allies in here it warms up we're about to start hope um it's 6:00 p.m. and I'm calling to order the Halifax school committee um meeting and um this meeting is being recorded if anyone is intending to make
an audio or video recording of this meeting please notify me at this time um we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one
nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all so there is an executive session we have to hold before we have the rest of the meeting um I just want to explain if we could move it to the end of the meeting we would so that you don't have
to because we need to leave to do the executive session but um we're going to leave so you don't have to vac here um but I just need someone to make a motion to go into executive session and come back to regular session I'll make a motion to adjourn to Executive session
pursuant to mgl c30a section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining for contract negotiations a Halifax Teachers Association and executive session pursuant to mgl C30 a S21 A7
to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law approval executive session minutes on November 25th 2025 and return to open session
second yes yes yes yes whoever from the h is coming to present we're going to go to the conference room oh e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e that um the comments are limited to 3 minutes but um if you would like to speak please raise your hand okay I guess we'll start on right and go to Left can you also state your
name uh my name's Robert Mullen do you need my address or no no I don't think so because in town um I currently have one child here at HS and two children that attended that an out the middle school I'm here speaking
as a concerned parent and a town resident over the recent years the cost of living has gone up everywhere it's inevitable that this financial strain has affected our schools in an effort to minimize the financial strain on residents the town and the dist the town
and school district has asked departments to look at budgets and make cuts with a can my concern is are we cutting from the school budget appropriately and looking at all viable options and areas to pull resources from and how will
these Cuts impact our children I've heard Town's people step up and ask about shifting money that is in reserves to help bridge the financial gap but it seems these questions are not being answered this will help parents and taxpayers feel the current school
committee members understand the town's finances as a current member of the school council we discuss the budget crisis at our meetings we don't have the authority to make decisions or alter how the budget is presented we offer suggestions that
we think may help the school move forward potentially with less impact than what we're currently facing a few examples being charged for school buses as most surrounding districts do and or a charge for kindergarten we look for small Solutions before cutting teachers
and programs in my boys class of 2029 classroom sizes they had 25 or 26 students per teacher we were told it was one of the largest classes the school had seen in years parents were frustrated at these class sizes
demanding changes be made to the structure of each grade level to take and to take teachers from another grade to make the class sizes smaller this is familiar to at least one of the school council
members as They too had children in the class and were part of the above mentioned suggestion now we're seeing voting to increase class sizes to 34 and cut our teachers in specialist programs imagine a class with 34 children when we thought
26 was too much I'm sure being on the SCH uh school committee is no easy task I'm asking that you put oursel put yourselves back in the shoes with the current parents of current students here at HS I don't know how children can learn in the proposed atmosphere it will
be an impossible task for the teachers it's unfortunate that last year's budget was cut more than it was needed as you mentioned last month we could have had more support in the school for the kids attending making a daily impact on their lives please
consider all options and think outside the box so our children have good school experiences and our educators want to stay teaching in this town think about your place of employment and if you're a teacher in a different District what if your opposition was
being cut you'd be just as frustrated as the teacher sitting here I'm just about done I promise all I ask is they take the time to ask yourself did we truly explore every possibility is there any value to any suggestion being made we are blessed to have the teaches that we
do each and every one of them put our children first we owe it to them and their dedication to turn turn over every stone finding ways to keep them before cutting them and losing them to different districts thank you where do why I stand here um thank
you guys thank you so much and thank you to the school committee for allowing people to speak today um my name is Sarah pelo I am happier today as someone who alongside so many other is ready to step up take action and really help address the school funding crisis I mean look at this beautiful room I feel like
I'm in like a school assembly um but in order to really do that effectively we really need two things and Robert you kind of mentioned a little bit of it um we need Clarity we need transparency we need education we know the budget is stretched um we know that we we we need
to Rally the community but what many don't fully understand and what the community really needs to know is how we got here what is being done right now to address the devastating cuts to our school in the fall but also what is being done and being talked about and
being addressed to fix this problem long term what have you all considered um how did you get to the decisions that you made today that you put in front of us who have you met with have you discussed this across districts across Department within the town what options were on the
table that aren't on the table anymore and why these are all really important questions to help us understand the full picture of what is happening to help the community understand I will say it over and over and over again I said at the last meeting a strong school system is
the strong Foundation of a strong town without a strong school system the children will suffer and the community will weaken but without these really laid out facts without honest and clear breakdown and transparency and Clarity um of what Financial mess this is in you
guys didn't cause this I understand this is a mixture of so many different things like we cannot value the community effectively we can't help people understand what this issue is um I know from the last Board of selectman meeting um additional meetings will be held
likely in the April May time frame um to help educate the budget we also have a dedicated group of volunteers ready to spread awareness ready to advocate for this amazing school I'm going to cry advocate for these amazing teachers and these kids and these future kids um but
we need this transparency we need education we need to understand um just share as much as you can help us help you Jerry McGuire I'm sorry I had to say it help us help you um I have never been more concerned about education than I am
for my kids going into the school this fall I had a fourth grader that went into kindergarten during Co I mentioned this in another meeting I was so so um confident her going into to school that seas that year because of the teachers in this room and because the school had
the support services that the these children needed I am deeply concerned about these kids coming in um and again this is not a fault of the school it's not a fault of the teachers it's not a fault of the curriculum it's because of the financial situation this town is in and the kids are going to suffer for it
so just help us help you guys um let's truly work together over the next few months to really make this happen yes thank you hi everybody Captain Snider I'm I'm back again as a a concerned parents and and listen as Tara just said we don't envy
your position we thank you and we know this is not easy um and you know what we ask is that you listen and consider what we're saying so picky backing off of Tara there's so many people in this community here tonight in the community
that want to help help and we think the best way is to to know information get information between now and May so we can all go to the town meeting in May and make an informed decision so I have a few questions that I've put together based off of feedback from parents teachers and a couple meetings I've
attended I happen to email all five of you today and I'm just going to run through them if if you can hopefully answer either tonight or or in a quick fashion we would appreciate it we numbers Run for the buses as as Robert said um to charge for buses last meeting
we discussed kindergarten where numbers run where do we stand with that is there a new curriculum being discussed I've heard a few times that new curriculum no offense but like why are we cutting teachers and thinking about a new curriculum when we're we're we're above average um we got to think about these
things can we slash um unnecessary professional development our teachers are already are super great can we push that off for a year why have there been no cuts at the high school and how is the Silver Lake Band-Aid uh how we going be affected next year when basically it sounds like we're going to have another
override can someone clearly outline the the next steps for the budget process including the steps if the override is not met can we get clarity on how we got here as Tara said there's a lot of questions in the town how this happened and if we if we're going to go door too we need to inform our neighbors and our
friends like how did we get here um at what point would the state take over our school and what does that mean for our school so while I certainly don't have the answers I'm not sure anyone in this room has the answers but our community needs to come together bottom line we
are in a very very bad spot as a town like whoever doesn't think so I mean I'd love to hear why we are talking about spending significant legal fees in the last border of selective meeting on the NBTA zoning issue while we're slashing our children's education I understand
there's always going to be opposing uh opinions on how we spend money but you have to to remember there's consequences to the decisions we make so while I'm here on behalf of my children and the other children in this town I also encourage you to think about what it
means for our town our property values why would somebody want to move here if our school and our education why would young families want to move here and honestly why would I and my family want to stay here so I love all you guys in this room all the teachers I want to stay here but we have to do something in
this town to better everything so we got to come together thank you thank you go ahead I up um I don't have prepared notes so I'm just going to be extemporaneous my wife and I have spent
our whole lives teaching we're we're you know probably together 80 90 years and I'm looking around the room got a lot of old folks here uh obviously we don't have any kids my my son's 50 something years old but I I
feel very strongly about what I heard you know and it's a shame we shouldn't be we shouldn't have to do this you know it really should but it's a blowback from a lot of things that are going on in this country right now I want to make that point yeah they're talking about
eliminating the Department of Education that's how crazy it's getting and so the rest of us have to pick up the slack right right and I'll tell you something I'm torn my wife and I are fixed incomes we have a teachers retirement oh it's
wonderful M but I I'll tell you something if it's not too crazy my wife on I will support if it's a little it's a bump in the taxes because I we're not Hypocrites you know we still care about the kids in
this town although you know we're not teaching any I try to aoid a I just want to tell you that uh um it's it's amazing so many people came tonight I think it's great that's a great thing you know um but my point I'm
trying to we're two teachers old old teachers obviously and uh we we really feel strongly about first of all kids having music having all the things some kids only come to school I want to we taught at many schools I remember teaching to
Brockton High School I had some pretty rough kids in my own year the only reason why they came was they they were talented musicans and they played in The Jazz Band didn't give a of part of me about any of the other stuff I thought I thought English you
know so that that's all I got to say in spirit we're with you um if I have to spend a little more money every year you know I guess that vacation mamas is you know because it's important that the kids have certain things don't take
music away from them don't take Sports away from them don't don't take those things away from these kids that you know there phone going off pretty soon that makes them want to go to school seriously
oh was your name sir what's your name sir oh are you give you my name yeah yes you can call me frie all right does anyone else have a comment Jonathan I don't want to it's going to be hard to follow up
mrch no Miss tryy not to Cur my name is Jonathan seing I'm a member of the board of selector here in and I just wanted to give you insights on what we're doing on the town side here to try to address the situation that we have at Halifax Elementary
School um I wrote down because there's a lot of moving Parts I want to make sure I get it right first off I want to thank the committee and our school administrators for their effort uh especially as we tackle some historic budget challenges that we're facing this year uh again to
give some perspective I want to remind folks that the cost of Education over the last decade has increased year toe about 3% this year it's a 21% jump at Halifax Elementary and an almost 6% jump for our assessment
over no one here wants to make any Cuts but given the sheer size of these gaps I will admit I was hoping some concessions could be made by both School committees as Halifax does its part to try andridge the considerable shortages in light of these School
budgets the town is turning over every stone to try to attack this deficit from all angles asking all Town departments to submit budgets with a 10% cut to try to start searching for possible solutions including the possible
reduction of building hours on the town side and possible elimination of positions on the town side I also want to point out that this issue is not unique to Halifax unfortunately the state of Massachusetts is looking at a record number of town presenting overrides just
