from what was expected um however the way their budget is structured it's very conservative um so they only staff to what the current needs are but the budget has some wiggle room should enrollment go up but it is a little bit of a um they have enough money with a lower enrollment to fund um however
um with the lower enrollment they don't have a revenue um stream that they anticipated the enrollment is lower than anticipated so um those are all of the updates and my notes are very extensive but that is the the limit okay thank you um Youth and wreck Katie um so this is uh from Mr steel he says first the uh Recreation Department canceled all the activities last
weekend to allow for the school to have a deep clean and um he's hoping that this will help um break the sickness that has uh had an outbreak at Halifax Elementary um all after school programs are going well the recreation department is always looking to add teacher mentored programs um the basketball program is in full swing and the gym is being used seven days a week um
dick and Bob Clancy so he's talking about himself will be discussing when the recreation uh Youth and Rec committee will be able to refinish the floor of the gym with the addition of two paddle board courts the approximate cost is $9,000 the recreation department will be picking up the cost partially paid by a grant he does not break it down um looking ahead they have the annual Easter
EG cont coming up or holiday egg hunt coming up on 413 and there's more information to come he'd like to thank the highway department uh Steve Hayward uh because of that help they were able to get the glass out of the Gaga pit once it was vandalized and it should be opened in the spring uh summer is right around the corner and they're hoping to bring back popular the the popular
team teen extreme camp for kids entering grades six seven and eight as well as the art and stem camps that were attended well last year and finally they're looking to start a toddler Camp uh site and it everything is to be announced as they're still beginning to draft that great thank you PTO I do not have that one meeting tomorrow okay capital budget
did not meet admin review um there's a meeting scheduled for the 25th with uh Union 31 but nothing new to report okay de subcommittee no updates okay Union 31 there's a meeting on February 25th um okay principal bodry all right thank you um school council has an upcoming meeting meeting after
February break uh we were not able to pull off a meeting in January all of our schedules conflicted so um we're continuing work with the handbook I'll get to on step number four there uh we have the flyer distribution is flag football night from the Southshore flag football approval I want to is that
the only one that's the only one that I have any motions or discussions about the flag fo flyer it's digital yes okay I'll make a motion to approve it I'll second it all in favor I I I by all right all right thank you and was asked last
time to report on the number of students that were meeting and exceeding in mcast uh so those numbers were in the folder there um in math we had in grade three there was 14 exceeding and 39 that were meeting total of 77 students in the grade do you have the percentage the percentage you asked me for
the numbers but you want me to read those too no I wanted the percentages because I wanted to know how it was meeting up with your with the school goal of 70% the percentage for math meeting and exceeding was 44% in grade grade three 46 in grade four in grade five it was 40% and in grade six it was 40%
what was grade three again I'm sorry grade three was 44 40 yeah oh wait scratch that sorry hold on wrong column sorry folks scratch that whole no we were much better than that I was reading a state numbers I know you guys are going to kill me sorry all right sorry about that fre everybody out oh boy I
all right so math grade three meeting and exceeding was 69% there we go sorry I know I know I'm sorry uh grade four math meeting and exceeding was 51% grade five math meeting and exceeding was 60% and grade six Math meeting and exceeding was 42% okay
Ela grade three meeting and exceeding was 73% grade four 46% grade 5 46% and grade six was 55% okay um and then just in terms of measuring progress It's we use our Dibbles Dibbles and star Benchmark that we do three times a year uh we just did our benchmarks
from the fall to the winter and our Ela overall grades two through 3 through six was up uh from 52% to 62% and then in math it was up 7% 58 was the fall score and we're up to 65% did you want that broken down by grade level or that's just like a combined I mean I and
I was more you know wanting to know that your measure of progress in between mcast does it correlate with what you're seeing with mcast scor so that we know that the measure of progress you know like they there's a correlation between it has so like what we're doing now is we're taking like our scaled score from star and then we compare our scaled score on mcast it's not a perfect science but it's like we just take the average of the GR
and it is showing us whether or not students are are meeting or exceeding so it is a pretty good indicator of it and we've tracked for the last several years now last year was a little tricky because we added a benchmark which didn't it it kind of that was the first year that we did four benchmarks and we we've typically done three so last year was a little bit off um but it has it has shown to be a really solid indicator of where our kids will be at by the
end of the year did we do a writing Benchmark too for year we did we did do that was this is the first year that we're doing it um so we did um I'm trying to think was it December no it was before that November November I think November was the first one that we did U Can I just ask you a question thank you so we're looking
at the PDF that's 8. a.2 that's the numbers that and you just WR us the percentages rather than the numbers is that correct correct yep so I just so I confused about the the math doesn't work so I just want to double check on them so for the math and the ELA the total number the total numbers I don't know if you just copied and pasted by accident or something because the numbers don't add up and then
depending on what the right answers are for those then I can look at the percentages but right now they just the math isn't working here this the numbers that are on this sheet these are the actual number of students it's not percentages so it says and I don't know if I'm not looking at the right thing so I'm sorry so it says math right and it says exceeding is 14 14 students and then meeting is 39 yes and then 77 is that the total number of kids in the grade yes okay and
then you got those percentages from there y okay okay thank you any other questions anyone I guess I still just oh no sorry sorry is there a plan
to do another writing Benchmark prior to mcast yes do we know when that's going to be because mcast is coming quick yeah I spoke about that last time um there's going to be a common assessment for writing I think it's the the first week in the first full week in March there'll be another one there was one at the end of November and there'll be another one beginning of March thank you
well I know we've discussed interventions that you are using for the kids that are not meeting and exceeding and I would assume those are in place yep for yep okay after we have our at our data meetings we kind of break down the numbers and which students are moving in which direction and then we kind of make a targeted plan for those students did you have anything else
so is that um of these numbers decreased from our numbers last year do you know I don't know if you know that it's okay if you don't which which numbers just all in general like the trends so like by the cohort like so for grade six did the grade five students last year have higher numbers or are they pretty much staying the same I don't know answer I'm just curious I'd have to go and look into to each grade level and I can pull
that together for next time this was this was this is this year I think overall um I attended the third grade um data meeting with Ken and the third grade team and um I was really impressed with the focus on the data and the talk and the specific conversation around students that weren't um either you know exceeding or meeting and what were going to be some of the interventions that they had in place it was a really robust conversation and I felt
like um they did a nice job of really making sure that no student was sort of Left Behind or not not in some kind of intervention that there wasn't some kind of plan so um I try to attend at least one day to meeting in the middle of the year at each one of the schools and the third gr te was the one that I was able to attend so I'm trying to make sure that throughout all all three of the elementary schools that the beginning of year middle of year and end of year assessments and then the data meetings are happening with talk about the interventions that are
