not here with us this evening so we'll move on to item H discussion items for new business item number 3688 first reading of policies bbaa school committee member authority bbba school committee member
qualifications bbbc school committee member resignation bde subcommittees of the school committee these are included in your packet forformational purposes this evening to be voted on at our next meeting any questions comments concerns on those
items moving on to item 3689 second reading of policies there's a vote required on this item JKA physical restraints the policy subcommittee recommends accept acceptance of this policy is there a motion on the floor motion motion made by Mrs hurst is there
a second i'll second seconded by Mrs cormier uh to accept the policy as presented is there any discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor say I i oppos nay motion carries item number
3690 Bde Athletic Council this is a a recommendation by the policy subcommittee to be moved to the district procedural manual is there dis a motion a motion made by Miss Ward is there a second second by Mrs hurst any discussion on
that motion i think technically it's a motion to remove the policy because it's going to be going into the procedural manual okay well I'm just saying no no clarify motion to remove and remove to
procedural manual motion has been uh uh has a friendly amendment to remove from the policy manual and send it to the district procedural manual is there any further discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor say I i nay motion carries item number 3691 appointment of
Keystone Collaborative dr would you like me to give a speech no not tonight no no I'm happy to I'm happy to stay on as the Keystone Collaborative um representative if if you want me to be the representative
i'll make a motion to nominate you let's turn it no motion made by second by M Ward to appoint Dr pelgro as our Keystone Collaborative appointee is there any discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor say I i oppose
nay motion carries item number is 3692 appointment of CAPS collaborative representative m I motion that we have Dr pelgro do that is there a second because he does it so well is there a second sorry motion made by
attorney uh motion made by Mrs second by Attorney Palin to appoint Dr pelgro to the board of the CAPS collaborative on behalf of the district is there any discussion on that motion all in favor say I i oppose nay the motion carries item number 3693 the CAPS collaborative
agreement with the district no major changes really to it just cleaning up of wording um and creating a you know a better worded document is there a motion on the floor move to adopt is there a second second motion made by Mr schwarz seconded by Mrs
cormier to adopt the CAPS collaborative agreement as presented is there any discussion on the motion all those in favor say I i oppose nay motion carries item number 3694 competency determination dr bill so this is um as
you know MCCAST is no longer um uh allowed to be used as a competency determination um which is something that students need students need to pass certain courses in order to graduate and they need to to have a competency determination as u for regulations by from the state so with that said we had
to come up with language around this and so my proposal is um that right now we keep it somewhat simple because we also know that Desi right now has um a a committee of people looking at this and will be changing this going forward but
we need someone we need something right now for um the class of 2025 um and for the next maybe year after that um so my recommendation um after talking with several other superintendents and working with some of them on um some of this
language um basically they would need to have um three competency deter um competency standards the first one is in um for ELA English so they can if they passed the MCCAST before July 2024 which means that before everything ended this
past um in December we can still count that score if they didn't earn that or hadn't taken the test then they can earn a passing grade they need earn a passing grade in English 9 and English 10 or their course equivalence and the the
principal decides what is a course equivalent same thing for math they can pass the test with a 486 or higher um as long as before July 2024 or earn a passing grade in geometry and algebra or their course equivalence and finally in
science they have to they can again um pass the MCCAST or take biology chemistry or physics or an equivalent um students who fail to meet those to meet one or more of those requirements will be monitored and supported in grades 11 and 12 on their progress in the specific subjects they
can pass classes relevant to the subjects in grades 11 and 12 or they can make a course works coursework in grades 10 and 11 to also meet the standard um standard master's curriculum frameworks are there any questions comments on the superintendent's proposal and or a
motion mrs war um I just had a question so I was thinking to the mass core and how it's usually like four years of English four years of math and whatnot is that I guess I'm just wrapping my head around is that still going to apply like they're still going to be required to take those full four years of English
for example in high school they have Oh yeah oh absolutely they still have to pass the courses okay um but they don't have to um I'm sorry yeah they have to pass the courses but they also have to do these specific courses okay gotcha so like if they you know English 9 and 10
and then they take like I don't know like Gothic literature and then like creative writing that would Okay gotcha all right just wanted to wrap my head around that part thank you yep are there any other questions comments concerns in the proposal or a motion on
the floor motion that we accept second motion made by Mr lefren seconded by Mr schwarz to accept the competency determination as presented is there any further discussion on that motion hearing none all in favor say I i i oppose nay motion carries item number
3695 curriculum curriculum coordinator update this was included in your packet for information is there any questions comments concerns on the update seeing none moving on to item number 3696 the grant administrator's update this is included in your packet for information is there any uh
questions comments concerns from the members of the committee seeing none moving on to item number 3697 the special education update this was included in your packet this evening for information are there any questions comments concerns from the members of the committee it was just it was good to
see the parent turnout for that latest workshop um yeah there were 11 parents attended which I think is higher than it's normally been for these events any other questions comments concerns on the special education coordinator's update
thank you Director West item I communications Dr um the other thing I wanted to bring up is you know obviously um you know Paula Bulier stepping down as the principal of the high school is you know very difficult um she's a phenomenal person phenomenal principal
um but for personal reasons she decided to step down she may still be in the district in other ways we don't know what the future will hold um but she is an has been the best principal Garner High School has ever seen hard for me to say considering I was one of the principles of Garner High School but she