for operational budgets these next few years all because costs are rapidly outpacing what the towns can bring in if the committee does decide to reopen their budget talk tonight I ask that they at least consider reducing the
number and making some concessions and there's two main reasons for that first and this is just my opinion here if the committee is really relying on a possible override to help fund a budget it should try to make the override amount as easy as possible for Halifax
residents to swallow the amount the smaller the amount the greater that override in my opinion has a chance of passing secondly I'd like to point out that since the Silver Lake Community uh sorry since the Silver Lake school committee voted to use onetime &
funds to temporarily spare any cuts at Silver Lake this year they essentially kicked the can down the road for another year the problem with this approach is that that can gets bigger and as a result I am certain all three Silver
Lake communities will be looking at overrides next year to cover the punting that they did this year at Silver L again I'm not speaking for the rest of the board here and the PRS here but if the board of Selectmen votes to put an override on the warrant for town meeting and then goes to the ballot in May it
will likely I'm sorry it will likely be presented as a multi-year override this year just so everybody knows meaning that one override would be presented to cover the educational shortage here at h tax Elementary and another override will be presented to cover what they did this
year so relate to help us for fiscal year 27 so we're likely looking at a multi-year override situation we would want to present it to the residents that way so that they can be more informed and know as soon as possible as what's coming and to put it
another way we don't want people thinking that we're trying to Spring one on them and we want you guys to know that this is a distinct reality for the next two years all that said a reminder no one here wants to be in this current situation thanks to three kids that have gone through the school I know most of
the staff here they are great people they are great Educators I also know members of our school committee all of them and they too care deeply about the children of Halifax these are tough decisions that nobody wants to make and I don't envy the position they're in
whatever comes out of tonight's meeting we will all try to work together for the children of Halifax and our community as a whole I thank you for your time does anyone else want to speak okay um thank you for everyone
that shared the com we appreciate it and we appreciate the interest in our school um all right um our I wanted to make a motion to take the agenda out of order um and to start
with the district UPG update so we could possibly if you want to open up the budget discussion again we could do that but um so I I'm going to make a motion to um take the um the agenda out of order and have our district update
first um I'll second that okay um all in favor I I so the first item in the district update is the proposed school committee uh meeting schedule for next year Halifax is listed in the gold color
you'll see it in two versions one is the list version one is the calendar view if uh you could please take a look at that and see if uh that's acceptable I would it would be great if the committee would entertain an approve an approval motion
this evening I'll make a motion to app approve the meeting schedule for Halifax school committee do I need to do it for the Joint Committee as well we'll do that at the Joint Committee okay second any
discussion okay all in favor I I all right all right thank you everyone um and so the next item is um if the budget is to be we are under the impression that the there's going to be a motion
from the um Winning Side to revisit the budget and for that reason we had a number of requests that we have incorporated into a presentation but we would ask if there is a motion to reconsider the
budget from the side that prevailed which was level services so I'd like to make a motion to open up discussion discussions about the budget and revisit um the proposed
amount is there a second I'll second do we all Vote or just people that voted now we can all okay all right Katie yep oh any discuss Katie yep Lori yes Karen yes
Jessica yes and myself as yes so I would ask the shair um to recognize um our Director of Finance and operations Sarah hickey but also um our assistant superintendent our building principal
our special education director as needed throughout the presentation to answer questions please thank [Music] you I'm going to start before we can even see anything um as you know the Joint Committee voted on the shared sh
cost budget since we last saw you so um there were some reductions in the shared cost budget which now uh plays out as a reduction in the overall Halifax elementary school budget so that's why this number is different from what we
saw in February the current Halifax Elementary level service budget for FY 26 including the shared cost asked to provide a number of scenarios for you to consider um before we get to all of those different scenarios what I wanted
to do was go through the assessment so the Silver Lake Regional School District has voted their budget which means I was able to do the assessment calculations so
Halifax Halifax's assessment for FY 26 is $9 m3000 [Music] $3,265 that is a414 8883 increase over FY 25 the largest
reason why that increase is significantly more than what you see in kington Kingston and Clinton on this slide is that the um there is a portion of the assessment calculation process
where the Department of Education basically allocates chapter 71 funding to Silver Lake so there's a document that comes out that basically says this is Chapter 70 money that you Halifax got
and you need to pay this amount and there was about a $400,000 increase in the amount that Halifax had to pay for Silver Lake and that's a big reason why this increase is so large on the next
slide Halifax in our last meeting voted a level service budget of 8,247 1111 this was a 1,281 [Music]
7257 increase over FY 25 that represented an 18.4% increase for the uh Halifax Elementary budget this is something that the town has expressed to us is not
something that with the available revenues in the town um they are able to accommodate so this keeping those two pieces of information together what was voted in the last meeting and the Silver Lake assessment this puts the total cost
of education for Halifax right now at 17,27 7,137 55 for FY 26 which is approximately a $ 1.7 million increase or a 10.9%
change we have some updated budget information since we saw you last the anticipated circuit breaker reimbursement is has stayed the same since our last presentation at $132,700
on March 6th superintendent crew and I received information from the federal government that Halifax has qualified for the re grant funding of $ 54,8 se1 I did want to note on this
grant that this is a Federal Grant and that this grant is not subject to any MBTA uh vote restriction so this is a reimbursement Grant from the federal government
um and that's what they have allocated for Halifax for next year um the same as what we said in the last meeting uh direct director panesi and I do not believe Halifax will meet maintenance of effer calculations for
the idea the individuals with disabilities educational act uh special ed Grant in FY 26 that was a grant that we received $185,800 in fy2 we didn't project any amount for that in
the FY 26 budget out of District vocational question yes so if we were to get an override would we still not meet the maintenance of effort if we if an override passed there
would be an up an opportunity for us to do redo all of the calculations and speculate there were some cuts that we're looking at that might not be cut okay that's just cuz you know it's not
it just depend I mean there's a lot of scenarios and moving parts so I just wanted to make it clear you know and and trying to help because I know it's a lot um you know that if an override did pass then we also would not be losing this grant that's not no not necessarily true
it's not necessarily true no the expectation is that you spend more for special education students a year right we're not supposed to supplant with the grant funds the operational you know cost of the of of special Med students that being said um when we have uh
excess of a teacher or we have excesses of parot that were underneath the special education budget supplies that we're cutting underneath the special it's going to show as last the board and then how much of that would be restored under special education and is that enough to be able to make maintenance of
that okay so how much are we short to to get to where we need to be every year it's different this year I had to take all of the other of District students um that transferred over to Silver Lake and I had to look for personnel that we cut
and I had to put them into the system in order to make maintenance of effort um because you are allowed some exclusions um again usually it's for like a retirement so if somebody retires at the higher rate of the of the
contract and then you hire somebody at a lower rate they don't penalize you for that that's an exception I can take so we would have to look at the exceptions that they would accept and allow for us last year they were very generous in
allowing us to um take all the students that transferred over to Silver Lake so we made it very close so I don't know that I follow exactly like we voted a level service
budget are you saying that we won't meet the requirements for this grant if we are not at the level service or even if we achieve the level service achieve the level Services remember last year I had all those exceptions yes for those
tuitions and transportation for all those out of District kids that I could put as exceptions that level service budget as it stood wasn't enough and now we have to look at the level service budget now it might be a
little bit better because Sarah has made sure that we have upto-date information at the Department of Education so they're not going to be comparing a budget that was 3 years ago to a budget now they'll be comparing last year's budget to this year's budget which is beneficial for us so rather than say we
may not get it you know we we're going to get it it's best to say we won't get it and then if you do get it then that will be a better situation so just thinking forward if we don't get it this year does that reset what our minimum
expectation is for the following year it do you know does a state now say oh well this is what you spent next year if you spend a little more you get the grant again so Sarah's in the budget figures of what we what the state Works off of whatever she files with the state and
then we come in with the state usually it's it's it's almost an automatic because for the cost of special education teachers they raises and Lanes right um but we had too many Cuts with Paras and things like that that were under the special education line item
plus the fact don't forget that we moved um individuals around that weren't supposed to be under special education and so that also made it look like oh my gosh you know they're not spending enough money on special education but when we realign those individuals where
they should be in the budget that's what happens it it's hopeful for next year you know if if the two if this year's budget is compared to next year but it's it's no guarantee it was very difficult to make maintenance of effort so I I know I'm asking you a lot of questions but I think in the interest of
transparency the interest of questions that the community has it's important to kind of dig down a little so if we hadn't made those cuts last year to Paris do you think we would still be in this position of not necessarily okay so
we're we're impacted the changes we made last year to cut impacted this school year and potentially grant money this school year am I understanding that that's correct okay thank you don't forget there's a cut in special education in those tiered Cuts as well
so even more behind yep I understand thank you one last question with the level service budget where I know you can't say right now but I know it's not bud right now as if we're going to have this grant however if we do somehow
manage to get the grant can that money be carried forward over the 240 Grand is carried over for two years so it would be able to help as circuit breakers okay that's great okay that's okay sorry thank
you so just to clarify when the department of education does the maintenance of effort calculation so for this year for the the fy2 grant they were comparing our fy2 budget to the FY 23 expenditures so what
they do is in October when the grant is filed they compare it to the audited information from two years ago then when the FY 24 information gets audit they go back and look at it again so next year's
next year's 240 Grant will be comparing the FY 26 budget to the FY 24 expenditures and FY 24 was prior to the reorganization so all of the work that had to be done to and when I say all of
the work Dr panesi worked for months and months to in order to get this uh Grant approved this year all of that's going to have to be refreshed in the department of education's minds and a lot of it redone for next year to see if
we might be eligible and that's for the Ida Grant okay okay thank you so the last thing on this slide out of District vocational that is students that attend either the
agricultural school or a vocational school that has a program that we don't have at Silver Lake So currently we have one student attending Southshore Vocational Technical High School in Handover and that student will be continuing at South Shore votch um we've
had one new application for out of District vocational since I met you last and so again there's three PL placements budgeted it looks like right now that we're definitely going to have two um but again the the difficulty that we
have is that the application the students applications to the schools are due March 15th and then the students and their families are required to notify us on April 1st whether they've
applied or not so this really is not a good timing when it comes to producing a budget can I ask a question on that yes so we've we've budgeted three placements
if we receive information that only two students are attending for next year can we reallocate that money in to a different place and what would be the time frame for that on April 1st we would know okay and so before town
meeting we would know what that dollar value is that can be added back into the budget and if seven kids have applied and just not told us yet we would have that conversation also when what do you mean by that if seven kids applied and
didn't tell us yet they have they have a deadline of applying to a different Vocational School but their deadline is March 15th so if there are 15 students that have applied to different schools they have until April 1st to let us know