specific individual students and group students so I think we're very much on par and I can't speak for Kane but there's definitely um a great attention being paid to making sure that um if students aren't meet meeting benchmarks we're looking at instruction we're looking at um curriculum and we're looking at specific interventions um so speak to that well I'm just give given that that
where we are right now is a little I mean some grades are closer to the 70% I mean like grade three but um you know just kind of like do you have like mini goals of percentages you're going to reach before you get to 70 well seeing that uh pretty much based upon our star scores both in ela and math we're we're really On Target to kind of meet that 70% okay so you
know and you know Ela for grades three three is at 64% meeting and exceeding in Star grade four was at 68 grade five was at 61 and grade 6 was at 62 and in in math grade three was at 67 grade four was at 68 grade five was at 61 and grade six was at 75% great so we're hopeful that we'll continue that trajectory towards the spring and then we'll show that up in for the m
as well great thank you thanks any other comments okay uh the goals I had shared last month is it something should I I would go over the goals again for student learning goal professional practice goal and school Improvement goal those are the student learning was the 70% and our professional practice one
was focusing on our R mtss process and then our school Improvement goal was looking at um identifying strengths and weaknesses in our Ela instructional strategies was those were the three goals that we talked about I I think that was on there to discuss like where you were percentage wise yeah so we're good excellent um and the handbook so there's two components here with the handbook one is that during the tiered Focus monitoring review that we had last
year there was a language in our existing handbook that didn't include manifestation procedures and emergency removal procedures so in there we had to replace the language on page Pages 34 to 40 with the language on pages 40- 49
this is a lot to go through it is it is a lot so that's why we had I think um I don't know I would like more time to read over it um and I think I since now we know what the changes are um I think we if we could put this on
the agenda for next time so that we can thank you and then the other piece with our handbook is we were working on for FY 26 that is with our school council so we submitted that to our to the attorney uh for first review to make sure everything is in there um and so she our attorney has sent it back to us so we're in our second process of going through it so we'll continue that work in addition to
this piece but okay that's all um thank you uh Sarah I'd like to start with the financial report if you look at the print out that we had in your pool pity folders on page one you can see that there I have created a special ed legal line that separates out of that special ed legal expenditure the school adjusted counselor was moved from a special ed
staff line to the appropriate line the psychologist was moved to an appropriate Special Ed line and I've created a line for the nursing contracted services on page three there's a lot of moving Parts with special ed diss in transportation from the three different sources operating budget the circuit breaker revolving account and the 240 Grant funds her spreadsheet that was updated for this meeting today shows an overall surplus of about 391
,000 in those accounts right now questions about the financial report do we anticipate that Surplus will remain or are we yeah I know crystal ball is not here well barring any new students or new placements or unexpected it should probably remain about that but um this is special education costs we're talking about so that's why we have
this update every single meeting and just to clarify if we do have a surplus this year and our special education budget those monies cannot be put into next year's budget it's we go through a process will we return that to the town or am I mischaracterizing that so the I just spoke about three different essentially buckets of money the operating budget things that are not spent in the operating budget get turned
back to the town on June 30th the circuit breaker revolving account by law can carry up to one year of circuit breaker funds in it and the 240 Grant funds can carry over for up to 3 years depending on their usage so if there is money left in circuit breaker revolving and or or the 240 Grant funds we could use that to offset the FY 26 budget we
just won't know about that until June thank you next on my report is Grants there are no new grants or donations at this time and the last thing I have for you um the f26 adult meal price increase the food service director just went through a blanky audit process with the Department of Elementary and secondary education and they explained that how
fact is not following the federal formula for adult meals so beginning in August of 2025 the adult meal price will go from $4 plus tax up to $525 with tax so with the tax included in it's going from $428 to $562 that has nothing to do with budgets that has to do with
being in alignment with Federal Federal Regulations is that just a notification we don't have to vote or anything just to let us no okay any question that concludes my report thank you Dr Clifford so tonight I have a few things to talk about the first is the curriculum and instruction assessment update um you'll recall that I've been talking about the district um The
District's been working with the hill for literacy to conduct a full um districtwide literacy assessment and um a few of those things a few things happened with that number one um all of the um staff were surveyed uh all the staff and faculty were asked to complete inventories based on what um literacy assessments they used and also um all faculty and staff who who were different people were parts of groups that were
interviewed so it really had those three components to the assessment that the hill for literacy conducted and the district uh literacy liters team met with the V literacy on January 23rd and they shared the results from those uming from the surveys from um the interviews from the inventories and just collectively there were over all 799 Elementary and 388 secondary comments collected during the interviews um 116 Elementary faculty and staff were
interviewed and 74 secondary and faculty and staff were interview were were um were interviewed so the data collected in all of those three modalities was conducted an effort to support leaders in identifying strengths and literacy goals across five major areas leadership tiered instructional U model professional learning assessment and family engagement it was really to find information to to in those different categories um specifically based on the data and Analysis um three to
five recommendations for each of those areas was provided for the hill for literacy so the hill did a nice job of meeting with the people who were part of the district literacy team on the 23rd and they and they went through all of these pieces with us and they also created a video for each faculty at each one of the schools to watch where they went over all of the information so that everybody in each one of the schools could understand so what the findings were in the areas and um some recommendations so as it stands right now on
March 6th the DLT is going to get together at the high school the hill is going to take us through a process where all of the data that they gathered and we're going to look in those those categories that I mentioned and create a literacy plan for the district so again there'll be um different goals under each one of those larger categories with action steps and a timeline who's going to be responsible and all of those things when that's completed I'll share that with you so that you'll clearly be able to see um what
are the things that are specific um to alax elementary school to the elementary schools across the district in relation to literacy it's many things in all those five categories and very comprehensive but I'm really excited that we're going to have a plan that's going to be very clear in what's going to happen year by year to really improve literacy throughout the district and reading and specifically obviously in reading and writing so that's that's more that more information about that will be forthcoming um but I want to
thank the folks that were part of all of those groups that got together I was really impressed because the executive director Darcy burn said that um her time here doing the needs assessment was as smooth as she's ever had which is a big compliment because it's a big undertaking to to ask to try to gather all this data so thank you to everybody who participated uh was really great the other piece I wanted to speak about was the math steering committee so there's a larger committee K through 12 but really broken down into two separate groups a k through six group and the 7 through 12th
