[Music] this meeting is being recorded if anyone wishes to make an audio or video recording of the meeting please notify me at this time um we're going to start by opening the public budget hearing and
then I'm going to open the public budget hearing first and followed by our regular meeting and if anyone wishes to make a comment during the public budget hearing you are welcome to please raise your hand and state your name and um you
state their address if they local yeah if you're local state your address please and we are going to limit public comment to 3 minutes per person um so I'm just letting you know I have a timer so um if you would like to
speak if you could raise your hand and Lauren I'm being told that we're not projecting loud enough for the back of the room so all yeah so we're going to have to shout okay well I'll talk as loud as I can I just don't want to sound like I'm
yelling um Lori can I request that you present the budget before the public comment no we're going to do that at the end and also after public comment there will be no more comments this is a public meeting that is being held by the school committee that you're an
attendance sat and once we have public comment I will not take any more comments from the crowd law the public budget is supposed to be posted 24 hours in advance 28 hours in advance so everyone here should be able to see the budget that you're
asking for input was the it was posted right I understanding there were no changes made at the last meeting to the preliminary budget I there were no changes made from the last budget so there' be no
changes well to the line items there could be based on the vote but the budget was presented at the preliminary budget meeting are there any votes by the committee no
yes um I would like to speak too I'll just take you one at a time if you want to go ahead you want to see yeah oh I want to thank thank you I don't like my back to people so I'm G to go over here okay I speak fast so I will
get three minutes in um thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight I come before you all with deep concern about proposed Cuts again to our school budget at Halifax Elementary as a parent of two current students I feel compelled to speak up about the critical
importance of protecting our schools and their future I understand the need for these Cuts is influenced by several factors including slow growth in the town increased special education cost and the continued Financial challenges faced last year any additional cuts to
this school threaten not just the quality of education but the fabric of our community programs that make learning well-rounded like Arts music Athletics Library are at risk of dis disappearing class sizes will grow
stretching teachers to then and leaving students without the attention and resources they need to thrive essential services like counseling Paris academic support and reading and math services that many kids depend on could be reduced or lost this
issue extends far beyond the classroom a reduction in educational quality impacts our children academically socially emotionally throughout their lives it affects the town's economic health lowering property taxes or values discouraging new families from moving
here and forcing current families to leave education is not just a line item in a budget it's the foundation of a strong vibrant and thriving Community I'm not sure the way out of this for the current year other than um
having these conversations but I sincerely Ur us to explore Creative Solutions and push for change for long-term forecasting no more Cuts can the town pursue additional state or federal grants other opportunities depart with local businesses can we Advocate or think about Chapter 70 or
circuit breaker funds differently short term I do understand the importance of advocating for an override but this is just a Band-Aid to a larger problem I don't have all the answers but I believe we owe it to our children and our community to explore every option before more Cuts we cannot Short change our
children and we cannot do this to our teachers and staff at Halifax Elementary this isn't just about numbers on the spreadsheet we can't keep chipping away at our school service say it sends a message that we don't value our children or our teachers and I refuse to accept that thank you so much for all the work
you do let's continue to work together to protect what matters the most it's our kids it's our school and it's the future thank you who would like to speak next go ahead hi everybody Katherine Snider 54n drive my husband and I moved here 2 and a half years years ago when my job
relocated to Boston and we moved here because of the solid school systems uh we have twin boys who are't first grade and we have a three-year-old daughter and they are why I am here I'm here for my children my friendch children our neighbors children the children of
Halifax that's what we need to to think about tonight and and for the future and so we're trusting you all of you to make the right decisions for our children our twins are in the largest class class at the elementary school 23 students per se
per classroom your your cuts are going to make it 30 plus kids I I can barely get my two two boys to to speak to to listen to me never mind 30 plus kids in a classroom these poor teachers how are they going to teach our
children I looked up I researched uh negative effects of larger class size and there's plenty I could list them but you're giving me only three minutes there was not one positive to adding students to a classroom not one so why are we thinking about that I want to
touch on the teachers and staff we are already asking so much of them and we cut last year if you cut more pars and teachers you're going to get even more highly qualified and effective teachers to leave they're overburdened they're overwhelmed and and they're going to
leave we're not going to have qualified people to to teach our children our son has an IEP thank you to Mr bodry and Mrs ready this Vanella for for putting him first last year and I I implore you to do the same for all of our children in this community he has
made strides but if you cut resources these kids are going to be set up for failure I would also note my daughter is three and she will be going to kindergarten if you cut kindergarten she's not going to be ready for first
grade bottom line I am a law-abiding taxpaying citizen of the this town how many people here put their kids in kindergarten for in the school for free okay a few people there's a lot of people that have how is that fair that I have to pay for my kid to go to to
kindergarten and all the families that have kids entering but most importantly they deserve to go to kindergarten lastly I leave you I have 15 years in the finance world I have worked for some of the largest companies in this world and inflation isn't going
away folks everything is increasing how do you cut how do you cut our kids' education when things are going up there's no math that makes that right so I just implore you to really think about the decisions that you are making they
are for our children for the future for the future of the school and the town and I really really hope that we can all come together we need to come out to these meetings we need to come out to the town and I implore you to go back to the town no cuts no Cuts let's do
service level I prise promise you I will be the first person in line with all of you to make this happen thank you anyone else want to speak yes go ahead dear members of the school committee I am speaking today to strongly urge you to prioritize funding