they've applied so we could have five students and we've budgeted for three we could so so we're we could be even more um our budget could be even more um expensive than what it is now
potentially okay but right now we know we have one student attending and planning on continuing attending and we've had one student apply and notify us that they've applied do we lose funding I think I know the answer but I
want to ask it for the general public do we lose funding if um in our district if a student is a student at a vocational program does the money follow the student that the state provides the Chapter 70 Money Follows the student
okay and just for transparency is there a reason why this is underneath the elementary budget instead of the high school budget is required by regulation to be part of the town's budget
not the grade level unlike special education which had to be restructured so that it represented the grade levels and the districts of those grade levels so on the next slide um talking about the tiered Cuts
so prior to you even receiving the preliminary budget in January the administrative team met and we produced uh Some Cuts these tier one Cuts $ 77,6 these Cuts were made back in
December these were reflected in the budget that was first presented to you in January so these the are have been done and um I'm just mentioning again that those have already been taken out
and everything we've talked about since January 1st included that there was a request from a school Committee Member to ask what would the class sizes look like if there were
three teachers cut so um if there were three teachers cut that would save $210,000 in the budget and the estimated class size as you can see there would be
21 in kindergarten 21 in first grade 23 in 2 grade 22 in 3D 22 in 4th 19 in 5th and 23 in 6th grade sorry before you move off of this
I have a couple of questions this was a request that I had made it was based on some of the the conversation at last month's meeting um but also some of the feedback um that we've heard um
so I I a lot of folks have spoken about the concern of large class sizes um I think that even eliminating no one wants to eliminate a teacher's position but given the current student
populations even if we were to eliminate a teacher in third fourth and sixth grade the class sizes would still be well under 25 the highest class number is 23 in sixth grade and in second grade
um so I just want to point that out that I don't know that anyone here on this committee wants to see classroom sizes over 30 and if I can just mention no matter what teacher is cut it's by seniority so
we're not really cutting a third grade teacher necessarily or a fourth grade teacher or a sixth grade teacher it's going to be whoever joined employment last unfortunately actually I do have one other question because a big part
sorry it's also it's not only that but it's also licensure so that brings up another question that I wanted to raise again in the interest of transparency and I've said this multiple times and I think this is a really important Point um when you're talking to your neighbors when
you're talking through the community um we as a school committee vote on a total dollar for the budget we don't vote that we're going to eliminate three teachers we can ask this the administration what how can what can we
eliminate to get us to a more palatable number that we think the town can support a town meeting so suggesting that we could save $210 or $210,000 if we eliminate those three teaching positions that require that's
what we vote on but that that requires the administration to look at the entire budget um and they have the authority or the autonomy to make changes to line items if they decide we there's a re there's a contract reason and Jill I
know you've spoken of this and if you can help me clarify it would be great but if there is something contractually that means means we can't eliminate those three positions there may be ways that you look at other items in the budget to cut perhaps a par or a
specialist am I Mis stating that you may be referring to the need to make sure that we can meet all contractual obligations um with the amount of Staffing that we have so sometimes that will depend upon the
numbers of so for example we're estimating the number number of kindergarteners yep so this is where we're projecting the Class Cuts would come from but if kindergart were to be much larger than we
anticipated we might have to pull a an additional person from a different grade level to help out with kindergarten and that could influence as well I think the L and this is why I'm thinking in this way last year when we
made the the cuts to Specialists originally our group voted um to lower each specialist position from a 1.0 to a 0.9 and there was some discussion and administration changed it slightly where
there was one specialist that retained the 1.0 and the other three I'm sorry two okay and the other three made up the difference so their hours were cut more and I don't know that that was our we were all voting on it again you as an administrator
have that autonomy to make those decisions um but I don't know that that for me was what we envisioned would happen so I just in putting that out there into The Ether into the universe so folks know we may go into this discussion saying this is where we think
cuts are reasonable they may not pan out that way and I want to be very clear with the community we do our best to try to hear your concerns but again at the end of the day um the budget may look different or the actual administration
of the budget may look different can I just I Circle back for a second so the gap for Halifax Elementary is 1,281 1972 57 but the total Gap is 1
million including both the assessment and like if you put the cost of Education all together it's 1.7 million so if we does that mean if an override doesn't pass that Halifax Elementary would
actually need to cut 1.7 million instead of the 1.2 million because of what was voted on by The Joint school committee and silverlink because that would impact a lot of
things so so right now the total cost of education has an increase of $1.7 million because you as a school committee voted a level service budget which was an 18% increase so if there's any change that
gets made in that tonight that will change the town's budget and change the total cost of Education the silver lay proportion won't change right and then the town
um would need to look at the the dollar increase the percent increase overall but the Gap is actually 1.7 million for Education K through 3K through I I don't know that that's the Gap that's just the
increase from FY 25 to FY 26 we've already taken into account the retirement that we have on right she asked if we took into account the retirement for this year go back to the previous presentation was there any new
retirement since we talked last no it that that is in that change has been made in the salary St are we talking about if we're talking about a second grade retirement well I mean my question is is say we decide on a budget number
tonight and requests an override what is the actual amount that either wouldn't require cutting because of the and I don't know if we need the board of Selectmen to weigh in here because I mean is the the
Gap 1.2 million is for HS and then the total Gap is 1.7 million because of how Silver Lake and The Joint Committee voted so in order to fully fund education with the overall right need to be 1.7 million at level service
how everything was voted that's my question I believe I will double check with voting but I believe the override be considered is for Halifax Elementary School not silver but if there's a gap in the budget and we have no say over
what we pay to Silver Lake would that require that budget that budget was voted on by the three towns Jill you can correct me if I'm wrong here that budget was voted on by the three communities we will be so even if we will be on the Halifax will be on the hook for that
budget if Kingston and Clinton pass that budget and as it appears now it appears that both Kingston and Clinton plan on on passing that budget so that is money that we will um have to allocate to the middle school and high school to fulfill
the budget requirement and is it correct to assume it would probably come from elementary school budget or would it come from elsewhere in the town I believe we have it set aside I don't want to speculate right now I'll I'll shoot a message and get you air
that would be great just because you know we're trying to yeah no you want the whole picture exactly and we don't want to vote something that's shooting ourselves in the foot and we're going to end up losing a lot anyway you know that's not really helping so y I'll see
what I can thank you I appreciate it all right thank you so following up up this next slide is if we cut the three positions the reduction amount would be $210,000 that would in turn change the
operating budget to the school to $ 7,886 n113 which is a 15.6% increase over FY 25 so that was one scenario that we were asked so that's something for you to
consider one of the things that we did also in the last school committee meeting we had the tier one cuts that were already happened tier 2 and tier three and it was expressed that tier 2 was a big bite and so what we did was
took the tier 2 and tier three cuts and split them up into tiers 2 three and four so that you could consider different amount money [Music]
amounts so this would be a new tier two proposed cut um it would be one grade three one grade four one grade five one grade six teacher one Tech Teacher one special ed teacher and
the cost of one bus to be offset by fees that would uh be a savings of 4 $495,000 in sixth grade for an average class size of 22 can you clarify what you mean by one
bus paid by fees yes uh the discussion had been there had been two different discussions that happened one was to charge a bus fee and one was to cut a bus logistically we can't cut a bus we have to get the kids to school but we
could charge fees for the bus and then use those fees to pay for one of the buses and what Revenue would we see from that for for charging for bus it that all depends on what the school committee
decides per P per student for a bus feed so what did you use to calculate that into tier two then because there had to be a dollar figure added into that off the top of my head I can't remember I think it's $43,000 was the cost of one bus one of
you emailed me a question I think I it was see if I sorry about that I think it was in a previous presentation as well um the cost of each bus is $38,750 so that's the number I
used thank you and and keep in mind that that is if the school committee chooses to charge bus fees and if families choose to sign students up and if the amount that is charged
is enough to cover the cost that's so if families opt out if they say I don't want to pay for bus I'm going to drive my kid to school is there a way that we can still eliminate a bus because we have less students or no we're can we're obligated to have a
certain number of buses based on the current enrollment you're asking about um complex things that I can't project out I would have to talk to the bus company about that okay um and and a lot of things you know in company in I'm sorry
in school districts where they charge for buses and they've been charging for buses for years and years they have patterns and you can make predictions one of the things I I try to say is you know keep in mind that this is really a huge unknown and I can make my best
guesses at things um but there's there's not a person sitting in this room that can tell us how many kindergarteners there are going to be right at this school next year so there's it's kind of like an un we don't know who would sign up for busing and who wouldn't
um yeah no I understand I do have a couple of questions about the tech teacher and the special educator so where would those cuts happen would we is it the computer tech
is it is that what we would be eliminating that I believe is the tech specialist yes okay and then um for special education if we eliminate a teacher um does that put us in Jeopardy
of not meeting special education requirements yes yes it does okay okay for compliance alone yep that's pretty clear thank you and never mind the Ida grant for
subse years yeah this school is heavy IEP and you need every special educator and every special educator in this building really is incredible so I think we need every educator in the building don't think
just special education or yeah we're heavy IEP and we're now talking about cutting teachers please go on so on the next slide again remembering that I took that that we took the tier 2 and tier three from
last time and split it up into a tier 2 tier three and tier four so this would be the new tier three which would be $337,500 a math specialist a reading specialist one custodian point8 library teacher point8 art teacher this would be
again on top of the tier 2 Cuts in the last slide there are no changes to the class sizes on this slide because none of those positions on the left hand side are classroom teachers so the classro
the class sizes after tier 2 cuts to tier three remain the same any questions about tier three yes the math and reading Specialists do
either fall under Title One grants the math specialist is partially funded by title one so if it's partially funded by title one then why would we cut them 100% if just throwing it out there why why not
take that grant money and still apply it as much as we can why why give that grant money back we we we wouldn't be giving the grant money back we don't currently have we won't have the numbers typically until July and at that time we may be
able to use Title One funds but also remember with the restructuring Title One title 2A all those grants used to fall under the umbrella of Silver Lake with allocations to each of the elementary school districts we were pretending to be fully regionalized we
are not fully regionalized and halifa will have a separate we have to apply separately for each of the four districts now for all of our grants and Halifax will have a very specific amount allocated to Halifax it's an unknown y we only have
one we only have one math specialist and one reading specialist right now right yes and in the next slide when you see what happens to classroom sizes you'll know why this was tier three so moving on to tier
four um one kindergarten one grade one one grade three one grade four one grade six for a total of $400,000 this puts the kindergarten class size at 28 the first grade average class size at
27 2 grade 23 third grade 34 fourth grade 34 fifth grade 26 6th grade 35 for an average class size in the building of 28 questions about tier four I don't think it's realistic yeah