group right now the K through six group is looking at um math curriculum for next year specifically looking at I ready and hmh maap both meet expectations across the board with des's curate which is s of their vetting um for curriculum um they do a lot of work to to look at curriculums um specific to Massachusetts with Massachusetts teachers feedback um so right now the group is looking at those two curriculums and will be scoring those curriculums based on a rubric that we've
created and grade seven and 8 they'll also be looking at curriculum and are looking at I ready in hmh with the caveat that um ideally a consistent curriculum is what we would like and that no matter what the curriculum needs to meet expectation on curate across the board so that's just those meetings will be ongoing I'll share more information as that happens um I'll definitely present and hopefully maybe some other folks will come to present with me later on the spring to talk about that another another piece that's happening and I'll be
at HS on Thursday morning I've been going to each one of the schools and spending about a half a day meeting with approximately eight faculty and staff members and asking them questions about the school really as an entry entry information for me to find out more about the schools which has been extremely helpful uh to me and I hope it's been helpful to the schools too and the last piece is we are in the process of applying for a 1 18 Grand opportunity of fifth and sixth grade to begin implementing the investigating
history curriculum in 2526 this would include professional learning opportunities for our fifth and sixth grade teachers um we've been partnering with 1 18 team on social studies programs at the middle and high school and also for our 6 through eight open sad curriculum over the past few few years we're hopeful to get this grant um it's already I believe it's been submitted at this point so hopefully we'll get the funds to help us with those things and the last thing that I have on um is a corrective action plan probably see that on the agenda
and basically it relates in some ways to what Kane was talking about which is um every year uh every three years the Department of Education um comes and they conduct what's called a tiered Focus monitoring review they look at both special ed and civil rights information that they want to make sure that we're complying with all of the laws that we need to be complying with the things that we need to do as part of that um three things came up that we need
to um have you look at have um the policy subcommittee look at the first thing was the the Helifax handbook which K just spoke about there's some pieces in that that need to be changed adjusted or added to and in particular was due process around discipline and a suspension information update so some of those things need to be put in there to be in compliance um and the other piece was that buling an intervention plan and um there were a few things that needed
to be added to that and then the last piece is an updated physical restraint policy so all of the work that needed to happen to update those three things has been done right now where it stands is the both the school committee and the policy um subcommittee will need to review those things so basically everything's done it just needs approval from the school committee and then I will uh update that information in the department of Ed port and we should be all set so
that's where it stands right now so any questions Dr F so I have uh two items in the folder for you to take a look at related to data and I'm going to while I do that I'm going to ask principal bodri if he could start our presentation on our screen behind us um but the first charts in your folder you'll see are K through six students attending private and parochial and charter schools and
you'll notice that for Halifax students um the um the number of students attending private schools is down from eight students last year to five students um and in keeping with at least a seven-year Trend that's depicted here in terms of number of students attending private and parochial schools the second chart you'll see are students leaving the district using school choice and I'm happy to report that no Halifax St students are leaving
the district using school choice and in fact uh our total number between all four districts is at a an all-time low since 2016 2017 so those are our school choice numbers next I'd like to um go over our budget presentation beginning with um some review of where we left off last
time if we take a look at the goals in particular um you may recall that we provided uh the committee with both a 10% reduction as requested by the town as well as level services for comparison we explain to you that the level Services allows us to support student needs maintain appropriate class sizes and support the strategy for district Improvement since the last time we met
uh Sarah and Lauren have both met with the Town Administrator to discuss uh possible um Town needs tonight this evening you'll see two potential uh options one um we have structured the the potential Cuts in tiers to get to the town um request of a 1.75 increase over fy2 I think the overall was 3.25
for both Halifax and Silver Lake combined so that's where the 1.75% increase comes from so you'll see a variety of tiers this evening and we will talk about the impact we understand that you may have questions as you go along please keep in mind that there there may be answers to some questions as we move along in the budget presentation and I'm going to turn it over to Sarah thanks Mr superintendent on this next
slide this is a um this slide was included on a preliminary budget presentation so again um this slide is divided up into four quadrants on the top leftand quadrant is the FY 26 budget um divided up between regular education special education and vocational education and then down the left hand side those numbers to 1,2
,000 3,000 etc those are the department of Elementary and secondary education broad categories for uh 1,000 is Administration 2,000 is instruction 3,000 is student services 4,000 maintenance 5,000 is benefits six uh 7,000 is fixed costs and then 9,000 are tuitions so top leftand corner is the FY 26 budget broken down the bottom leftand corner is the FY 25 budget broken
down that same way for comparison the top right hand side is the percent increase in those broad categories from FY 25 to FY 26 and the bottom right hand quadrant is the amount of increase from FY 25 to FY 26 so uh a summary the town has allocated a 3.5% increase for the Halifax and Silver
Lake combined education budget for FY 26 we're presenting a 1.75% increase for Halifax Elementary School the Halifax Elementary level service budget for FY 26 was 8,379 1816 after deducting anticipated circuit breaker reimbursement of $ 13275 there's a difference of
1, 35,5 86 to be addressed the utilities that were included in the budget include an increase over a 4-year average the shared cost budget is included but has not been voted on yet there is a potential reap grant that has not been projected we haven't heard anything from the federal government about that um homeless and Foster Transportation has been adjusted based on prior year expenses there are no known retirements at this time and for outof
district vocational costs Halifax currently has one student in a program I have budgeted three placements so the students I believe need to make their applications to the schools by March 15th and then they have to notify Us by April 1st so we're still um awaiting notification of anything but this is a number that could be updated some important notes in
fy2 we up we offset the budget using $847,000 of Grant in revolving funds so there was a 23% increase for level services this doesn't in account for the fact that we offset the budget if we Factor those tuitions and services into the fi25 budget the increase is 99.3% Sarah how much of that was circuit breaker I'm sorry $847,000 how
much is that a circuit breaker funds off the top of my head I don't know can I get back to you with that um we have concerns about net School spending and maintenance of effort so maintenance of effort has to do with the 240 Grant which is um a federal entitlement Grant and essentially the maintenance of effort
says that we need to spend at least as much as we did the prior prior prior year so when uh Dr panesi applies for the 240 Grant the individuals with disabilities Education Act Grant they compare the current budget to what the reported budget was on the most recent certified end of year report so fy2 was
compared to FY 23 FY 26 will be compared to FY 24 it was Dr panesa can probably tell you quite an ordeal to justify and prove the maintenance of effort for the FY 25 grant for this year it took months and months of work which I appreciate um we don't have a lot of confidence that we will make the maintenance of effort for the grant for next next