for Halifax Elementary School in the upcoming budget the Su success and future of our children depend on the resources and opportunities that we provide them in the classroom the challenges of today's education whether it be advancing technology meeting diverse learning needs or maintaining
safe and well equpped facilities require investment Halifax Elementary School is the heart of Halifax by underfunding our school we risk undermining the very Foundation of our community's future I truly believe that it is essential to invest in all areas of of a child's
education curriculum classroom teachers specialist areas support staff I could go on so that every student has an equal chance to be successful as a school volunteer for the past seven years I have seen firsthand how last year's Cuts
have negatively affected this building the teachers and support staff have stepped up and made these changes work only because of their dedication to teaching you made enough Cuts last year please consider all options before
[Applause] anyone else oh go ahead hi guys sorry just wanted to check the live stream I guess is not working tonight so we apologize trying to get a uh my name
is Jonathan celik I'm at 86 Sony Road I have three children uh at Silver Lake um they started here at HS they're now middle school and two in high school um I just wanted to give you guys a glimpse of what we're facing here on the town side and before I get going I want to
thank our committee and our Administration um this is never an easy time of the year and it seems that this year is historically tough no no mixed about it so um I want to get a statement here going my wife told me to type it because I um a little
bit too much and I try to go off the cup so um here's what I want first off one thing I would like to address tonight is that there seems to be a narrative out there that the town is cutting funding to the school budget that could not be further from the truth the school budget has
never been cut and it always increases from year to year always on the average the town of Halifax gives about four 54% of its budget to our schools and a little budget background over the last decade the average increased in cost of
total education that from year to year and that's Elementary School and Silver Lake is a little over 3% it's actually 3 3.14% over the last 10 years the largest increase we had was back in 2021 and that was a little over
5% so this year for a level service budget the Administration has presented budgets with increases of 14% at Silver Lake and 23% at Halifax Elementary School for any town these are not just
budget bumps these are tital waves like that Halifax has few ever seen in light of these increases we're doing what we can on the town side of things to try to help we had every Department submit both level service budgets as well as budgets with a 10%
reduction to their current budgets to try to get a handle on what additional Cuts we can make on the town side that would have a minimal impact on Town Services another example of approaching this has a collaborative team effort the town's First Responders our police and
our fire have submitted level funded budget proposals with a 0% increase for next year another hurdle we face is Chapter 70 at the state level funding for fiscal year 26 is a little over
1% primarily because the school is expecting a 3.7% decrease in enrollment for the 26 school year now I bring this up not to single out our schools and point fingers quite the opposite I want the people of Halifax to know that the town is
actively trying to do all it can to help and Halifax is not alone in facing school budget challenges our Silver Lake sister schools of Kingston and pimpon as well as schools across the Commonwealth are in similar situations finding themselves scrambling to bridge a school
budget Gap many are actively considering proposition 2 and a half overrides to address the issue speak speaking of overrides I caution the committee that viewing a potential override as a cure all here in Halifax is a risky
proposition first the only Town body that can call for an override is the board selectman and I can't speak to how the board would vote the other thing to consider is that for every resident that approaches me about increasing school funding I hear from just as many residents saying that they are getting
taxed out of our town so as you consider your final budget tonight I humbly ask that you try to your desire to fulfill the asks with a realistic view of what is actually feasible I wish you all good luck and I thank you for your
[Applause] efforts I uh didn't prepare anything uh written I also will say um uh my name is Tom Pratt tenro head path I'm a resident of Hala a kindergartener and a daughter uh about a year and a half away from kindergarten uh I'm also on left
official on the board of selectman so I Echo a lot of what Jonathan said um I would I'd like I thank all of you for your time and efforts um there are no easy tasks there is no it's an unenviable situation that we're all in um I also urge caution on an override um
seeing what happened with the CPA for a very small increase I have my doubts about override passing in town so I would encourage the school committee to vote not Bare Bones but do what you can to make it feasible allowing the rest of the budget to to to pass you know with
with with gumption about what can be what what can be successful um the teachers are in a tough spot the par are in a tough spot Specialists the kids need them we all agree on that um there are no easy answers but I would caution you um there's no money coming out of
the magic walls um as Jonathan stated the police department and the fire department have agreed on no increases um I can't say the school committee can do the same and I recognize that um but there are no easy answers here we all feel for the children the children are
why I got involved my kids are why I got involved um you're here because it matters to all of you and it should U which is represent over the town but I would just caution you a budget that's presented that will not pass depending on an override is something that I don't
believe to be sustainable speaking as a as a parent so I would caution you on that anyone else okay um I will call the regular meeting to order at 616 um and we will start with the Pledge
of Allegiance I pledge ALG to the plag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God ivisible with liberty and justice for all and I do want to thank everyone for
coming because our community is better when we all work together and I appreciate the comments of everyone that shared um uh now we'll go on to do we don't need to do that right okay uh review and vote the regular
minutes of January 13th do anyone want to make a motion I'll make a motion um to accept them as written I'll second okay vote Katie yes Lor Karen yes Jessica yes myself as yes
um full regionalization discussion no updates no updates okay um approval of Bill schedule our meetings are currently out of sync with the warrant cycle there was a warrant that was due to the town on February 3rd that went out as a single
signature warrant and it was for $356,500 the next warrant is due to the town on March 3rd um school corespondence and reports I don't have anything there and then um we'll go to our report of standing sub
of committees um for the policy committee um we have to make a motion to wave the second read if unless you want to go through and read them all or and then we can have a discussion and vote
or I'll make a motion to wave the second reading of policies B DB H I'm sorry BH e e FC e f d e h a a