can we just like not even talk about tier 4 and not get there that's we're not going there we can't go there so I I put together a summary of the adjusted tier 2 3
4 so if you look at this Slide the tier 2 reduction amount [Music] $495,000 which would be an 11.42% increase over FY 26 if we add in tier three it brings the operating
budget down to approximately 7.3 million which would be a 6.48% increase over FY 25 adding in the additional uh tier four brings the operating budget down to 6.8 million and
the increase over FY 25 would be 61% and so the next slide is um just for you to review and revote ask questions [Music] May and then I added in a motion language slide and even notice I left
numbers blank because this is the point to the presentation where I'm going to pull out my spreadsheet m okay um I have a question about professional development and
um some textbook costs um thank you I know um I I'm sure Dill shared with you it was it was just some lines on there just um asking about what they were for
and so one of the line items um Halifax staff outside PD um which is $16,000 that's for a few things that's for um faculty members to receive professional development for the new math curriculum we get the new math
curriculum and to um have professional development provided by the publisher um or to also go to any professional development um outside the school that might be provided to about math Workshop or how to utilize it so that's
professional development related to um uh faculty members going to get professional development for the new math in particular um it also would include any PD that any effect of the member in Halifax request to go to for example any professional development
that wanted to go to anywhere outside of this school literacy science um social studies anything and that's $10,000 that's that particular staff outside other contractual obligations to
provide certain be hours is that part of the teacher contract um their for their certification they need professional development points which sometimes we provide professional development in the district that count as professional development points and sometimes people go out to get professional development
but they need that those pdps of that professional development for recertification so every 5 years when they go to recertify they need to document that they've done that to keep their certification so it is an important pce for them to keep up but there's nothing written in the contract
that says that we're required to provide that professional development correct so we have um courses that are required to be reimbursed at a certain rate
in and that's a separate line item I would also add something that hasn't been mentioned yet back in the fall we mentioned that the math program is sunsetting we do do not have a math program after this year so it's not the
same traditional textbook program that we used to have many years ago you can just keep the same old books it's now um subscriptions are online and they they Sunset however hasn't the district spent
an exorb amount of time in PDS building our edu finder or whatever the what's the edu planet where we're doing ubdi and all of those lesson plans are still available to us and nothing was done um Ed well there's
two Ed Planet I think is what you're speaking to um can we not have yelling out please thank you Ed planet is what I think he were speaking to and that um predates me in some ways but that is um a place where all of the a lot of the
lessons are uploaded um it's it's not necessarily um a comprehensive curriculum like Joel was saying where you it's you know a curriculum that you're utilizing that has online pieces that has necessarily the hardware the
hard the heart books and things like [Music] that and um so that was the outside that was the staff that was the PD I don't know if you had other specific I had the textbooks too the 95,000 so under uh
Halifax Elementary School textbooks uh contraction Services um this there are a few things included there English language arts consumables for $122,000 um a new math curriculum and Halifax a share of that would be 81,000 and then science curriculum
syllables which would be 2800 so that's a breakdown of that number what that would go to keep in mind that that's curriculum that's the teaching and learning that's that's the what of what happens every day are we required if the other schools in our district decide to
go with this math curriculum to buy into it at this very same time as [Music] them I don't think there's necessarily a requirement but keep in mind um that all of the students that leave here fin L into sth grade in Silver Lake and with
other students from so just keep that I would also ask that you keep in mind the number of students who are not meeting or exceeding grade level expectations yeah and just just to speak to that a
little bit over the last four years in Halifax for grades 3 through six in math in year 21 45% was proficient 22 and year 22 48 was 48% were proficient and in 23 48% were proficient and in Spring
of 24 55% of students were proficient grades 3 through6 and Howa so here's sort of where I struggled not being an educator myself but you know um are these curriculums and like I mean
I'm not like I'm really just asking for understanding because having to make these budget decisions is impossible so having these curriculums would be more important well I don't know I don't know how to say it really because I'm not it's hard to you
know like is is the staff you know like what what would have a greater impact on learning losing staff or losing curriculum I'm well I'm I got to ask here I'm I please don't yell out we trying to keep it you know I I really
don't like I you know I'm I'm not an educator I know that you know so obviously losing any staff would be difficult and so you know that's really important to understand so I want to underscore that I can give you my opinion on a curriculum that is
consistent that is Equitable across each grade level and every one of the grade levels in the district that has a scope and sequence that is um addresses the standards and when I say Equitable I mean what is happening in one classroom is happening in another classroom that's
what I mean by equol that what one child's getting in one thir gradecraft classroom is what we get classroom that it is um U it's aligned with the stand standards and those pieces I I think that's what I can speak to at the importance to
that and we don't have a math curriculum after this year because it's aging out the contract is up with the contract is up with the company yes yeah so we have to BU we have to buy some curriculum because we don't have anything like there is there nothing that they can use like what they've been
doing I just want to make sure we're clear on that like where are we at with needing to spend a teacher salary on curriculum right now where are we with that like is it is there no other option we don't have a complete K through grade
six written curriculum in Edy planet we won't have a resource that can be used by all teachers in each grade that is aligned with with State
Standards we can expect teachers to align their curriculum with State Standards but without those materials it is more difficult to do in English Math and Science as well as
other areas as so it again it's it's but in a time of dire stra it's doable right I mean they so again I'm going to use an analogy so I told the story to Dr Brew I'm
youngest of seven kids and I used to is this the story you wanted I don't know and I would get I would go to school and I would get handed a book and I would open it up to the book plate remember those the book plate and I would look through it to see which of my siblings had this book you know what
doesn't exist anymore those books because textbook Publishers learned that if you produce a book that's going to last 20 25 30 years I Algebra 1 hasn't changed in 3,000 years so an algebra 1
book should last that long I know we don't teach that here but we all took algebra one an example so the books started about 20 years ago to um fall apart and you'd have to rebind them and
then the textbook Publishers learned that oh if we do all these supplementary materials that you can get on a CD ROM then you can sell the CD ROM but the Money Maker Now is the kids get it's a
subscription much like your cable and it turns on and it turns off so there's not really if you want the teachers to have materials to use with
students the subscription with materials ends June 30th and we're talking about next years so the analogy I was looking for was your firefighter
analogy I'll tell that one too so the my firefighter in alogy is we are talking about curriculum instruction and teaching and learning that's what we do we're a school district and the
conversations that we're having about curriculum right now would be the same as if we were talking to the fire department about you can't have water and let's cut some hoses or tell the police department I'm sorry you can only get three tires this is not a good analogy not one
person has asked Any teacher here if we need a new MTH it's not an open meeting number one number two there has been opportunity for teachers to participate in examining math curriculums and to participate in that
which assistant superintendent clber can speak to and regardless of whether or not you like the analogy we are here for teaching and learning and while some classroom sizes if you get to to um tier four we would not recommend
the reality is is that we have an obligation to make sure that all students have access to grade level expectations and in the absence of those materials it becomes difficult if not impossible currently we're looking at at
least 45% of students not meeting grade level expectations can this bring them 24 55 um I appreciate the question like I I appreciate the answers and again I feel like as the school
committee me we even if we vote on a total number it doesn't mean that we specifically have decisions about how that those because you do have line item autonomy and my point is to bring it up to say can we look at this can we look
at that you know and um I understand where everyone is coming com from and I'm trying to get all the information out as much as we can and ask the questions um Jonathan I just want to let you guys know I did find the
answer out and amazingly finally I was correct um the override would affect Halifax Elementary School and not the Silver Lake budget as that budget is likely to be passed by other the other two towns so the town is is budgeting to
fulfill that budget so whatever the cuts are here um that are being osed tonight are the cuts so our deficit is the 13 for the that I want to just make sure of that thank you yeah so what you're
seeing is the worst is the worst case okay thank you y appreciate that okay there um additional discussion yeah same um same general ledger area uh the Halifax Elementary PD uh contracted
Services can you and the instructional coach are those to go with um partnership with the hill for literacy so the instructional coaching is really um its professional development for the administrators here at the building
that's the $3,000 the hspd contractual services for 24,000 um this is for paying for the for again for professional development um related for the for math but for the the publisher to come here to the building not for teachers to go out but for um PD
here for for instance the two days before school begins to have somebody come to halifa elementary school provide professional development to the teachers um because it's one thing to select a program it's really another thing to implement it it's quite a different thing also this this portion out of this
24,000 it would be for Contracting with the hill for literacy to conduct a core program review for K through 6 um Halifax portion which would include Consulting and also ass signs of reading techological course for all teachers and all administrators um and uh that would be
$14,000 is there a way to um instead of every teacher getting the science of reading course all at once offer it to uh a portion this year and a portion next year to cut some of those expenses
yeah that's possible or could we combine with the other elementary schools and do all the professional development at one school is that it needs to be one Pala PES portion so like we otherwise we can part the joint I can't could I couldn't pay it out of other people and then
havea um and then the last piece is also this is to fund Halifax por portion of studying skillful teacher which is a contractual class that teachers have to take within their first three years here um they attend that it's um I think four days during the summer and then five
during this the year so this is um something that teachers cont take so that's the 24 24,000 into those three different buckets and then one last one I know we can't project it but it appears as though uh from the last
Ledger I looked at we've only used about half of tuition re reimbursement for this year is there a possibility that this might need to be increased should we vote to get rid of the hes staff
outside PD because teachers will then have to go outside pay for a course and then ask for that tuition reimbursement correct okay um can I ask another question sorry I've been writing tons of notes for days
the float nurse um I noticed that's still in the spreadsheet that I think you were getting to next and maybe I looked at a a a one that was not updated but I noticed that flat nurse is still in there even though
the Joint Committee voted not to fund that position any longer and that's a savings of 7 $7,500 I'm just scrolling through my spreadsheet yep it's on the second page
printed the float nurse y was removed from the facted budget um I didn't update when you said it's on the second page of the line item budget that budget document you're looking at hasn't been
updated since the Joint Committee vote okay cuz that would so that money amount was taken out and is reflected in the numbers I gave you tonight thank you and that would be the same for the Food Service supervision that went to the revolving account correct
yes and then last month you mentioned that we currently had a surplus um in circuit breaker correct Transportation correct so the there are three expenditure types
for special education contractual services tuitions and transportation um those are very complex line items and we pay for those out of the operating budget the 240 GR and circuit breaker revolving account
and currently in aggregate there is excess money in those could you give me that amount again um the number didn't change much between the last meeting and this
meeting it's currently around $391,000 but you have to remember that all might not be there at the end of the year what we've done is we revised some of the transportation contracts with the private venders saved