year um the net School spending so Chapter 70 the general laws establishes an annual net School spending this is what um the amount of money that is required for an adequate education for students so I had to take a deep dive into the numbers for this Halifax net School spending
number for FY 26 is$ 7,781 789 and uh factoring in the townside estimated costs that the town gave me um of 17844 52 uh that in addition to what the school committee approves should put us over that 7.78 million for net School spending so it was an area of concern had
to take a deep look into it um I'm withdrawing my concerns about that pending the vote tonight so tiered Cuts this is the same as the preliminary budget pre presentation back in January so in order to to meet the
town's request we made some leveled Cuts tier one Cuts if you recall have already been made so these tier one Cuts $ 77,6 these Cuts have already been made and are reflected in the budget numbers that you have the school committee chair requested that we do an analysis of what it would look like if we moved to three teachers per class classroom so this is the
breakdown we have an estimated kindergarten size of 85 students next year um and then each grade was promoted kindergarten into first grade first into second Etc so these average class sizes um 28 for kindergarten 27 for first grade 30 for second grade 22 for third 22 for fourth 25 for 5th and 23 for 6 that would be if we staffed at three teachers per grade level if you take a look on this
chart though there's a a red box around the kindergarten and grade one we felt that uh 28 and 27 were really really high numbers for a Kindergarten class and a first grade class so when the administration met we looked at all sorts of Alternatives and came up with these this proposal for tier 2 Cuts so keeping in mind that we need
to cut 1.3 million in order to meet the goal uh that the town has asked for which would be a 1.75% increase over last year tier two cuts would be $92,073 and then a teacher a grade level teacher
at each of the grades two three four five and six tier three can I just ask how we got from tier one to tier two like why there I feel like we should have a tier one and a half we went from having everything in the school to let's do away with tech library and art so if you recall from our
first presentation there majority of the items in the budget are not things that we can that we have control over the amounts we cut everything we could from the areas in tier one prior to even presenting you the preliminary budget anything else the M the we went over what the drivers were things like heat utilities
um contractual obligations salary increases we don't have control over and those are in the budget so in order to bring the budget down by this amount of money we're now looking at we go from things to Staffing ter can you go back a slide to tier two
clarify tier two that means we're cutting 900 00 towards the 1.3 by this yes and we're still not at the goal at 1.75 to get to the 1.75% increase sorry sorry 1.3 1.3 million 1.75% thank you sorry right
the we 900 towards towards the this is just not doable though like I just this is this got to be another there's got to be something else I mean we just had to close the school for the neuro virus because it was people were kids were throwing up in the hallway like we want to cut a custodian and put more kids in one class and then I'll them all on more I don't think anybody wants to cut anything the reality is is we can't control what the town can or cannot afford only the town can decide that we have presented a level service
budget you have been asked as the school committee to consider what you'll put forward as a budget to your town and but I don't think anybody in this room wants to cut and if we even were to not make these cuts and even if we cut half the fire department and half the police department we would not be able to fund this even tier two because the school is so much of our town budget how is it going to affect our town though when the kid when parents are pulling their kids
out of public school and putting them in private it won't be good I have a lot of questions but I would like to see if we can finish the presentation could you tell us what number slide that is in case you want to go back to them that would be helpful um that was slide number 11 thank you so tier three
again keeping in mind we're working towards a $1.3 million go for cuts tier three is an additional $400,000 so at tier three there's a cut for a kindergarten teacher one grade one teacher and then an additional grade three grade four and grade six teacher these are the class sizes
projected class sizes this is the comparison on the left hand side would be class sizes for uh a level service Budget on the right hand side is with the tier two and three cuts the again keeping in mind the tier one Cuts have already been made so the with the tier two and tier three Cuts there would be 28 students in kindergarten class 27 in first grade 30 in 2nd 34 in 3rd 34
in 4th 26 in fifth grade and 35 in sixth grade average class size would be 30 students per class for clarification this is still full day kindergarten correct yes so this next slide is just a reminder that um in the Le level
service proposal this is a flashback to what happened last year so we had $700,000 in cuts from fi25 it would be extremely difficult if C with lost services and supervision for students and staff for FY 26 so in fy2 we had uh we lost a reading teacher four power professionals a part-time behaviorist a part-time office par professional the instrumental teacher a
title one teacher a part-time custodian and three Specialists were reduced from 1.0 down to8 FTE and also Halifax is currently the seventh lowest in 2023 out of 399 local education associations in per pupil expenditure in the state of Massachusetts can I just St that that that's comparing against K through2 and other districts and that historically elementary schools are cheaper
to educate than the upper levels I just want to I mean I agree and thank you for pointing that out keep in mind that every single uh elementary school that is in the same situation as us is included in that sure no I just I just want to make sure just because I know that sounds extremely dramatic but when you compare our elementary school to Kingston our spending is similar which is in same district same boat so so is
that true like where does Kingston and clemton rank out of that 3 so when I presented per pup expenditure to you uh two months ago the most recent data was 2022 the 2023 data has come out and I can put that together for you and send it to you I'm just as we think about regionalization as we think about
Equity amongst our elementary and intermediate levels I think it's important to keep in mind where the three towns fall in the state metrix so then on this next slide um the first thing the administration does when we start talking about budgets
is we have the conversation about what can we do to move instruction forward to progress to grow as a district and so these were the proposed costs beyond the level service budget and these positions are not included in the level service budget so there's an ask for an additional special ed teacher for part-time lunch and recess par professionals we'd like to move the behaviorist job from a bcba to an RBT there is no cost involved in that transition we voted that last meeting right
we did okay sorry no it's okay I just wanted to make sure I'm just running through the slides I don't even know if I'm supposed to be doing this slide to be honest um a funding source change for the math interventionist was proposed and we would like to have a discussion about otpt staff versus continuing to hire contractors so the total estimated increase with all of these positions is 134 ,000 and this increase would
have a significant impact on the educational offerings to the students of Hala elementary school so this is above the level service budget yes okay can I ask a question um you said you wanted to have a discussion around hiring PT versus Contracting I'm assuming that even though we're spending if we add to staff there'll be a reduction in the amount that we're paying contracted Services
sorry thank you speak so when we would do that it wouldn't be directly for halif effects unless you had enough services at the school for a full-time OT and a full-time PT it would be a cost share and to be allocated by building for the students that have it's a much more efficient way of utilizing the time of our of our related service providers so if a person spends 2 and a half days here and then maybe two and a half in another school then we're getting the most
bang for our buck that almost like regionalization well I didn't say that but I know but almost almost like that but if that is that something we have to vote on because I feel like a position like that makes so much sense I think you need to hardcore numbers which we are gathering now and then we can present them to you and then go from there if it's a shared cost it would need to be approved by un by Union 31 at at the Joint meeting but it would also benefit that school because they would