EB GB e e i j n d c j i c j k d c KD CB khb and khc anyone second I'll second okay so
we'll have a vote about waving the second read um sorry all those in favor all those in favor hi hi thanks um does anyone want to make we can discuss or just vote to accept them we have to make a motion
first do we have to read them all uh the letters yes okay I wanted to discuss one if we can discuss one I think we have to make we have to make the motion first and then we can discuss
it any I I'm my laptop is not connecting okay so I'll make a motion to discuss policies vote to approve and discuss I vote to approve and discuss or discussed then approved um policies B DB
bhe EFC EF d e h a a e B GB e e i j n d c i j i
CJ K DC KD CB khb and khc okay which one did you want to discuss the advertising in schools khb and um khd Distributing distribution
of notices this isn't this is allowing us to will advertise our Sports and everything correct so if like no this would only allow you to advertise things within the school so this is stopping Sports from being able to advertise in
the school for-profit sports and recreation depending upon what the committee votes would no longer be uh filtered through the schools and this would have to be the same as the rest of the district like we
couldn't make a uh can we make an adjustment for our school or I just think the easier we can get information out to I know it's the the printing and the handing out and all that but if we could just do the digital version of it of sports things of that nature I feel like it's already hard enough to find
sports so can I just make a suggestion not to interrupt uh because we have such a large audience here and I'm not sure how many folks took a look at the discussion we had at the last meeting um
could um we just reiterate why the staff thought this was or why we were looking to make this change sure uh the reason why this proposal was made is because of the sheer number and volume of requests that we get and the lack of Staffing
that we have and the concerns that we're looking at continual budget reductions and so this is becoming labor intensive for our staff to keep up with both uh Recreation and
private um uh even activities that uh are for-profit so right now this the school committee has been approving flyers for both Recreation and for-profit activities and it's becoming
um burdensome to staff in a day and age where most organizations have access to the internet and can have a website and this includes um I'll be perfectly honest I don't even
know what the status is of the scouts any longer But it includes groups like Scouts correct it in anything that wasn't School sponsored correct okay that was The Proposal that was provided to the policy subcommittee and brought
to you okay I'm okay with the policy because of the sheer number of things that do come through and I we have found Facebook pages and other ways to disseminate information to the public that I don't think should be the responsibility of
our already stretched in office staff and so can I ask another question um it's a really we have lots of difficult conversations to have tonight and difficult decisions to make um so in a perfect world we would want our
children to have access to all the information our parents have access to all of those things um and supported by the school but given some of the challenges um the volume of which like can you like are we
getting multiple a week multiple a day and is it a an email is it uh so the ones that come before you you probably get about two a two a month probably through school committee and those are for
non-school sponsored activities School sponsored activities are more frequent and and more common but part of our responsibility and they're delivered digitally they're not paper copies or are they paper copies it's a mix I mean
and some will go to Karen Al at central office some will come to Ellen we we all different forms yeah I I just think it's important cuz there was a large group of people here to understand what we're talking about okay I mean I'll vote to approve
all of them but this one these two I don't know if we can do that well you'd have to say no to all of them I think or I can make an amendment to my motion can I ask one more question should we vote to change this policy and we receive feedback from our community
next year that it's not working can we revisit the policy can always revisit the policy policy subcommittee can always choose to revisit a policy my Jessica I hear what you're saying honestly this is just not going to be a fun night for decision making I
agree but um I think we have to think about how we're using our staff to support education so so that's just my vote all right um should we have a vote or is there any more
discussion um I would like to make a an amendment to my motion to exclude khb and KH HC from the vote there a second second
and we can bring that back to the policy subcommittee correct well you have a vote on the you have a motion on the table to approve these so we'd have to oh so we'd have to do vote on excluding that first okay all right all in favor of
excluding um khb and khc yes yes and approving all and approving the other yes all right sorry no it's fine um I'm a yes Karen yes okay all right um
negotiations did do you want to entertain any motions for khb and khc I'd like to make a motion to table discussion to the next meeting for khb and khc
second okay all in favor I I I I all right sorry thank you negotiations that's us we met with uh we met with we started with ground rules for our negotiations with the Halifax um Teachers Association
and also the custodians and and we have set up future meetings and obviously the negotiations are largely impacted by decisions made tonight Pilgrim area collaborative um um just getting to my notes just give me
one second um so we met last week um they accepted the perform or we accepted the performance review for the executive director uh dipna Thomas um
she got an Exemplar rating lots of high praise for her um there's a survey that's going around for the um performance review of our Treasurer um to provide feedback we
submitted the annual 2024 desie audit uh no further documentation is required for desie there are several audits that are happening kind of concurrently this year forgive me I don't have a list of all of them um the 22 age 22 to to 30 placement
has started um and they have updated all partner a agency so they're starting to accept placement for um that transition age group there was a tour um Senator Fernandes Michelle Badger Kathleen laterno toured the school some of the
students led the tour um Michelle was a former pack member um and sorry I'm going to there was a lot um they're in the treasurers report enrollment is down from what was
expected um however the way their budget is structured it's very conservative um so they only staff to what the current needs are but the budget has some wiggle room should enrollment go up but it is a little bit
of a um they have enough money with a lower enrollment to fund um however um with the lower enrollment they don't have a revenue um stream that they anticipated the enrollment is lower than
anticipated so um those are all of the updates and my notes are very extensive but that is the the limit okay thank you um Youth and wreck Katie um so this is uh from Mr
steel he says first the uh Recreation Department canceled all the activities last weekend to allow for the school to have a deep clean and um he's hoping that this will help um break the sickness that has uh had an outbreak at