a lot of money there but there's Contracting Services were a little bit over on that line we took the exsy funds that's included in there that's what we thinking is going to be there by the end of the year hopefully the somewhere the
391 because transportation for um circuit breaker last year we didn't put it into the estimate because we weren't sure sure because the year before it might have 50 it was 75% so that's a big chunk for us to have that money so that
you can count on some of that money how much okay um that's that's a fa enough how much you could so let's just say it all go it's all there mhm we retain that
$390,000 y we what can we do with that money does it have to be certified to go back to the town because it's this year's budget or what can we do so the keep in mind again we're talking about three
different buckets of money the piece of the the budget that's the operating budget is if there were leftovers in the operating budget that would get back would go back to the town turned over at uh the end of year the 240 Grant the
idea Grant the this year's 240 grant that those funds can be carried over from year to year and the Circuit Breaker by law we are allowed to carry one year's worth of circuit breaker forward into the next year so if there
is excess money in those accounts we could carry it over in the 240 Grant and the two and the circuit breaker account to use to off off set the FY 26 budget it's not something that today in March I could confidently tell you oh there's
going to be $3,000 and restricted spending so on circuit breaker you can only spend for a of district tuitions and transportation okay it's not like you can apply that to other things so we know that we're going to have those expenses this year this
coming year um so I have a question and this maybe this is an odd way of thinking about it but with these three buckets that you're talking about is there a hierarchy in where we pull the funds from to pay for
these Services month to month like in my opinion if we have some of this money coming from an operating budget that could go back to the town shouldn't we spend those dollars first versus the money from the 240 in the circuit breaker am
I depends okay so if we have left over breaker from last year that we have to hurry up and use this year so we're going to take all those funds and use those funds first and it has to be for the AUD District tuitions okay um the 240 grant that has to be used for
special education to enhance special education above and beyond right so that's part is over there and if we have left over money for that we use that money first so the high is to use anything that's Lo over in the previous year MH and then move forward that way
ever there are ways that the fiscal year 240 Grant can be used in a manner that supports the District budget not so much the only way that the circuit breaker can is through a district tuitions and
transportation okay a little bit more flexibility I guess what I'm trying to understand is it seems like there is a there is a possibility that we will have leftover money and it could be in the operating budget which is money were
required to turn back to the town and that was something that happened last year and folks were concerned about that which is a process that happens every year I understand that's you know that's what we do as a school committee to close out the fiscal year um Am I Wrong
both of those things that we're looking at the overages on are for this year so we have till next year to exhaust those funds we don't end ofc year we need to spend for those are all gone now we're working on this you know this current
year and they give us two years to to spend it yes yes so if we can use our operating budget to possibly pay for some of these special education funds that we could do that to then right preserve some of this we would have to
look at the operating budget where the funds are allocated specifically for certain items and if it's transferable with the 240 Grant as well as C break s us but I mean we could put it towards special education expenses for next year
that would then help with our um Regular budget correct if if we assuming that we have a big chunk of money in regular budget that we spending espe what are we at right now just for
circuit breaker that we're looking at with a a surplus just circuit breaker 26251 yeah [Music] that's the balancea but that's in all
three buckets the report doesn't break it out for us I can get that information to you okay I think the the my concern is how do we preserve not having to turn money back to the town you know how do how do
we work within this framework to spend the money that would be something we'd have to return to the town so please recall that last year we had a budget freeze yes because we had um extraordinary costs in a number of areas
particularly if I recall um special education and was it course reimbursement yes mhm so we had to be very conservative and freeze the budget which led
to more money than normally would be sent back to the town generally speaking that's not the case as of right now we haven't had to have a budget freeze well I almost would prefer a budget
freeze to save money you know like I mean is that is it I know it's harder for you right but but if we freeze the budget and then we can pay for some of the expens is with the budget Frozen you know like if we could if we save some
money by freezing the budget for instance for this year then if we pay some of the special ed costs with that oper are you allowed to use your oper like the regular operating budget to pay for special ed by law we are allowed to
prepay tuition up to one year for private um placements and up to 3 months for collaboratives but like um I mean my thought being if if we were to freeze the budget have some excess funds we could put it towards I don't know if I'm just
repeating the same thing but I'm just trying to think of ways that we could push some of this special education Surplus we have at the moment in the three buckets towards next year I I'd like to propose if I can get a number for circuit breaker I'd like to make a
motion that the superintendent move that money to um the fy20 budget and that way we can use that money we we we if I'm understanding correctly we have already anticipated
applying and deducting circuit breaker no I believe what she's saying is stop using any fy2 five for circuit breaker correct so tuitions that were paid in FY 24 are
reimbursed to us to be used in fy2 five so I believe what you're asking is to freeze the circuit breaker account as it stands correct but I can't do that without a dollar
figure and I need to speak to the special ed bookkeeper to get that dollar figure so if we were to do that what we don't meet again until a April like those are things that we need to make decisions on this
evening what could the potential savings be that we could put towards next year can we get a ballpark or it's definitely under $391,000 that's that's like a whole year I know that I know that keep in mind
interested 391,000 is operating budget so and we can always in the event that we happen to need some of that money in circuit breaker we can always vote again to move the money back it's not
like a I want to know what the actual savings would be is there any way we can find that out tonight I'm texting thank you I appreciate it any other discussion while we're so I'm just looking at the questions that were asked at the beginning of the meeting by some of the
folks who spoke um one of the questions was what happens if we don't get the override um and at what point will the state take over the school I don't know that yeah I would like that to be okay um if we don't get the override then
we'll have all the cuts proposed and you you know that's if the override doesn't pass that's what will happen tier four tier four all the cuts um if we don't get the override and then we're in a position again next year we would most likely go into
receivership the following year which means the state takes over your school and we do what they say [Music] um I don't completely I don't know I'm sorry I I mean I if receivership means that they charge the town a certain
amount correct like this is they set our budget usually for the school it's a benefit because they want to want us to educate our students properly right but then it would impact other it impacts the town yeah it would impact the other Town services so it would
not it wouldn't be a tax saving to our savings to our town it would you know it's not appropriate and I know why did we increase by 21% you know special education costs have gone up dramatically um but that is dramatic right so I'm sitting here wearing two
hats right now as a parents I love everything about supporting all of our kids and I think everybody in this room clearly does but the other is a taxpayer into Frenchie's Point who's already left he's the only person in this room that probably doesn't have any children minus
a few right so if I'm thinking about this what you just said if we don't get the override and more of the people in this town are not here than they are here we're not getting the override which is why we need to understand or at least I do we this 21% increase come
from because if I'm telling my neighbors hey we need we need more taxes to support our school they're going to say to me why did we spend 21% more where did that come from so all of our budget presentation are available we have been talking about the budget since November and had a
formal preliminary budget as early as January they are listed on our website and we have talked about the the pieces of the puzzle that make up different percentages it's not just increases in special education albeit that is an area that we don't have control over um there
are other areas of increase just think about your own grocery bills and how much if your grocery bill has probably gone up more than 3% more than 2.5% which is proposition 2 and A2 what we're allowed to um go up to the reality is is
that it's a flaw in the funding mechanism for Chapter 70 the cost to educate is far outstripping the resources to pay for that education and that's not something that
anyone at this table alone can control it's something that the mass Association of school superintendents the mass Association of school councils I believe the mass Teachers Association are all working to try to
um find ways to improve the funding formulas for schools throughout the Commonwealth It's Not Just Happening Here in Halifax is throughout the state we we can't keep up with the expense and I know there's a chair's meeting with
state representatives of all the chairs in the area coming up and I know I've met with state representatives um we are doing all that we can to fix a broken problem and um it's just going to take a large effort
by everyone and you make a good point this is not the whole town and we value education everyone in this room values education and wants the same thing and so it's really what do we do
in the the meantime with this extremely difficult situation understanding that it's hard to ask people to pay more but it's also you know an very important thing and we also don't want you know our our school budget is 53% of our
entire town budget so it's not like we can pull that much from other places it's just like in your own budget if your mortgage is 50% but then you know your taxes go up you're going to pull from somewhere else and your house old budget you know and so it's you know it
when it's such a large chunk it's you can pull from other services and we lose a lot to not gain as much in another area I think and so um it's it's an extremely challenging and I agree that we're trying to deal
with something that's broken right now and doing the very best that we can and trying to figure out well how can we sort of patch through until hopefully we can get some funds from the state or I mean I don't think they're going to get much Federal help so um you know I I you
know we live in a state that values education but we really need as a community to pull together for it and I you know as as a school Committee Member I'll be honest I I have wrestled with if we ask for the full override amount can
we pad ourselves a little bit for next year to kind of help ourselves or if we lessen the override amount does it have a better chance of passing and those are the things I'm personally wrestling with I can't speak for the rest of the community the committee which is why
we're going through all these things like can we just save a little bit here can we just save a little bit here because every little bit helps and um but anyway that's um Jonathan did you want to yeah if you don't mind Mr chair I don't think this GL you say is a
problem that's specific to Halifax um I know tomorrow in our Board of select the meeting um I'm going to ask the board to submit a letter to us state representatives to take a hard look at the education formula because when it's all across the state to me that says it's not one spe specific town it's
everywhere it's how the state is approaching their education funding uh how they cap their inflation markers I mean when you have towns like duckberry that are 6 million in a whole in Norwell that are 5 million in a whole and these are appun right so the fact that you're
seeing it across the state to me means the problem lies a lot higher than Halifax but to your point Lauren that's not going to help us this year so I urge people reach out to your representatives at the state level reach out to your state senators explain what's going on
in your community because there strengthen numbers and if they start hearing from all of us we're we're going to have to get by this year but it might help us a lot coming down the road because unless things change at the state level I don't see this scenario
changing much next year and as a school committee I want to make the best decision for our school but also have it be palatable to the town and I wish I could predict the future and know exactly what that sweet spot is because
that's that's where like it's that's where it's really really hard and we have we actually in our school committee we have in our folder that we have for our school committees we have what the impact of an override would be on each average tax bill and I mean that's
information that we can get out but again as a school committee we need to vote on a total number and um I can I to say to I know one of the questions is a big question that's been asked about how do we get here how did we get here why are we dealing with this
issue I think it's important for our community to understand we live in a regional district but we are not a fully regionalized School District so you know there's four School committees four school districts um one of my big concerns as a member of the Halifax
committee is making sure there's equity in K through six education between Halifax different funding than Halifax does they are a different type of community um we are very different I mean we just are um people really have a