no longer be paying for contracted Services correct yes okay but it wouldn't be a Halifax school committee vote right it would be a union 31 vote okay so our last slide we are going to ask you um to please vote a budget tonight um if for no other reason the town and the community needs to prepare for whatever the decision of the school committee is and the sooner we make that decision as difficult as that may be
for you the better off our town and Community will be so we're opening it up for questions um that you may have if you notice the last slide Sarah has prepared sample uh language but again it will depend upon what what amount of money you decide to go with uh will influence the language that you actually use
um oh no I was just going to make an overall statement just so this isn't what we want to do but when we're given a budget to work in that's all we can do the town it's like your household budget if your costs go up you have to cut somewhere else and we are only given a certain amount of money from the town to work with with the exception of an override which which can only be approved by our Board of
Selectmen so we could vote a budget that's level service that doesn't cut anything which we would all love but then the town the board of selectman would have to agree to do the override first and then it would have to be voted on at town meeting and at the Town election and there's a lot of you in here but I don't I know not all of you live in Halifax but like even the amount you this isn't even wouldn't be close to the amount of people needed to vote
an override and to do a level service budget with an average we have about 2800 taxpayers in this town and obviously it's all related to what your house value is but if I just take the 1 um 3 million that we are talking about tonight and divide it by the 2800 that would be about $466 per household added to their tax bill for the year and so that's
where you would have to convince the town essentially if you want to have if we don't want to make any Cuts then it would have to be going to the town to be willing to each pay extra which I know a lot of people in this room agree with it that's why you're here but the problem is getting the overall town to vote for it and so but I'm but I'm just saying but also we have to be prepared if it doesn't
pass if the town doesn't vote to pass it we know what we're looking at right now but we can't really pass two budgets tonight so as a school committee we're trying to look into a crystal ball of do we try to go for an override two of our Selectmen just asked just basically not to I mean I'm that's the message I was receiving that you know a lot of towns people don't want that and there's a pretty big divide in the town I would honestly say and so as a school committee we have to
decide how to work within these honestly difficult parameters of not wanting to cut to our schools I have four kids they've gone through this school system they're doing awesome I you know like I love this school system that's why I'm sitting here and you know we want to do but you know we can only do what the town will actually vote on and it's that's the thing that's hard for me I don't know what to predict and I can't say exactly what it will cost everyone in
the town but yes Dr PR uh for the benefit of everyone can you share with us what would happen should a budget not be or an override not be approved at town meeting and I'm specifically talking about timing and the fact that desie could step in in our place jie wouldn't step in because we're meeting net School spending even even with the cuts well well with at least the you have to have an you have to have
an approved budget so a budget would have to be approved at town meeting I don't know if you want to open it up to the the um select people here but only the board of Selectmen can choose whether or not to put forward and override so we could even decide tonight okay we're going we want to go as level of service and they could say we're not going to put forth an override but I'll let the select and speak well I was just going to say I mean like with kids in
the school system I I would love to have no Cuts level service budget no cuts that being said as I mentioned before a CPA for $85 a household just got voted down so now we're talking on average of $460 something doll per year increase and while we all would support a level service budget even if a board has select and put it Forward is still incumbent upon the voting public the town which in this case is not the board selectman or the Town Administrator or any
of us it is literally the people voting which is different than the town asking for a budget tonight so you have a town asking for a budget and a town voting for an override if I had any confidence in an override passing I would put it on the budget I put it on the agenda for the town meeting I don't have any confidence in that passing based on any number of things we've seen recently so I'm only cautioning a vote based on what we can expect to happen based on the consequences of tonight not in
what I would like to see happen but as a member of you know an elected body we have become a decision to put forward to the town the voting public what will pass well I will what we want to pass sorry and one thing in comparison and the thing is is we wouldn't have to go for the full amount either I'm just letting you know all the things I've been thinking about because I think about this a lot that you know you're not alone the school is not not the CPA I mean I I
I will say that if you were to so um it's so much different but an increased tax burden on an average household is not that much different the reason behind it could be different but somebody looking to trim their budget with no kids in the system or with no investment in the town for the Next Generation might think differently than the people we here tonight you're not seeing any op any opposition tonight because we're all in favor of the school system and what it provides today tomorrow and next year well I know it's
a friendly room to go for an override in you know um I'm only letting selectman speak sorry so that's not public comment then well it was because I needed information let him speak we want to hear him um I'm the chair you have to speak to you have M you have money available you just said this $326,000 if you stop spending on the town side of the budget and you put that back a circuit breaker you can move that money forward you have
money in the out of District placements for the kids that go to agriculture you can make that cut in a previous in a in a next meeting but we have to vote a budget tonight based on the information have but you should go through the process just because you think it doesn't work doesn't mean the kids aren't worth trying thank can I I take issue
I take issue with we're sitting at this table we spend countless hours volunteering our time at this table I don't have any kids in the school but I love this school I love this town all of my kids went through the school I started attending school committee meetings when my kids were in the school and I started paying attention and I applaud all of you for being here because we need people coming to these meetings to understand what's
happening but of course the kids are worth it of course the kids are worth it and we are trying our level best to deliver a budget that is doable for our town and provides a quality education for our kids and you're tasking us with something that's near impossible we all want to do this we all want to try I have very strong feelings about this um um but I do take exception with
we owe it to the kids to try that's what we do all the time when we come to these meetings and put in the work and the research um and I would like to ask some questions and um I sent some emails to Dr Brew um and I pulled out Excel and I'm a person that likes to map things
out to understand them um so if it's okay I apologize that I don't have something that I can share with the larger audience but I would like to share a worksheet I put together and ask some questions around it if that's okay okay so I don't think I have enough for everyone at tables but um if you can pass them around so based on the presentation that we gave that was given showing class
sizes um there's a couple of things that I think are important to note I I agree with Jessica that it feels like we should have like a one and a half um I think that it's hard to look at that slide can you put up the tier two slide Sarah it's it's hard to it's hard to look at that slide and see all the
minuses I am not I personally am not comfortable voting to remove or to cut $900,000 and I understand the risks and my feeling is that um similar to what other towns in our district are doing I think it's important for us to bring it to the town and let that process play out um I kind of ran the
numbers looking at if we were to if we were to eliminate a teacher at certain levels we have we have classrooms um that currently with four teachers have um an average of 17 students and 19 students if we were to remove um a teacher just three teachers um we would still have in grade two our current grade two so