Halifax Elementary um all after school programs are going well the recreation department is always looking to add teacher mentored programs um the basketball program is in full swing and the gym is being used seven days a
week um dick and Bob Clancy so he's talking about himself will be discussing when the recreation uh Youth and Rec committee will be able to refinish the floor of the gym with the addition of
two paddle board courts the approximate cost is $99,000 the recreation department will be picking up the cost partially paid by a grant he does not break it down um looking ahead they have the annual
Easter egg hunt coming up or holiday egg hunt coming up on 413 and there's more information to come he'd like to thank the highway department uh Steve Hayward uh because of that help they were able to get the glass out of the Gaga pit
once it was vandalized and it should be opened in the spring uh summer is right around the corner and they're hoping to bring back popular the the popular team teen Stream Camp for kidss entering grades six seven and 8 as well as the
art and stem camps that were attended well last year and finally they're looking to start a toddler Camp uh site and it everything is to be announced as they're still beginning to draft that
great thank you PTO I do not one meeting tomorrow okay capital budget did not meet admin review um there's a meeting scheduled for the 25th with uh Union 31 but
nothing new to report okay de subcommittee no updates okay Union 31 there's a meeting on February 25th um okay principal bod all right thank you um the school
council has an upcoming meeting after February break uh we were not able to pull off a meeting in January allot of our schedules conflicted so um we're continuing work with the handbook I'll get to on step number four
there uh we have the flyer distribution is flag football night from the Southshore flag football even approval I want to is that the only one that's the only one
that I have any motions or discussions about the flag bua flyer it's digital yes okay I'll make a motion to approve it I'll second it all
in favor I I I all right all right thank you and was asked last time to report on the number of students that were meeting and exceeding in mcast uh so those numbers were in the
folder there um in math we had in grade three there was 14 exceeding and 39 that were meeting total of 77 students in the grade do you have the percentage the percentage you asked me
for the numbers but you want me to read those to no I wanted the percentages because I wanted to know how it was meeting up with your with the school goal of 70% the percentage for math meeting and exceeding was 44% in grade three grade
three 46 in grade four in grade five it was 40% and in grade six it was 40% what was grade three again I'm sorry grade three was 44 4 yeah oh wait
scratch that sorry hold on wrong column sorry folks scratch that all number we were much better than that I was reading a state numbers I know you guys are going to kill me sorry all right sorry about that fre
everybody out uh oh boy all right so math grade three meeting and exceeding was 69% there we go sorry I know I know I'm sorry uh grade four math meeting and exceeding was
51% grade five math meeting and exceeding was 60% and grade six Math meeting and exceeding was 42% okay Ela grade three meeting and
exceeding was 73% grade 4 46% grade five 46% and grade six was 55% okay um and then just in terms of
measuring progress It's we use our dibles dibles and star Benchmark that we do three times a year uh we just did our benchmarks from the fall to the winter and our Ela overall grades two
through 3 through six was up uh from 52% to 62% and then in math it was up 7% 58 was the fall score and we're up to 65% did you want that broken down by grade level or that's just like a
combined I mean I and I was more you know wanting to know that your measure of progress in between mcast does it correlate with what you're seeing with mcast scores so that we know that the measure of
progress you know like they there's a correlation itance has it has so like what we're doing now is we're taking like our scaled score from star and then we compare our scaled score on mcast it's not a perfect science but it's like we just take the average of the grade
and it is showing us whether or not students are are meeting or exceeding so it is a pretty good indicator of it and we've tracked for the last several years now last year was a little tricky because we added a benchmark which didn't it it kind of that was the first
year that we did four benchmarks and we we've typically done three so last year was a little bit off um but it has it has shown to be a really solid indicator of where our kids will be at by the end of the year did we do a writing
Benchmark too for year we did we did do that was this is the first year that we're doing it um so we did um I'm trying to think was it December no it was before that November November I think November was the first
one that we did yes uh can I just ask you a question thank you so we're looking at the PDF that's 8. a.2 that's the numbers that and you just WR us the percentages rather than the
numbers is that correct correct yep so I just so I confused about the the math doesn't work so I just want to double check on them so for the math and the ELA the total the total numbers I don't
know if you just copied and pasted by accident or something because the numbers don't add up and then depending on what the right answers are for those then I can look at the percentages but right now they just the math isn't working here this the numbers that are on this sheet these are the actual
number of students it's not percentages so it says and I don't know if I'm not looking at the right thing so I'm sorry so it says math right and it says exceeding is 14 14 students and then meeting is 39 yes and then 77 is that the total number
of kids in the grade yes okay and then you got those percentages from there y okay all right thank you any other questions anyone I guess I was still just oh no sorry sorry is there a plan to do another writing
Benchmark prior to mcast yes do we know when that's going to be because mcast is coming quick yeah I spoke about that last time um there's going to be a common assessment for writing I think it's the the first week in the first full week in March there'll
be another one there was one at the end of November and there'll be another one at the beginning of March thank you well I know we've discussed interventions that you are using for the kids that are not meeting and exceeding and I would assume those are in place
yep for yep okay after we have our at our data meetings we kind of break down the numbers and which students are moving in which direction and then we kind of make a targeted plan for those students did you have anything else so um of these
numbers decreased from our numbers last year do you know I don't know if you know that it's okay if you don't which which numbers just all in general like the trends so like by the cohort like so for grade six did the grade five students last year have higher numbers
or are they pretty much staying the same I don't know I'm just curious I'd have to go and look into to each grade level and I can pull that together for next time this was this was this was this year I think overall um I attended the
third grade um data meeting with K and the third grade team and um I was really impressed with the focus on the data and the talk and the specific conversation around students that weren't um either you know exceeding or meeting and what