different um voting mindset when it increases everyone is careful um and we all want to respect the citizens of the community but when we sit at this table we don't really have a education and why
it's important to vote on it um you know we've already lost grant funding because we didn't pass the MBTA vote that affected the school thankfully um there was a grant project that we asked for to look at fully regionalizing our school district which would provide some cost
savings potentially because you'd have one school committee you'd have one Administration you know you wouldn't have Jill and Sarah and um Dr Clifford running around trying to figure out um how to do four budg right I mean and
that's just that's just at the administrative level I think there's other cost savings that could be realized when we're talking about well can some of this funding be put onto another Town's budget if we were fully regionalized we probably could do professional development right it
wouldn't be a town by Town assessment it could also be a shared cost like all the teachers went to one school to rece the professional devel then it's not you know that which is what I was asking earlier like I wouldn't ask another town to pay for our professional devel but it would be something we could consolidate
so we had won that Grant and we had to turn it over to the town of Kingston because we were in Jeopardy of losing that Grant which could provide significant savings to our district because we voted down the MBTA vote thankfully Kingston has it and
they're going to work with us on this um committee that is a longterm project that is not something that's going to happen next year it's going to take time but that is a as a a road map to help us those are things that we're working on
um the other thing that I've th I've heard thrown around a little bit um I don't engage on Facebook social media as a school Committee Member but I do see things that are thrown out there on Facebook um and I've heard some
conversation around um why are aren't we looking to fully regionalize everything like combine all services for Kingston Plimpton and Halifax I don't know that there's an appetite I definitely don't think there's an appetite in Clon to
regionalize I think we need to kind of get back on the all right sorry I just yeah no it's I I mean and so the question I would pose to the committee is do we cut some and feel like that increases our chance of an override
and I mean as far I mean I or I I think it's reasonable to cut the 210 that's my thought I everything else at that point though it's not really affecting it much that it's not
affecting the override much so it's like at that point why not just keep the two10 and Aon for all of it we cut 870 something, last year why did you do that I mean well it's just something we can vote on if someone I mean did do you have that information by any chance yet
okay because that also impacts if we have money we can move to next year possibly I don't want to interrupt but the kindergarten you guys brought that up last month I know this isn't open and I'm very sorry but I'm trying to you mean charging for kindergarten yeah yeah I don't think we've gotten to that point
yet don't we will get to there because it's on my list okay thank you okay then I want to move the meeting along yeah let's okay so um we noticed that silver like they did not have to um
they were able to make ends meet so to speak because they started charging uh for extracurriculars a little bit more and for parking a little bit more they also used so yeah so are they used like $1.2 million in end so the difference
because they're Regional District is that when they have excess funds it goes into their end fund and we if we have excess funds it goes back to the town so they have eend funds that they certified that they use to cover the
difference and that's that's why they didn't have to make any right so what I I'm suggesting is can we if I if I may their end also comes from a revenue Source right right I forgot about that thank you yes which we can't guarantee
will continue but the last few years has been right profitable so in speaking of Revenue sources can we entertain the discussion about charging for buses and charging for kindergarten to see if we can make up some
Revenue we we already opened these Reserve accounts in our last meeting can we talk about what it might look like the cost to get us ballpark figures s I'm going to go back to the presentation that I gave I believe in
December or November I can't remember which one I know you gave us like ranges of what towns charge correct and again remember there are no guarantees because it will all be dependent upon whether or not people choose to participate in full day and
pay for full day and whether there's enough people interested in full day to open up enough classrooms how much you decide to charge for full dayk you have to offer half dayk you can't charge for that and the same will be true relatively true for
busing as well there how much you you charge and whether or not people choose to participate we we can't promise you that it will be um successful but if we decide to charge for full day kindergart and don't have enough interest we would end up with
half day kindergart correct so just to be clear we can't just so currently we have full day Kay right we can't just start charging for full dayk so you would need to make the move to half day
K and then offer full day K as a pay for so we' have to make a motion to move to half day caner garden and then um and then from there we could offer
full daygard yes okay and do we know what other towns in our area are paying or charging for full full day kindergarten approxim approximately $3,000 $3,500 for full
Decay and if we had class sizes of 21 say [Music] right that could cover a salary if enough people were in but either way we would be either
moving to half day kindergarten which would save money because we wouldn't need as many teachers or we can see if the town has the appetite to pay for full day kindergarten which would then fund the positions but it would also be
uncertain year to year correct correct I think we should make the motion to move to half day um the other question I have is doing adding midday bus if we moveed to this you know what the expense of that would be how many buses typically are run for
half day or used to does anyone remember I believe there was so half day kindergarten in the days that Emily and Kate went there was uh there was a dividing line Route 58 and
one side of Route 58 went in the morning and one side went in the afternoon and it was two buses to do the pick up and drop off because you're only doing half the town do okay so it would be two buses in the middle of the day that we're adding
which would be if it's $38,000 per bus then that's I'm trying to 76,000 I'm looking for the quote from the bus company because it wasn't the regular full day because we'd be cutting teachers but then adding bus
cost so I'm not sure and can we do that with sharing like silver lake buses basically so it's like silver Lake's already they start earlier already so do we have time to do that does the bus even have time to go do would have to be two separate buses
that's why we'd have to pay for so I mean this is why it's such a hard decision like it's you know yes so the Busby analysis back in November contains the information Sarah is logging in now but it was presented
to the school unit I just don't remember all the details I don't remember the number here it's in the November 25th school committee folder and while you're looking at that I'm just looking for the email because I was also just dividing the 38,000 by I would assume like the students is it can you
do it that way or well you can't because not every student can be charged to ride a bus within a certain radius right so that's why this chart here Slide Five talks about a potential
fee and based upon how much participation get how much revenue you'll get so if you get 75 participation rate and charge 500 you should be able to make the cost of the ACT bus of a single bus
but that's only if 75% participate right and we have the bus company told me that they would run either two to three buses and it the rate would be somewhere between $85 and
$125 a day depending on the distance the bus Ran So if you picked $100 times 180 days I'm uh we're looking at $10,000 per bus so if they had to run three buses it would be approximately
$30,000 additional to have midday runs okay what was the number for that we would think doesn't don't they just negate each other the cost of the additional bus no if it would I mean if if the additional buses would 30,000 in
the worst case scenario then it would be different than like I thought they would just charge us for the full bus amount yeah but what was the potential amount of revenue from charging for KY Garten like I know we can't know because it would be based on how many elect to do
it but it was 3 to 3500 right per student yeah for full day for the year I mean either way we're looking at possible staff Cuts so I don't know if the best decision if we're going to cut
it all would be to um have our class sites and a few grades be a little bit larger or gamble with kindergart you know like I'm it's kind a little too much of a Gamble
so I just don't think it's fair and Equitable to have parents have to pay for full day I just feel like it's going to be real disadvantage to those students and it's an unfair Advantage because it's an economic problem for the family and then they're getting less
education than other students and I just I would not vote to charge for kingart I'm just putting it out there to my fellow committee members if you make that motion I don't think it's it's fair and equitable for for children to have to have some parents can afford to pay for and some parents can't I would not
support that and if a family has twins everything goes up double well you also have inequity because Kingston and clemton are not half day
right um did you have we gotten that okay thanks so at the end of the year we can move things around but right now as it stands it a safe amount would sa $200,000 okay so we could safely say we
can push that's what she's saying safely 2 $200,000 okay so that brings us down in what we would need to cut then we going to cut it off so I would like to yeah we did so I would like to move that the superintendent be directed to reduce
the amount of circuit breaker funding for the FY 25 budget by $200,000 which is the pro projected excess in the event more funds are needed the school committee will be notified and another vote
taken I do that so just so I understand if we had a on a district placement come up between now and then you'd bring it back you would bring it back to us we would possibly move money again yep that would
not however necess necessarily be on time for town meeting oh man gambl I I just can't promise that I I don't want to mislead you no it's important so couldn't that say that we can end up using that let's say we
ignore that money for now and we have to um reduce staff can't they that be bought back afterwards if that money then becomes available we can bring that stuff back after so you can pay the staff under the 240 Grant excess that's where
the excess needs to be is under the 240 Grant and not circuit breaker and it's special ed staff not special education staff right but here's another little piece the question would become that I would be asking is if we do that and we fund the special
education staff or Paras or whatever underneath the that 240 Grant does that increase you know our spending for special education so that we can now reap the benefit of next year's Grant so it's kind of like a
buffer you reinvest that money into Staffing it's going to raise your special education budget for the year so that when we go to do the maintenance of effort next year with spending more money in special education and you likely make
maintenance of effort for next year not for this year right okay we made it for this year already we are worried about next year and that would be approximately another $80,000 so it's a gamble but it's a gamble that has a little bit of a so I
just want to make sure I understand the gamble is to hold this 200,000 and that could put us in a point where we're spending more and meeting that okay and then that would
open up the idea that we could very likely make the maintenance of but the gamble being that if that funds are needed by the end of this fiscal year that that's going to take away from the budget year
yeah so it's either win-win or no right so what happens like let's just be we like what if we take that risk and we the budget's passed at town meeting then after the budget's passed
we get this a late placement at of District or someone moves in correct correct until April 1st right so but our town meeting will be done by then Sarah we are required the school
committee is required by law to make accommodations to the budget for any known placement up until June 30th so if on June 28th the family moves in with five outof district placement children
we would know about it and we would need to make adjustments to the FY 26 budget to accommodate for that but that's April 1st is the cut off date for move in so what the state tells us is any movein after April 1st we're not really
responsible for the previous district is responsible for that so it sounds like I mean we're a few weeks away from April 1 is only three weeks everybody can look it
uping on it right now is that we looking up cuz April 1st is only in 20 days but also we also have the tuitions for the vocational Tech that we could possibly gamble to put back in the
budget too which I mean that that's the hard thing is there's so many moving parts and moving targets [Music] that not collaborative but private schools private schools yes collaboratives no yeah sorry about that the move the move
in law which is the a the April 1st deadline is only for private schools not for public schools meaning if we have a student that goes to a collaborative that moves in after April 1st we would be responsible for that tuition
okay those are the Lesser tuition but you would also have extraordinary funds all if we had five students move in and they all happen to go to a collaborative and they all needed Transportation the following year when they offer extraordinary ciruit breaker relief we
could apply for those we could apply for those and that would be another benefit because we're not going to get that this year right okay a lot of moving Parts there are a lot of moving Parks um I'm trying to think if
we I like the gamble of the 200 but then I was wondering though if we do that but we also cut the 200 then we're like covered but then if we have it we don't have to do it does that make sense but then we're double
covered well a 200 but also cut 200 so cut 410,000 yeah that's 400,000 and if it seems like the least painful that's the only way I