next year's grade three would be a classroom size of 22 grade four would be a classroom size of 22 and grade six would be a classroom size of 23 and then looking at what the other Town classroom sizes are and um the classroom sizes in seventh and 8th grade that's pretty comparable to what's happening elsewhere in the the district I need to say I don't want to
cut teachers but that is an area that we should have some conversation around the other thing I think that is important to note about eliminating Staffing positions is we are voting on a dollar value to cut we are not voting on eliminating Staffing at the end of the day we vote on the dollar value of what our budget is and then it is up to our administrators to decide how to spend that money because they have line item
autonomy so last year we had a conversation when we voted the budget about um deducting our Specialists to a 0.1 or a n across four different FTE um and then there was some adjustments made where three Specialists were lowered to a08 and one specialist was remaining at a one that is a decision not made by the school committee and I think those are things that it's important for um those in
the audience to recognize the other thing that's on this little spreadsheet that I put together and I again I apologize that I don't have this to share but um our kids have really had a difficult Journey post pandemic and the the pandemic does play a factor into why our budgets are so outsourced everything is more expensive right now but if you look at the grade that is the most
affected um by the pandemic it's our current grade um five so next year's grade six those kids had um remote learning for half of their kindergarten they had um their first grade year was hybrid and then they were masked their entire second grade those played a factor in how they're educated but they're in they're going into sixth grade and the majority districts a sixth grade would be considered middle school we
expect middle schoolers to have a larger degree of independent so again I think cutting a teacher at that level and retaining staff in kindergart in first grade and second grade is worth a discussion so if we were to just eliminate three teaching positions where does that bring us an eliminating budget or reducing
budget I know that's a whole lot I just threw out there Sarah can give you an estimate using the same number that we've used to estimate all teaching positions obviously there's going to be some variability depending upon seniority and licensure my personal opinion is I feel like after studying this all I agree some
of our class sizes can be increased and still have learning be optimal and I I think that we should take it as an approach of Some Cuts but also asking for some override that's how I feel you articulated a lot simpler than I did just now I mean because I I I don't think I I don't I I I think a smaller amount would be more palatable to the
town and also if the override doesn't pass then we've already started the work that we need to do and and that's what I mean I I I you know I I want to give it to the town let the you know I mean I don't actually I wish we just had the money but um I don't want to give it but I mean this is our only option is to either you know go for the complete amount override go for a partial amount um I mean I assume if we can cut a
bus we can cut a bus you know like things like that that are yes if we were going sorry because I'm doing six different things at once if we were going to cut a bus we would want to entertain the um the pay for ridership that we had talked about earlier um because I don't know that we actually can cut a bus but we could trans transition the cost of one bus into a
revolving account so if we cut a bus then we start charging for buses it's kind of a win-win because we lose the price of a bus but we gain money that we get from charging for the bus the operating budget would lose the bus and we would pay for it out of the revolving account that would be set up for the fees gained through the town um Lori to answer your question if if the tier one C cuts that
are made are done and we cut three teachers then that leaves us 1.95 million apart from where the town would like us to be so not even close I think we cut everything that they asked last year and we didn't even ask the town for a scent and then we ended up giving the town money because we cut too much I think we go back to the town and
ask for an override and then they can say no but I would like to also meet with the board of Selectmen and talk about it then but I think we owe it to we can't decide what the town is going to decide there's five of us here we're not going to know what the town is going to say the town didn't want the CPA but they might want to fund the schools we have no idea I agree with you Jess but I do think that we have to wait like the tone in the town has never been friendly to education quite frankly we've always had difficulty getting education um funded
um and complaints and I'm just I'm just the guy feeling the tone of the Town watching things get shot down seeing people talk about how they don't have any money to spend say no to everything I I everyone in this room wants this budget to pass as is you've got Selectmen telling you they don't necessarily um want to go for an override I
personally I don't want to cut it I was pretty angry after last year's budget was pretty fired up after January's meeting correct so I'm with you we only had 100,000 left over I know but I'm just saying that take 100,000 in a heartbeat I'm just saying you have to like you're you can't like we have we have a tough job yeah it's a tough job it's it's not a precise thing and I would wonder so if we don't have if we if an override doesn't pass what town services
do you want to give up I'm not saying any of that I'm just saying we need to ask the town what they want to do we can't we can't cut everything and then like time and then not ask the town Town Services would have to cut which town services are you willing to go without uh to that point though Lauren like that's not our job right now like our job is school committee members so I think we have to listen to all the other factors but I I am my consideration is that I don't I'm
not comfortable with cutting anything other than those potentially three teacher salaries and going back to the town I mean that's just how I feel I think ask for an overhead and then over the next few meetings until May we come up with some other ideas like charging for buses and potentially potentially charging for kindergarten I know that's not ideal but I mean we pay for preschool usually I don't have any problem asking for I I don't think that you do I just I I'm not saying you do I just I think that
it's just it's not fair to not let the town now decideed this it's just bring it to the town they're going to say yes or no they say no we figure it out I just don't think to figure it out now when the town meeting is in May when they we could vote on it they could they could say yes just like they they've said yes to a lot of the um Senior Center we need a school we don't need a senior center I know that's awful to say but we need a school and we we're mandated we're Mand
like we have to have education we have to educate our children exactly we're not mandated to have a senior center but we voted yes on that a lot I'm just going to put it out there that's not a popular strategy to get I'm just saying a lot of people have showed up to that meeting a lot of people have show up to this meeting and vote Yes I hope so Ken me too clarification so say that we decide to go and then it doesn't pass yes where do what is our scramble plan at that
point then do we make all these Cuts last minute and we have no Cody the way an override works is if you put an override forward there's two components that have to pass first is your budget has to pass town meeting so town meeting uh makes the appropriation our town meeting is historically before the election so you would actually have to vote uh basically a what if budget you'd say if town meeting votes the what if budget which be the higher appropriation that would be what if the override passes then that would pass
then you'd also have a secondary budget for what the town currently afford um given no override so you effectively have to present two budgets at Town Meeting those would have to both ently pass and then it would go to the ballot and if the override passes to the ballot then you would go with a higher budget that included the override if not it's whatever budget is appropriate at time meeting with theide not is it tell me Co coding cing so essentially we have the budget that's presented now for a level