were going to be some of the interventions that they had in place was really robust conversation and I felt like um they did a nice job of really making sure that no student was sort of Left Behind or not not in some kind of intervention that there wasn't some kind
of plan so um I try to attend at least one day to meeting in the middle of the year at each one of schools and the third grade team was the one that I was able to attend so I'm going trying to make sure that throughout all all three of the elementary schools that the beginning of year middle of year end of year assessments and then the data
meetings are happening with talk about the interventions that are happening specific individual students and groups of students so I think we're very much on part I can't speak for K but there's definitely um a great attention being paid to making sure that um if students
aren't me meeting benchmarks we're looking at instruction we're looking at um curriculum and we're looking at specific interventions um so speak that well and just given that that where we are right now is a little I mean some
grades are closer to the 70% I mean like grade three but um you know just kind of like do you have like mini goals of percentages you're going to reach before you get to 70 well seeing that uh pretty much based
upon our star scores both in ela and math we're we're really On Target to kind of meet that 70% okay so you know and you know Ela for grades three three is
at 64% meeting and exceeding in Star grade four was at 68 grade five was at 61 and grade six was at 62 and in in math grade three was at 67 grade four was at 68 grade five was
at 61 and grade six was at 75% great so we're hopeful that we'll continue that trajectory towards the spring and then we'll show that up in for the mcus as well great thank you thanks any other comment
okay uh the goals I had shared last month is it something should I I would go over the goals again for student learning goal professional practice goal and school Improvement goal those where the student learning was the 70% and our professional
practice one was focusing on our mtss process and then our school Improvement goal is looking at um identifying strengths and weaknesses in our Ela instructional strategies was those were the three goals that we talked about I
think that was on there to discuss like where you were percentage wise yeah so we're good excellent um and the handbook so there's two components here with the handbook one is that during the tiered Focus monitoring review that we had last
year there was a language in our existing handbook that didn't include manifestation procedures and emergency removal procedures so in there we had to replace the language on page Pages 34 to
40 with the language on pages 40- 49 this is a lot to go through it is it is a lot so that's why we had to I think um I don't know I would like more time to read over it um and I think I since
now we know what the changes are um I think we if we could put this on the agenda for next time so that we can thank you and then the other piece with our handbook is we were working on for FY 26 that is with our school council so
we submitted that to our to the attorney uh for first review to make sure everything is in there um and so she our attorney has sent it back to us so we're in our second process of going through it so we'll continue that work in
addition to this piece but um that's all um thank you uh Sarah I'd like to start with the financial report if you look at the print out that
we had in your pool pity folders on page one you can see that there I have created a special ed legal line that separates our special ed legal expenditures so they can be properly reported on page two as I've said earlier the
school adjustment counsel was moved from a special ed staff line to the appropriate line the psychologist was moved to an appropriate Special Ed line and I've created a line for the nursing contracted services on page three there's a lot of
moving Parts with special ed the special ed bookkeeper maintains a separate spreadsheet tracking special ed contracted services tuitions and transportation from the three different sources operating budget the circuit breaker revolving account and the 240 Grant funds her spreadsheet that was
updated for this meeting today shows an overall surplus of about 391,000 in those accounts right now questions about the financial report do we anticipate that Surplus will remain or are
we yeah I I know crystal ball is not here well barring any new students or new placements or unexpected it should probably remain about that but um this is special education costs we're
talking about so that's why we have this update every single meeting and just to clarify if we do have a surplus this year in our special education budget those monies cannot be put into next
year's budget it's we go through a process where we return that to the town or am I mischaracterizing that so the I just spoke about three different essentially buckets of money the operating budget things that are not spent in the operating budget get turned
back to the town on June 30th the circuit breaker revolving account by law can carry up to one year of circuit breaker funds in it and the 240 Grant funds can carry over for up to 3 years depending on their
usage so if there is money left in circuit breaker revolving and or or the 240 Grant funds we could use that to offset the FY 26 budget we just won't know about that until
June thank you next on my report is Grants there are no new grants or donations at this time and the last thing I have for you um the FY 26 adult meal price increase
the food service director just went through a blanky audit process with the Department of Elementary and secondary education and they explained that Halifax is not following the federal formula for adult meals so beginning in
August of 2025 the adult meal price will go from $4 plus tax up to $5.25 with tax so with the tax included in it's going from
$428 to $562 that has nothing to do with budgets that has to do with being in alignment with Federal Federal Regulations is that just a notification we don't have to vote or anything just to let us know
okay any question that concludes my report thank you Dr Clifford okay so tonight I have a few things to talk about the first is the curriculum and instruction assessment update um you'll recall that I've been talking
about the district um The District's been working with the hill for literacy to conduct a full um districtwide literacy assessment and um a few of those things a few things happened with that number one um all of the um staff
were surveyed um all the staff and faculty were asked to complete inventories based on what um literacy assessments they used and also um all faculty and staff who who were different people were parts of groups that were interviewed so it really had those three
components to the assessment that the hill for literacy conducted and the district uh literacy leadership team met with the hill for literacy on January 23rd and they shared the results from those um three things from the surveys from um the interviews from the
inventories and just collectively there were over all 799 Elementary and 388 secondary comments collected during the interviews um 116 Elementary faculty and staff were interviewed and 74 secondary
and faculty and staff were interview were were um were interviewed so the data collected in all of those three modalities was conducted in effort to support leaders in identifying strengths and literacy goals across five major areas leadership tiered instructional um