can describe it the least painful cut is the 200,000 but then we're gambling and then if we get it then we can put those back and we'll know by the time you know like we'll we'll know right so you're only cutting two you're going to cut the
210 but also try to freeze the hope that we can use the circuit breaker that's being frozen this year assuming special education isn't going to need $200,000 in expenses before the end of the school
year and apply it to the 210,000 that was cut right can we only cut the 200 that we're gambling and not cut the other 210 and then if we end up gambling that and it ends up being a problem then we cut the 210 you can do whatever you
want everybody else to or a majority well CU we were originally saying let's cut the 210 right we weren't going to try to push too far into it but what if we already got some I don't want to say a free 200 but we're gambling 200 in the worst case
scenario we don't get that 200 then we'll then we'll cut that other 200 but we're now with that we're keeping all of our staff but also keep in mind if we gamble correct directly on this 200 then there is a possibility we will now
qualify for this Ida uh Grant which is another 158 if I'm see that we would have on our bucket yeah 182 last year we're still cutting cutting something at the 200 it's still 200 it's well that would mean
the overy would be reduced by 200,000 210,000 right that's what I'm saying the request from our budget we would request less than an right but so instead of doing 400 what what I'm saying is because we originally I don't know how much we could cut the 210 from
the current budget with the hope that we'll be able to apply those funds because that we'll be able to save those money and apply those funds for next year does that make sense does that make sense what I'm saying
okay doesn't make sense to make sense to me I don't know why one more time okay if we cut the 210 the first kind the first or second tier of cuts for teachers and then our gamble pays off and we don't have to end up using those
funds then we will have those funds for next year so we won't actually have to cut them we'll be using it from our own Budget moving forward does that make sense so you're still saying that my motion would be my motion we' have to
make your motion and we'd have to make a m motion to pass a budget that's 210,000 less correct okay yes but that's still saying we have to ask the town for over a million dollars it's true and I'm it's
like the grocery store whatever is it $5.99 or is it $6 I just feel like if we're well over a million dollars I just I fear that and this is why I voted no last time I fear that if we ask for too much we'll get nothing I feel like we
have to meet in the middle and say we caught we did what we could we did what we could possibly possibly do and if we don't go to the town's people and honestly say we caught what we could to still keep the doors open to still have some teaching and learning happening
here then they're just going to say it's not unacceptable then they're just going to say then we won't pass the override and we will take the deepest cuts that we saw up here worst case scenario will be the reality I get the wish but I also see the reality
so I just think 1.1 million is going to be a a tough thing to pass I don't disagree but well then the other option is to do like the cuts at one and a half and hope that we can get that 200 back which
would mean we'd be able to add some back that would be the other option I think like as far as you know in our discussion here to do the um not the tier
well can we vote can we make a motion to do what Dr peny the 200 can we like I've already made a motion so I just need a second okay um what can we just hear the motion so I move that the superintendent be
directed to reduce the amount of the circuit breaker funding for the fy2 budget by $200,000 which is the projected excess in the event that more funds are needed the school committee will be notified and another vote
taken second okay sorry just still like quick discussion so Dr PR you feel that that's acceptable and that that's something you can do I I don't want to make a motion to tell you to do something that you can't do so I just want to make sure
you're okay without having seen a spreadsheet from bookkeeper texted yeah if the special education director and the business director think that this is feasible without having seen the spreadsheet from the bookkeeper
then I think that if it's is there's a lot to win if you take the gamble I don't have anything on the Horizon that would make me say we need to be cautious here we need to be conservative I think it's pretty safe to
say we're just going to take 200 of that excess that we have and apply it you know to make sure our budget is is a little bit better present presentation wise it also like I said is going to look towards if we do get extra cost
it's extraordinary relief we have a better shot at making maintenance of effort so if we're going to gamble I'm Gambler so I would I would say yes and then we can always come back because we know that we did our due diligence and we made the best effort that we could and
make the best decisions with the facts that we have right now and right now we have facts that tell us there's $200,000 that we could apply to next year's budget that we can use to not only help the budget but
also beep up the idea what we're spending so we can get another $182,000 like we got this year so three teachers plus okay thank you I appreciate it so that still means there
190,000 correct that correct that still leaves a little bit more but that's now your buffer between now and the end of the year and I would not I'm not suggesting that I'm just saying there is some wiggle room there right that's why I think conservatively the 200 a good
amount all right let's have a vote is everyone okay um Katie yep Lori yes Daren yes Jessica yes and I'm a yes um so I'd also like to make a motion to increase the FY budget by
$200,000 which is the 200 we just moved so moving it from 25 to 26 actually you want to decrease it yeah sorry yes decrease no decrease so when we get to the point where we're going to make a
motion there's going to be some offsets to the motion and part of it is going to be the FY 26 anticipated circuit breaker and part of it now will be FY 25 carryover circuit breaker so I it doesn't need a separate motion thank you do we still want to discuss bus
fees I was just going to say the bus pay by fees think we should move into that can we do that yeah um is there any way we can put that up on the screen Anis ofre it's from the November
25th meeting Joe we can't charge for buses just people that live with in a certain yes that that's in the bus analysis okay and also if someone's on free and reduce lunch we can't charge for the
correct [Music] correct do with lunches being free like there's no cost at this time how do we determine if somebody's on free and reduced lunch they still have to do the fill up the forms there's still an
application process we we still have ways of knowing St okay I know it's so cold would it be too much of a gamble to also take the third out of District placement and add that back into the
budget at this point the vocational one The Vocational one sorry my part the locational placement we have two and we we bu if people move in
Sarah Mom I don't think that would be too much of a gamble we're talking about an for a minute they only have 5 days to apply for right they hav until April 1 to let us know so there could be students out there that have applied but
we just don't know yet how much would that done that in the past um how can we put back in if we were to do that or take off the
amount of the override uh $38,600 okay so [Music] we 38,600 that's tuition and trans all right one yeah is there an appetite for me to make
a motion on that 38 or would that be part of the total I don't know I think that's part of the total okay can you just trying to agree
anyway so the only people that would be potentially able to this is I mean this chart is basically showing what we again you know what right this just so hard when you have no idea how many people
would take a bite at this apple that's what I'm saying like I would say like anything maybe you could count on 50% participation rate but then if you have people with multiple children right and you know they're going to be like I'm just going to drive I don't want to pay you
know because it's not that large of our population that's eligible that would be I don't know I'm not sure the savings would be what about the next slide that has the so is it between one and two miles
or is it like if they're less than two miles we have to provide trans or you don't have to provide transport miles and Beyond we're required by to provide transportation but if we required it for anyone less than 2 miles this is this what we're
looking at right like if I mean this is the yeah okay I'm sorry I know this isn't open but just does this include any percentage of like folks who would have free or low cost no this means like of the people that are that we could charge
if 100% participated this is the re this is how much we would get at full cost what at full cost yeah at full cost we have about 30 to 40% of our students who maybe qualifi or less so that Kane can
you go back to slide three so these are the actual numbers that I presented in November these are the students that are at Halifax Elementary now there are 318 students
um 61 of them live within one mile and 142 live between 1 and 2 miles 318 are Beyond 2 miles so the 318 Beyond 2 miles we would have to provide transportation
free of charge that state statute so out of that within one mile group 18 of them are ineligible to be charged for transportation out of the 142 that are between 1 and 2 miles 34 of them are
ineligible to be charged for transportation so you're talking about 106 students 151 that we could possibly charge am I am I misunderstanding that between one and two miles because there there's so many we
have to provide transportation for oh I see I'm sorry we have to add the top two the two two top and then subract the bottom ones and that's 151 students yeah times 500 something we may have forgotten from the fall as well is the management of
this which I believe you discussed with the town so the this is something I talked to the town about this would you we don't have the capacity in the business office to collect fees and manage this would some
be something that would go a revolving account would be set up with the town and then this would come as a bill just like your recycling Bill we used to get a recycling bill or your water bill or um so it the school
committee would need to determine how much the fee would be and also any leak fee that would be charged how are other towns within like how are other towns charging for the bus when they're out of the two miles what you me they can't nobody can
charge for students Beyond 2 miles from the school I did email the town and asked for a revolving account account to be open so so is there a way that we can set it up so that it's not so I I don't know I just keep thinking
like the cost to a parent is in the balancing everything else um and if you have multiple kids like can we give them a cap if they have you know a certain number of kids can we break up the payments where they'd pay it you know
maybe three payments a year I don't know well and I I is it even worth it well that's what I'm saying like you know it's it's not I'm not sure the savings are worth all of and it and I and I don't want to make anyone's I said this in the meeting
before I don't want to make it hard for anyone to get their children to school and I'm not sure that the you know the potential savings especially since it's unknown people might just drive their children I think it's really um important if we are making decisions
like this to and it's something we can talk about at a future meeting I really feel like we need an FAQ that is presented at town meeting these are the things that we talked about this is the reason that we didn't pursue it because you're going to have a lot of people that won't have
listened to our meetings and will be raising their hand and asking about bus fees yes so just again for transparency with my fellow members again I would not vote for charging for the bus it's the same Equity issue so you've got one
family that's maybe they don't qualify for free and reduced lunch so they're not going to get that free ride to school but maybe they're struggling and now they have to pay for their child to go to school but someone that lives a half a mile away or 20 yards away that
just made that line doesn't have to and I just want to be comfortable with that such a small number 150 kids out of the whole population of school we're going to charge this 150 to get to school but nobody else has to pay and for the amount of money that we're getting out of it I I'm just I agree with you I
agree with you about that so um so then again the question is if we cut more does it make an over because I would rather my concern is is I don't want to have to go through to all the cuts and if cutting a little bit more
and having a little bit taken off and telling the town we are going as lean as we can but this is what we need you know like I like we've really made an effort like we you know we've made our class sizes pretty much equal in all the grades this if we you know so
if we ask for another reduction that's under a million dollars of an override would that help it pass more you know yeah and I just so I spoke with B Selman and I just want to make sure I'm clear
on this right so say whatever we propose tonight for a number if it doesn't pass a town then it automatically defaults to all of it right so we're going to lose everything so we have to try to get the town to
come on our side be like please like we caught what we could please can you please give us this but if we go to the town and say we didn't cut anything and we just want you to pass it all and if they say no then then it's automatic it's not on us it's not on anything we passed tonight it's automatic tier four
correct that's exactly what happens and that's why I think you know we're taking the gamble on the 200,000 but if we cut an additional 200,000 and ask for less than a million dollars I think we might have a better chance yeah I mean I I think that we
should propose to cut 410 I think we can well if we do because we have the 200 that we're probably getting back yep and then we have the 38600 so if we do 210 + 200 plus the
386 is 448,000 yeah I guess we would need language to make that motion I would make the motion it's on the last slide right but we need the numbers right numbers thanks I have a d question and excuse me it's 8:48 at night um
so we have a retirement this year that we already know about MH so obviously we're not going to hire for that position so if we cut three teachers do we only have to cut two we would do cuts through attrition first but you have to