service budget right those are the two options you're talking about there well it's the budget as a whole for L time okay but as they're opposing it what happens if they go for with the level service budget tonight the board of selectman asked to decide if they want to put an override on the ballot and can we not do an override if they go with the lower budget tonight like is that not an option no we if if we do do what the town is asked a level funded budget plus the 1.75% which is
was the last slide um then there wouldn't need we wouldn't need an override don't need over no but we the town can't override that like if you guys decide on this lower budget tonight it's a done deal that's what you're saying my first one so can I I haven't really spoken yet go ahead so there's a couple things that
I I want to clear up uh for my perspective one I I think it's only fair to our students for them to receive the best education they could receive as an educator I stand behind our uh children in that they need the best Services they can get so that they can meet that 70% or greater as we start reducing teachers as we start reducing the ones that
bother me the most right here are the math specialist and the reading specialist because now we're removing tier 2 support for our students which they absolutely need it it bothers me greatly that those are up there because that is the way that we support our students who were not meeting or exceeding and so yes every one of these positions is valuable but I am highly concerned about those especially if we're going to have to cut the teachers absolutely because
they're going to need even more support I'm concerned with the fact that we have not filled that behaviorist position um and I would love an update since we changed the title of the position and the recommendations have we filled it still contract and services so since we haven't filled it again increase in classroom sizes you're going to have more behaviors for the teacher to deal with and they're not going to be able
to deal with 30 40 students in some of these cuts um and still be able to provide quality education high level education okay I'm concerned about safety by removing a bus how many more students are going to be put on a bus without bus monitors watching these students and yes Library technology especially this day and age uh and art are very valuable so every one of these positions is absolutely important I
myself also looked through the numbers and did some math and I I don't believe that we should be making blanketed Cuts as far as like one teacher per grade it does not make any Common Sense we need to be looking at how many students are in that grade and saying we are ideal is a classroom size of whatever that number is 21 22 28 in kindergarten oh my goodness I
don't know if you've ever heard the phrase hurting kittens but that's exactly what that is in a kindergarten classroom hurting kittens everyone's doing their own thing and as soon as you get one student doing what they're supposed to be doing they're not doing it and of course there's again the safety issue if we don't have the Paras to support our kindergarten classes and we're trying to teach even simple things like scissors safety in a classroom of 28 kids that's
going to be difficult as a taxpayer I am also very concerned I brought up at the last meeting our tax rate is extremely high I don't want to have to pay any more money in taxes but I will tell you I education is a second career third career for me and I went into it because I love the kids and I want to
see children feel successful and I I will gladly pay $500 more so that our students are supported so I am recommending that we go for and and we're all going to have to do our part every one of us we're going to have to go Grassroots we're going to have to talk to everyone we know know and spread the word far and wide that we are going to
support this as a town so I am going to vote for a level service budget for for those reasons can I just add one other thing our house and our Senate have legislators right now our our lawmakers have proposed bills that we all need to be supporting
to support education they include things like Chapter 70 funds funds for Rural schools we qualify for that they're trying to say that because we're not we don't have a lot of businesses supporting us that we need to get more funding from the state and these laws you can look them up right on the State website we need need to be calling our lawmakers and
backing these bills you need to make the phone calls because as as it was stated we're not the only School District going through this even towns like ducksbury have voted on last I heard going to a proposition two and a half so it doesn't matter rich or poor we all need to be saying the same thing we're all saying in this room support our students and get the money where it needs to
go we need to stop funding stuff that doesn't need to be funded and get to where it's important and the only way that's going to happen is if we all make noise again far and wide Grassroots so Karen thank you for your time in preparing the the budget but I just I'm asking questions not criticisms but just some questions please so for like even for even for tier
two for special ed would we even have the support that we need in place by law to support our special ed students by cutting another specialed teacher so when we discuss this as a team we recognize that the impact would lead to Greater case loads for special education teachers but it would not prevent us from meeting the legal requirements the the problem as you know know case loads class
sizes has an impact on students right and so then even dispersing our specialed population amongst fewer classrooms is that still going to be like to keep you know to make it basically not have an inclusion class right make them all inclusion you be able to still work with those numbers too with the fewer classes to to mix the students between yeah thanks there's no official guidance on
how many we try the recommended is 33 and a 3% okay so every three out of 10 students um when you go up to 40 and 45 and 50 then you have an issue because usually the um content is lower than what you would normally want for the grade level standard so special if you think you have it covered and and I'm sure that you do I just need to ask for myself um what vote for the teachers contract if you're getting rid of specialist how will they
have their period so the and I I think the principal can do a better job at describing this but in the the most simplistic terms if in fact you're going to cut this many classroom teachers you're going not going to need as much coverage for great that makes sense prep and lunch for teacher for clap grade level teachers so those kind Cuts kind of go hand inand if you if you don't cut as many teachers then you're going to need more Specialists we're not even
talking about whether or not um the impact of losing things like the Arts um or things of that nature have on children so I don't want to seem as if I no I know I it's another level just making sure sort of yeah and so that was the rationale for keeping PE and music then to just choose to we have to offer so physical education has to be offered um annually do music well all
of all of your specials have standards and we're trying to maintain some of the Arts um if I were to is well I feel like everyone's spoken so if I were to summarize somewhat it seems like we're all in favor of an override I'm my thoughts on on that are if we ask for Less do we have a greater chance
of it passing or do you think it doesn't matter I don't think it matters I think for to be respectful of the board of selectman that we should not you know meet them show that we're trying to make a good choice that's respectful of them in the town's wishes but still not cutting all of that here's my concern my concern is that if we do our part in did cut some we still have the unknown of Silver Lake
and what they're going to bring forward and that could very easily be the you know the camel that you know the straw that breaks the camel's back so to speak so again without having a crystal ball and knowing what Silver Lake is going to vote we're kind of between a rock and a hard place here I feel like we did a really good job reducing last year but maybe it wasn't reciprocated on the other end and I'm I'm saying that
just because their costs are a little bit higher than ours and so I I just want to throw that out there that went from 39,000 to 41,000 much less of an increase so I don't know I is that correct that it's well I I think the difficulty last year with silver lake is you had a an extreme reorganization where more more costs were shifted over to the Silver Lake budget M and
they didn't have the benefit of things like Sur circuit breaker to offset so in Halifax we did take a circuit breaker offset a sizable circuit breaker offset last year which leads to an impression that the budget has increased by a greater percentage than which if you take that off it's 10% which is still large but not 23 and they they kind of reduced the amount that they had to go back to the