model professional learning assessment and family engagement it was really to find information to to in those different categories um specifically based on the data and Analysis um three to five recommendations for each of those areas was provided for the hill
for literacy so the hill did a nice job of meeting with the people who were part of the district literacy team on the 23rd and they and they went through all of these pieces with us and they also created a video for each faculty each one of the schools to watch where they went over all of the information so that
everybody in each one of the schools could understand so what the findings were in the areas and um some recommendations so as it stands right now on March 6th the dllt is going to get together at the high school the Hill's going to take us through a
process where all of the data that they gathered and we're going to look in those those categories that I mentioned and create a literacy plan for the district so again there'll be um different goals under each one of those larger categories with action steps and
a timeline who's going to be responsible and all of those things when that's completed I'll share that with you so that you'll clearly be able to see um what are the things that are specific um to alax elementary school to the elementary schools across the district in relation to literacy it's many things
in all those five categories and very comprehensive but I'm really excited that we're going to have a plan that's going to be very clear in what's going to happen Year bye to really improve literacy throughout the district and reading and specifically obviously in reading and writing so that's that's
more of that more information about that will be forthcoming um but I want to thank the folks that were part of all of those groups that got together I was really impressed because the executive director Darcy burn said that um her time here doing the needs assessment was
as smooth as she's ever had which is a big compliment because it's a big undertaking to to ask to try to gather all this data so thank you everybody who participated uh was really great the other piece I wanted to speak about was the math steering committee so there's a larger committee K through 12 but it's
really broken down into two separate groups the K through six group and the 7 through 12 group right now the K through six group is looking at um math curriculum for next year specifically looking at I ready and hmh math both meet expectations across the board with
Desi's curate which is s of their vetting um for curriculum um they do a lot of work to to look at curriculums um specific to Massachusetts with Massachusetts teachers feedback um so right now the group is looking at those two curriculums and will'll be scoring
those curriculums based on a rubric that we've created and grade seven and eight there'll also be looking at a curriculum and are looking at I ready and hmh with the caveat that um ideally a consistent curriculum is what we would like and that no matter what the curriculum needs
to meet expectation on curate across the board so that's just those meetings will be ongoing I'll share more information as that happens um I'll definitely present and hopefully maybe some other folks will come to present with me later on the spring to talk about that another piece that's happening and I'll be at HS
on Thursday morning I've been going to each one of the schools and spending about a half a day meeting with approximately eight faculty and staff members and asking them questions about the school really as an entry entry information for me to find out more about the schools which has been
extremely helpful uh to me and I hope it's been helpful to the schools too and the last piece is we are in the process of applying for a 1 18 Grant opportunity of fifth and sixth grade to begin implementing the investigating history curriculum in 2526 this would include professional
learning opportunities for our fifth and sixth grade teachers um we've been partnering with one 18 te on social studies programs at the middle and high school and also for our 6 through eight open sad curriculum over the past few few years we're hopeful to get this grant um it's already I believe it's been submitted at this point so
hopefully we'll get the funds to help us with those things and the last thing that I have on um is a corrected action plan you probably see that on the agenda and basically it relates in some um ways to what Kan was talking about which is
um every year uh every three years the Department of Education um comes and they conduct what's called a tiered Focus monitoring review they look at both special ed and civil rights information that they want to make sure that we're complying with all of the
laws that we need to be complying with the things that we need to do as part of that um three things came up that we need to um have you look at have um the policy subcommittee look at the first thing was the the Halifax handbook which
K just spoke about there's some pieces in that that need to be changed adjusted or added to and in particular was due process around discipline and a suspension information update so some of those things need to be put in there to be in compliance um and the
other piece was that buling and intervention plan um there were a few things that needed to be added to that and then the last piece is an updated physical restraint policy so all of the work that needed to happen to update those three things has been done right
now where it stands is the both the school committee and the policy um subcommittee will need to review those things so basically everything's done it just needs approval from the school committee and then I will uh update that information in the department event
portal and we should be all set so that's where it stands right now so any questions Dr F so I have uh two items in the folder for you to take a look at related to data and I'm going to while I do that I'm going to ask principal bodri if you could start our presentation on
our screen behind us um but the first charts in your folder you'll see are K through6 students attending private and parochial and charter schools and you'll notice that for Halifax students um the um the number of students attending private schools is down from eight
students last year to five students um in in keeping with at least a seven-year Trend that's depicted here in terms of number of students attending private and parochial schools the second chart you'll see are students leaving the district using
school choice and I'm happy to report that no Halifax students are leaving the district using school choice and in fact uh our total number between all four districts is at a an all-time low since 2016
2017 so those are our school choice numbers next I'd like to to um go over our budget presentation beginning with um some review of where we left off last
time if we take a look at the goals in particular um you may recall that we provided uh the committee with both a 10% reduction as requested by the town as well as level services for comparison we explained to you that the
level service serves allows us to support student needs maintain appropriate class sizes and support the strategy for district Improvement since the last time we met uh Sarah and Lauren have both met with the Town Administrator to discuss uh
possible um Town needs tonight this evening you'll see two potential uh options one um we have structured the the potential cuts in
tear to get to the town um request of a 1.75 increase over FY 25 I think the overall was 3.25 for both Halifax and Silver Lake combined so that's where the 1.75% increase comes