is absolutely the best principal we have seen she's done a great job um but I'm also really pleased that with the leadership pipeline that we have through the bar grants um you know um Mike um has really stepped Michael Barkus has really stepped up as a leader in the
building um and he's really been learning a lot and will be a wonderful replacement for Miss Bulgier so to have somebody right behind her ready to go to continue on with the work they've been doing considering they went from the 24th to to the 47th percentile um
they've done a phenomenal job and I want I want to make sure that that continues in that direction and so I'm thrilled that Michael accepted the position as the principal of the high school that's all I wanted to talk about any questions comments concerns moving on to item J final
comments of the school committee miss War awesome um no comments other than thank you for the presentation and for answering your questions about the budget um and for all of the things that are normally included Dr west and Miss Goan and um Courtney and other than that just happy to see some sunshine and some
warm weather rather than 6 ines of snow which was what 40 48 72 hours ago so yeah at least it was on a Saturday yes yeah and that's all thanks folks this is Hurst um I came across this uh
uh quote from um someone that said that finding humor in tough situations is important but it's also important to understand how some things that might be just a minor inconvenience for some can be devastating for the poor disabled and
elderly let's try to look out for each other m and I think like with the budget tonight it's hard it's hard all the time but we have to understand the broader
spectrum of things and I think that it's easy for you know someone to get kind of you know tur about things and be like well what do I pay taxes for well you know it's it's beyond that you need to educate yourselves so you need to
understand all the different components um the you know taking away certain federal funding impacts a bunch of little things under that umbrella that most people aren't even aware of and it
can be very devastating especially with families who are trying to piece together services for a a disabled loved one um also anxiety and uh mental health is is huge right now and um I can't
reiterate that enough ask people if they're okay just just ask and um just be kind thank you attorney um so this past weekend I was able to see the Willy
Wonka Junior presentation at the middle school um which was affected a little bit by the snow um but the kids did a great job i missed the fiddleler on the roof um presentation because I wasn't able I was actually out of town but to see all the
kids that participate it's amazing like in discussion around the budget when you see all of these pieces like every single dollar goes to something that is to one of the kids in our district that is helping them in some way right and being able to participate in all the activities and everything that makes the
well-rounded student which actually makes them able to be able to learn better um and does make the process of teaching and everything else that much easier um but they did they did a great job this weekend um yeah and I think it's amazing that we're able like we
have been keeping all of these um different projects and other things up so that the kids can participate and I think that's something important that we need to keep doing in gardener mr schwarza I attended as well friday my wife and I saturday night the last show and it was
amazing that was their second show for the day did a outstanding job and thanks to the parents that participated with all the refreshments and everything that was a good addition to rather than just
sitting on your rear and watching a a play but they had a lot of things to eat and to drink which was great and the teacher that was the visionary I can't remember his name but the visionary did a great job they had some great
assistants to make a terrific program for the parents and anyone who wanted to watch the the play outstanding was really great thank you thank you Mr schwarz and congratulations to Mr dilly Mr ley nothing tonight thank you thank
you Mrs cormier uh I just appreciate the budget presentation you know it's a little uncomfortable it doesn't always make everybody happy i wish it was a little more positive but I think we do the best with what we have and I really appreciate all the work you guys put into that thank you thank you uh I just have a couple of things uh this evening
uh congratulations to all of our students who were in our recent musicals and concerts and Micah shows and everything else in between for all of the different and our sports teams and our students are busy this time of year um and they're doing a really good job being busy like that with performances that they're doing in all venues that
they have so thank you very much to all of our students for your dedication congratulations on what you've accomplished uh I just wanted to make everyone aware the city recently entered into an uh articulation agreement with Clark University for all of our employees uh who are want to get a masters in public administration um the
agreement is something that several other communities in the Commonwealth have signed on to with them um to get a 40% discount for any um employee who wants to get their MPA from truck uh as a way to help with their professional development and that does cover all of their books uh so that's something that we're now offering
to all of our employees and we're working with Mount Wesa Community College right now with the Mass uh connect free community college program to do that for all of our employees who don't have an associates degree yet as well um really it's all stuff on their own it doesn't cost the city a dime for either program and it's just it allows
them to have a flexible schedule on the course end with the financial benefit with it too uh just to make things easier for our employees so it's something extra that we can now offer to all of the employees for the city um and I want to thank Representative Zotnik who made us gave us that connection as he's a lot of that program through the
legislature um and then my favorite time of year is uh around this time I got to start signing the diplomas for our upcoming graduations uh and I know Mrs cormier's uh doing the same thing too and I just want to say an early congratulations to all the students it's like every name when you flip to sign another page like normally you sign a
bunch of papers and you look like to see where you're at the end but like every diploma that you sign is a different student who went through a bunch of different you know scenarios and circumstances and everything to get to that point where their name is finally printed on that piece of paper so it's just exciting for me and I'm really proud of our students who do that so I just this my favorite time of year when
that like hits the desk even though the stack is like this big um but that's all I have for this evening thank you now don't forget you have to have the special pen the special pen to sign them that's right who passed the pen around too so everyone has the same one thank you Miss Campbell um
uh moving on there's no executive sessions this evening our next meeting is Monday May 12th at 6:30 p.m here in the city council chamber uh and is there a motion on the floor to adjurnn motion made and seconded all those in favor say I motion carries thank you all very much