towns for because they used a an account that had some funds in it they did but they're not they don't have that this year to offset correct well so we're we submitted so e and d stands for excess and deficiency it's the Regional School equivalent of what you refer to as free cash on the town's side so we submitted our D to the Department of Revenue at the in December and we just heard back
from them a week ago that they have looked at it and then myself and the district accountant met with the Department of Revenue today and we're given a list of things that need to be adjusted and then we need to resubmit so there is this thing this amount of money end D that Silver Lake will end up having some amount I don't know what it is yet I'll let everybody know as soon as I know but what I will tell you is
generally end is used for uh capital projects maintenance of buildings um things like that and so we tend to think of the middle school and high school as being these brand new and beautiful buildings but they're 20 years old and part of the infrastructure is failing so we can't take all the e and d and say oh let's offset the budget yet one more time and then
lose hbac or something like that so can I ask or just bring up one other point that I think before we do any kind of voting is important to think about um I am in support of voting a level service but I'm also a realist and a pragmatist and I don't think um that like I don't think it's guaranteed that we're not going to be cut making cuts of at a later point I hope
that our town rallies and gets the override um but I you know I have my my thoughts that that may not happen um and if that's the case I think one of the questions that I have is at what point do we rally and come back to the table and look at other options is are we doing that in June to make those cuts or is that something
that the level funded budget at town meeting correct so we would be looking at all three tiers of cuts if it doesn't pass that's just how it will be okay so the other thing that I think is important to point out and I keep bringing up the word regionalization this problem that we're dealing with this year I don't think it's going to change at all in the near future um and I'll Point um so I do think it's imperative that we start thinking about how we are structured in
our on our district and how to fund education on a longer term because um there are overlaps in how we run I mean poor Dr PR is going to four um school committee meetings and Sarah and Dr parenes and you know it's just it's not sustainable it is an inefficient way to run a school District um it is creating an equity when you have three Elementary in
intermediate levels that are funding SE budgets with separate tax funding it's just I cannot say enough if you want to move forward and try to get this level service budg budget all of you in this room also need to be rallying about regionalizing our school system because we we've we've got to find some more efficiencies eliminate redundancies and absolutely absolutely is
doing four budgets insane give her more man hours back she had cost budget five and I mean again like that we could be sharing costs with other contracts I just again well even special Contracting like to have in-house versus Contracting is always going to save money and then also if we regionalize then we're eligible for regionalization grants
for busing correct or something to that so there's yes there's Transportation Regal Regional Transportation reimbursement and that's something our school committee is has you know we applied for a grant it's being studied for our three towns we're trying as hard as we can um I think that it's important to note too that we almost didn't get the benefit of the grant that we won because um
the town voted down the MBTA um 3A um resoning which that was the will of the town but there was an impact to our schools um thankfully Kingston has that um Zone they're in compliance with that so we were able to shift um the budget or the grant to Kingston and they can continue to explore that work um but again like you know votes have an impact on our children that
we don't always realize so agreed so my question is at this point is does someone want to make a motion for a level service budget level service budget or with an override or do you think we should pair down some things and ask for less of an override that's the discussion I feel like we're at at this point in my opinion I think that there's
several people at the table that um spoke passionately about level service with an override and if we feel strongly about that we should put that forward so I would make a motion um that we vote a level service budget um at some point if we don't get the override then we know what it's going to look like when we need to make Cuts do you have you have to um say a number tip for the level
service hold on right you take a look at the last slide do you have this one copy of the last slide it's this one looks like this so is she reading it for bettim no it needs changes so if you're voting a level service budget that first number needs to be 8 $247,100 8
million sorry 8247 1111 it's not this number on the FY 26 over here 8,379 no one more time I'm sorry yes so the number in the top line should be 8,247 1011 that same number gets repeated in the third
line 8247 1111 the allocations in the middle the the $132,700 stays in both places the final number at the bottom is 8008 million 379,000 first number so I'm voting the 8
million or making the motion for the 8, 247,000 you read it you've got to read the whole thing unfortunately I have thank you one day Sarah the final number that number that was on this page correct 8,379 860 okay I'll make a motion to move that the Halifax school committee approves 8,247 $111 as the fiscal 2026 local education budget operating budget and
further that the total appropriation of 8,247 1111 is in compliance with education reform acts of 1993 and recommended by the superintendent of schools and further the school committee directs the superintendent to allocate the following additional fund sources which total $132,700 special education reimbursement of $132,700
and anticipated fiscal year 26 Grant and revolving account funding totaling $0 the final approved exp expenditures for the school will be 8,379 8,379 1860 in seconded right I'll take a vote Katie yes Lor yes Karen no Jessica yes I'm a no so it passes um that's all for
the budget right yes okay can can I ask a question while we're still on it because if it does not pass for whatever reason can we still discuss um charging for buses and possible kindergarten to make up for some of the losses that we could incur does does that make sense after the fact yes so it cannot
be discussed now but has to wait until after the town vote is that you could discuss it at any point we put that on the agenda next month so keep in mind that if you're going to charge for buses or charge for K C day kindergarten we would need a revolving account in order to put those funds into and we would need to get a revolving account approved the town meeting so so that needs to be done prior to town meeting so it's something
we should consider voting on tonight so that that can get on to can we vote on that tonight though it's not on our agenda or do we have to add that we're just talking about creating accounts okay so because it would have to be on um the town warrant correct submitted to the town to be on the warrant um I going to the board of selectman meeting tomorrow night I can I well it
has to be on the agenda though I guess but right um do if we're just talking about creating accounts is just something I need to talk to the town about correct or well if it needs to be on a warrant we need to make sure we meet the deadline is Cody still here Cody when is the deadline for the warrant uh technically the warrant closes March 11th it's going to print probably at the end of March as long as we have a request from the school by the end of March that's mine you can make the account right you can request us to make the account you can put it on
the war you can always decide after the fact whether you oppose the fee but account is can we make the request right now or does that send you something okay I'll email you okay and that doesn't mean we have to fund the account correct just creating account is creating an account correct could it be used for kindergarten as well like it needs to be two separate accounts and the town meeting approval is what allows you to carry money over from year to year to year all right so so we can
create accounts but it's the carrying money over that that requires town meeting so I'll make a motion uh for our chair to contact the town offices to create two revolving accounts one for charging for kindergarten the other for charging for busing okay second sorry all in favor I I I all right um
so as far as dates to remember February 17 through 21st is winter vacation February 25th is a joint meeting and our next Halifax meeting is March 10th 2025 um can I get a motion to close the meeting I'll make a motion that we adjourn we have a second second thank you all in favor I
adult this was really helpful un visual