from so you'll see a variety of tiers this evening and we will talk about the impact we understand that you may have questions as you go along please keep in mind that there there may be answers to some questions as we move along in the budget
presentation and I'm going to turn it over to Sarah thank you superintendent appr on this next slide this is a um this slide was included on a preliminary budget presentation so again
um this slide is divided up into four quadrants on the top left hand quadrant is the FY 26 budget um divided up between regular education special education and vocational education and then down the
left hand side those numbers the 1,000 2,000 3,000 etc those are the department of Elementary and secondary education broad categories for uh 1,000 is Administration 2,000 is instruction 3,000 is student services 4,000
maintenance 5,000 is benefits six uh 7,000 is fixed costs and the 9,000 are tuitions so top leftand corner is the FY 26 budget broken down the bottom leftand
corner is the FY 25 budget broken down that same way for comparison the top right hand side is the percent increase in those broad categories from FY 25 to FY 26 and the bottom right hand quadrant
is the amount of increase from FY 25 to FY 526 so uh a summary the town has allocated the 3.5% increase for the Halifax and Silver Lake combined education budget for FY 26
we're presenting a 1.75% increase for Halifax Elementary School the Halifax Elementary level service budget for FY 26 was 8,379 1816 after deducting anticipated circuit
breaker reimbursement of $1 13275 there's a difference of 1, 35,5 186 to be addressed the utilities that were included in the budget include an
increase over a 4-year average the shared cost budget is included but has not been voted on yet there is a potential reap grant that has not been projected we haven't heard anything from the federal government about that um
homeless and Foster Transportation has been adjusted based on prior years expenses there are no known retirements at this time and for outof district vocational costs Halifax currently has one student in a program I have budgeted
three placements so the students I believe need to make their applications to the schools by March 15th and then they have to notify uh by April 1st so we're still um awaiting notification of
anything but this is a number that could be updated some important notes in fy2 we up we offset the budget using $847,000 of Grants and revolving funds so there was a 23% increase for level
services this doesn't in account for the fact that we offer set the budget if we Factor those tuitions and services into the fi25 budget the increase is 99.3% Sarah how much of that was circuit breaker I'm sorry $847,000 how much of
that was circuit breaker funds off the top of my head I don't know can I get back to you with that um we have concerns about net School spending and maintenance of effort so maintenance of effort has to do with
the 240 Grant which is um a federal entitlement Grant and essentially the maintenance of effort says that we need to spend at least as much as we did the prior prior
prior year so when uh Dr paneri applies for the 240 Grant the individuals with disabilities Education Act Grant they compare the current budget to what the reported budget was on the most recent
certified end of year report so FY 25 was compared to FY 23 FY 26 will be compared to FY 24 it was Dr pan can probably tell you quite an ordeal to justify and prove the
maintenance of effort for the FY 25 grant for this year it took months and months of work which I appreciate um we don't have a lot of confidence that we will make the maintenance of effort for the grant for next
year um the net School spending so Chapter 70 the general law establishes an annual net School spending this is what um the amount of money
that is required for an adequate education for students so I had to take a deep dive into the numbers for this Halifax net School spending number for FY 26 is 7,781
789 and uh factoring in the townside estimated costs that the town gave me um of 1,784 400 $52 uh that in addition to what the
school committee approves should put us over that 7.78 million for net School spending so it was an area of concern had to take a deep look into it um I'm withdrawing my concerns about that
pending the vote tonight so tiered Cuts this is the same as the preliminary budget tree presentation back in January so in order to meet the town's request
we made some leveled Cuts tier one Cuts if you recall have already been made so these tier one Cuts $ 77,6 these Cuts have already been made and are reflected in the budget numbers that you have
the school committee chair requested that we do an analysis of what it would look like if we moved to three teachers per classroom so this is the breakdown we have an estimated kindergarten size of
85 students next year um and then each grade was promoted kindergarten into first grade first into second Etc so these average class sizes um 28 for kindergarten 27 7 for first grade 30 for
2 grade 22 for third 22 for fourth 25 for 5th and 23 for 6th that would be if we staffed at three teachers per grade level if you take a look on this chart though there's a a red box around the
kindergarten and grade one we felt that uh 28 and 27 were really really high numbers for a Kindergarten class and a first grade class so when the administration met we looked at all sorts of Alternatives and came up with these this
proposal for tier 2 Cuts so keeping in mind that we need to cut 1.3 million in order to meet the goal uh that the town has asked for which would be a 1.75% increase over last year tier 2
Cuts would be $92,073 teacher one library teacher one art teacher one special education uh educator one bus one math specialist one reading specialist and then a teacher a grade level teacher and each of the
grades two three four five and six tier three can I just ask how we got from tier one to tier two why there I feel like we should have a tier one and a half we went from having everything in the school to let's do away with tech
library and art so if you recall from our first presentation there majority of the items in the budget are not things that we can that we have control over the amounts we cut everything we
could from the areas in tier one prior to even presenting you the preliminary budget anything else the M the we went over what the
drivers were things like heat utilities um contractual obligations salary increases we don't have control over and those are in the budget so in order to bring the budget
down by this amount of money we're now looking at go from things to Staffing s can you go back a slide to tier two just clarify TI two that means we're cutting
900 toward 1.3 by this yes and we're still not at the goal at 1.75 to get to the 1.75% increase sorry sorry 1.3 1.3 million 1.75% thank you sorry right but we're
900 towards towards the this is just not doable though like I I just this is there's got to be another there's got to be something else I mean we just had to close the school for the neuro virus because it was people were kids were throwing up in the hallway
like we want to cut a custodian and put more kids in one class and then I'll them all on more I don't think anybody wants to cut anything the reality is is we can't control what the town can or cannot afford only the town can decide that we have presented a level service budget you have been asked as the school
committee to consider what you'll put forward as a budget to your town and but I don't think anybody in this room wants to cut and if we even were to not make these cuts and even if we cut half the fire department and half