keep in mind that say for example uh you have a teacher in a certain grade level that's retiring if that's not one of the position then that grade level would be filled and something else would be
C okay but so so but technically kind of yes then right my the answer is almost yes at that point so if we're if we're losing a grade two teacher and we're not replacing we're not so we're not going to so we're not really we're not like getting rid of two three teachers at that point we're getting rid of two is
it right because we would just be shifting one of the others that we were losing into that I mean sounds better it's not like getting rid of two teachers one's already they're voluntarily leaving us but the class size is still going grow because you're
not replacing that teacher only in the grades that we talked about right and those those grades are much smaller than the I mean I don't want to do it trust me but it's um a better case scenario to not have to get rid of free teachers or trying to
make the best of I mean just in my brain sounds better we're not firing for teachers I have questions for the school committee first that one yep so just to be
clear before I give you numbers I want to make sure I'm giving you exactly what you're looking for so we taking the level service budget after the update to the shared cost from that level service budget we are
subtracting out $38,600 which is the out of District uh Tu and transportation for one student and we're subtracting out this
210,000 plus the 200,000 that goes somewhere else is yes yes so when we go here to the motion somebody's going to have to take [Music]
notes so the first line is going to be 7,648 313 that appears in the first line and third [Music] line can for our secretary can you say that figure again
7,648 I'm sorry 7,648 313 thank you in the middle of the slide where the $132,700 5 is cross that
out that would be $387,500 [Music] and that additional amount represents the 200 and the out of state Voca out of District vocational out of District vocational
was already taken out okay sorry so that additional amount is the 13275 FY 26 anticipated circuit breaker the 200 so you have to add in $200,000
FY 25 carryover circuit breaker and then the that's the reap Grant the $ 54871 okay okay okay and then you're approving the final expenditures for the school you 8,
35,8 189 8, 35,00 $889 [Music] I'll give a crap at it I Sor that's the the 210 the 200 and the
okay okay I will move that Halifax school committee approve $ 7,648 for $ 7,648 313 as the fiscal 2026 local education budget operating budget and further that
the total appropriation of 7,648 , 313 is in compliance with the 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 funding sources which total $387,500 [Music] reimbursement of [Music]
$132,700 8, 35,8 189 you need the2 200,000 fy2 carryover circuit breaker that's not in the anticipated isn't that just that's
in the total 38 7,576 what but I need to add the 200,000 into the circuit breaker amount or you can say FY 26 circuit breaker is what you said and FY 25 carryover and FY 25 carryover of
200,000 okay ohang it is there a second second all right we'll do a roll call vote Katie yes Lori yes Karen yes yes and I'm a
yes all right can youy what you vot on I'm sorry I'm genuinely confused we voted on um reducing what we're asking for the override basically by
um Sorry 4 I have to count $448,000 with with the idea that um we're going to get 200,000 carried over for next year and with um the
possibility of cutting a couple of teacher positions because we have a retirement this year or M that's what that's what our budget voted all right um all right now we get to have the rest of the
meeting yeah okay so now if we can review and vote the regular minutes of February 10th oh okay all right that was all right pass my bedtime does anyone want make a motion to approve the
minutes I'll make a motion to approve the minutes a second second any discussion okay um all in favor okay so the next thing on our agenda is
the HTA 6th grade celebration of imposs vote does anyone have want to make a motion to change anything about the sixth grade graduation or on is this part of this or this part of this
all right I will move on then as far as the full regionalization discussion I think all we need to do is assign someone to so is that something I do because it's like a subcommittee or do I need do we need to V you can ask for a volunteer or you
you okay um do I have a volunteer Lori okay perfect I will appoint Lori and then there's discussion of the advertising policy and possible vote
which I don't want to rush through this discussion is it possible to put on next okay so is that okay if you Mo that to next meeting and then approval of Bill schedule Sarah our meetings are
currently out of sync with the warrant cycle there was a warrant that was due to the town on March 3rd that went out as a single signature warrant it was for1 16 $3,130 63 the next warrant is due to the town
on April 7th so again out of sync with our meeting schedule okay thank you um I don't have any school committee correspondence or reports um is there any and I not aware of any new business or future agenda items you can let me
know about by email or all right so the committee um policy we're going to table till next time but they haven't met either negotiations I don't think we met between last meeting and this
meeting that was before the last meeting yeah that's what I thought okay k l collaborative did not meet okay Youth and R okay you ready Sue it's a long one oh can we truncate I will do my best
okay so um on the 21st of April the the gym will be sanded down and reigned with two picket ball quarts at no cost to the town or school as it's paid by a grant procured by Halifax youth wreck uh Town travel basketball is winding down it was
used the gym was used seven days a week and so um that's a great success uh the town is prepping for the 23rd annual holiday egg hunt uh it will be held April 12th
they're hiding over 300 00 eggs or sorry 3,000 eggs 3,000 it's late it's late um they are trying to squeeze in another dance for fourth and fifth grade between basketball and April
vacation um they are also trying to get money to repair the outdoor basketball courts and Tennis Courts um but at this time the cost to repair is Out Of Reach and the after school programs continue to be a success and thank you to the
teachers who are handling that okay thank you P they meet tomorrow via zoom and so last meeting um they plan to fully fund field trips
this year um which is great and that's all via their fundraising and the new fundraisers they have coming up are a cupcake Charlie fundraiser which they haven't done before um their last biggest fundraiser besides the Ming and jingle was the Harlem Wizards so they're
using all that fundraising money definitely funding the field trips this year and again they have a meeting via Zoom tomorrow and um big topic there is book fair can I ask a question about PTO um earlier this calendar year this
physical year it was proposed that PTO was going to donate some funds and we had said well we need more feedback where we're going to allocate this money and then it was dropped so my question is can some of that money again be
applied to our budgets so that some of this is less I did speak with the PTO president and I actually forgot to bring it up in the budget session I apologize to everyone but they said that they would feel
comfortable possibly contributing about 40,000 a year that maybe we could apply to curriculum but I we would just have to vote for that correct and then to apply it but or would we say you
have to vote to accept it'd have to be a a proposal or an offer from the Clon Teachers Association I know there was a PTO representative here earlier I don't know if she's still here oh is it you so no
I'm not on the board but I'm at a lot of things and I know that the PTO is excited to do what they can to help but they can't do certain things such as staff position so they're open to any discussion um so the professional
development you could or curriculum that line item or you could you could accept to use it towards those line items to help deay the overall budget cost but we need to have an actual offer on the table to vote okay
so we could possibly do that for the next meeting y okay all right I'll keep that in mind thank you thanks Jen anything else sorry oh no I was done sorry okay SD didn't meet um admin
review they didn't meet they no meeting no meeting okay Union 31 we did have a meeting and we V voted the shared cost budget we have another up in April yep we have another meeting com up in
April okay uh principal report all right uh school council met last uh Wednesday the 26 and discussed the budget and the handbook
items uh both one that came up for the T the tiered Focus monitoring and the draft that's with the attorney that was still working on um the handbook uh what we went through last
time we pulled out that the what came up in our tiered Focus monitoring review was from the Department of aded it was a review of documents and staff interviews indicated that our the Halifax Elementary code of conduct is missing the following requirements in
our handbook and it was a complete manif station determination procedures for students with disabilities and the principal's responsibility to ensure adequate Provisions have been made for students safety and transportation prior to removing a student from school on an
emergency basis for a disciplinary offense so in our handbook we had proposed to remove pages 34 to 40 which uh were strike through and then
we were adding pages 40 to 49 and it it's a complete because the what we had in there was incomplete which is what came up in the TFM so I noticed when I was reviewing the handbook that there are two errors that I'm hoping we can correct um so on
page 42 the last paragraph it reads unless one or more of the following 12 Kingston Elementary and Kingston intermediate schools apply so that needs to be changed to H also on page 50 the second paragraph it
reads measures be applied to 17 Kingston Elementary and Kingston intermediate students without disabilities so that also needs to be changed to 50 50 okay yep second paragraph got it and if if you want to find it easy you just do a
find and type in Kingston you'll see a couple that refer to the address of the central office so ignore those the last few you got are there any other changes to highlight
um do we want to make a motion to um accept the changes in the student handbook or it's the um handbook yeah it is that's what it is okay the student handb as presented and
with and amended by Katie so I'll make the motion since I um um I'm asking for amendments so I'll make a motion to approve the student and parent handbook as presented with the Amendments
mentioned second all in favor I any not I just didn't know if we had discussion on that or no oh that's okay that's s right um is it it's okay I don't have to no we can have discussion can't we um we already voted
but yes it's fine it's okay it's okay I'm sorry no it's good okay anything else okay so when I prepare myself for the meetings every time I go through the financial report that's in the folder
and I pick out anything that is of note and then I write a script for myself of all the things I'm going to talk about and then I go back and I highlight anything on the script that is new from this meeting that is not not Mo from that hasn't been said before I want you to know that everything on my script for
tonight is something we've already talked about um in previous meetings when going through but I will um gladly go through the financial report with you Page by page if you'd like okay does anyone have
questions so then uh so that the only thing I will say is uh that the there is about $391,000 in the operating circuit breaker revolving in 240 grants we've already talked about this tonight but
that was what was presented to me prior to the meeting um the next item grants and donations we don't have any new grants or donations at this time again as we spoke about earlier tonight um $
54,8 se1 has been designated to Halifax for next year and we voted that as part of our budget the last thing I have is the adult meal price increase this has
absolutely nothing to do with any type of budgetary issues um the food service director went through an audit process with the Department of Elementary and secondary education and one of the things that was mentioned is that the
amount that was being charged for adult meals was not in alignment with the federal formula for adult meal prices so um the to in order to move in alignment with the federal formula the meals as of
August 20125 are going to move from $4 plus tax which was $428 up to $525 with tax that'll be $562 do you have to vote on it or it's just
informational informational okay and that concludes my repos thank you Dr um the only thing that um is new is that we um on March 6 created a district
literacy plan the district um literacy leadership team got together and spent the whole day working with h for literacy we created a three-year plan and that's in draft form right now and it's going to be shared with all of the faculty and staff and then I'll doing a
final um final version of that thank you okay thank you um is there anything El or we cover excellent okay um Madam chair yes I'm wondering if we should entertain
having another meeting at the end of the month or halfway between this meeting and our next should we need to vote on any further changes just entertaining the idea I
think in that Joe's looking scared I think um I think if a need comes up we can schedule a meeting okay but I don't want to just put one on the books I mean we're not going to know anything until like April 1st is the big
date right April 1 is the big date we're meeting with the town on well we're meeting the finance committee on I this isn't in the dates to remember but we're meeting the finance committee on the 17th and then final answers from the town will we'll receive by March 25th is
that correct Jonathan right cor so not a lot of time to change anything yeah I mean this is pretty much all right you're not going to know about breaker you're not going to know about April 1st out of District locational okay
just throwing it out there to make sure and hey you know all ideas are good ideas right um all right dates to remember March 20th 2025 is early release um in grades K through 6 for parent teacher conferences April 10th
2025 is a joint meeting um at at the high school April 14th is our next Halifax school committee meeting and that is our school choice meeting um I would entertain a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to ad Jour seeing as
everyone else was to stay we get a second second second all right um all in favor I thank you thank you I think I might just sleep under my desk and