the police department we would not be able to fund this even tier two because the school is so much of our town budget how's it going to affect our town though when the kid when parents are pulling their kids out of public school and putting them in private it won't be
good I have a lot of questions but I would like to see if we can finish the presentation could you tell us what number slide that is in case you want to go back to them that' be helpful um that was slide number 11 thank
you so tier three again keeping in mind we're working towards a $1.3 million goal for cuts tier three is an additional $400,000 so at tier three there's a cut for a kindergarten teacher one grade one
teacher and then an additional grade three grade four and grade six teacher these are the class sizes projected class sizes this is the comparison on the leand side would be class sizes for uh a level service
Budget on the right hand side is with the tier two and three cuts that again keeping in mind the tier one cuts already been made so the with the tier 2 and tier three Cuts there would be 28 students in kindergarten class 27 in
first grade 30 and 2nd 34 and 3rd 34 and 4th 26 in fifth grade and 35 in 6th grade average class size would be 30 students per class for clarification this is still
full day kindergarten correct yes so this next slide is just a reminder that um in the Le level service proposal this is a flashback to what happened last year so we had $700,000 in cuts
from fi25 it would be extremely difficult to comp with lost services and supervision for students and staff for FY 26 so in fy2 we had uh we lost a reading teacher for par professionals a part-time
behaviorist a part-time office par professional the instrumental teacher a title one teacher a part-time custodian and three Specialists were reduced from 1.0 down to8
FTE and also Halifax is currently the seventh lowest in 2023 out of 399 local education associations in per pupil expenditure in the state of Massachusetts can I just St that that that's comparing against K
through 12 and other districts and that historically elementary schools are cheaper to educate than the upper levels I just want to I I agree and thank you for pointing that out keep in mind that every single uh elementary school that is in the same situation as us is
included in that sure so no I just I just want to make sure just because I know that sounds extremely dramatic but when you compare our elementary school to Kingston our spending is similar which is in the same district same boat
so so is that true like where does Kingston and clemton rank out of that 300 so when I presented per P expenditure to you uh two months ago the most recent data was 2022 the
2023 data has come out and I can put that together for you and send it to you I'm just as we think about regionalization as we think about Equity amongst our elementary and intermediate levels I think it's important to keep in
mind where the three towns fall in the state metrics so then on this next slide um the first thing the administration does when we start talking about budgets
is we have the conversation about what can we do to move instruction forward to progress to grow as a district and so these were the proposed costs beyond the level service budget and these positions are not included in the level service budget so there's an ask for an
additional special ed teacher four part-time lunch and recess par professionals we'd like to move the behaviorist job from a bcba to an RBT there is no cost involved in that transition we voted that last meeting
right we did okay sorry no it's okay I just wanted to make sure I'm just running through the slides I don't even know if I'm supposed to be doing this slide to be honest um a funding source change for the math interventionist was proposed and we
would like to have a discussion about otpt staff versus continuing to hire contractors so the total estimated increase with all of these positions is 134,000 and this increase would have a significant impact on the educational
offerings to the students of Halifax elementary school so this is above the level service budget yes okay can I ask a question um you said you wanted to have a discussion around hiring PT versus is Contracting I'm assuming that
even though we're spending if we add to staff there'll be a reduction in the amount that we're paying contracted Services sorry thank you speak so when we would do that it wouldn't be directly
for Halifax unless you had enough services at the school for a full-time OT and a full-time PT it would be a cost share and it be allocated by building for the students that have it's a much more efficient way of utilizing the time
of our of our related service providers so if a person spends two and a half days here and then maybe two and a half in another school then we're getting the most bang for our bu that almost like regionalization well I didn't say that but I know but almost almost like that
but if that is that something we have to vote on because I feel like a position like that makes so much sense I think you need to coin numbers which we are gathering now and then we can present them to you and then go from there if it's a shared cost it would need to be
approved by un by Union 31 at the Joint meeting but it would also benefit that school because they would no longer be paying for contracted Services correct yes okay but it wouldn't be a Halifax school committee vote right it would be a union 31 vote okay so our last slide we are going to
ask you um to please vote a budget tonight um if for no other reason the town and the community needs to prepare for whatever the decision of the school committee is and the sooner we make that decision as difficult as that may be for
you the better off our town and Community will be so we're opening it up for questions um that you may have if you Noti the last slide Sarah has prepared sample uh language but again it
will depend upon what what amount of money you decide to go with uh will influence the language that you actually use um oh no I was just going to make an overall statement just so this isn't what we want to do but
when we're given a budget to work in that's all we can do the town it's like your household budget if your costs go up you have to cut somewhere else and we are only given a certain amount of money from the town to work with with the exception of an
override which can only be approved by our Board of Selectmen so we could vote a budget that's level service that doesn't cut anything which we would all love but then the towns the board of selectman would have to agree to do the
override first and then it would have to be voted on at town meeting and at the Town election and there's a lot of you in here but I don't I know not all of you live in Halifax but like even the amount you know this isn't even wouldn't be
close to the amount of people needed to vote an override and to do a level service budget with an average we have about 2,800 taxpayers in this town and obviously it's all related to what your house value is but if I just take the 1
um 3 million that we are talking about tonight and divide it by the 2800 that would be about $466 per household added to their tax bill for the year and so that's where you would have
to convince the town essentially if you want to have if we don't want to make any Cuts then it would have to be going to the town to be willing to each pay extra which I know a lot of people in this room agree with it that's why
you're here but the problem is getting the overall town to vote for it and so but I'm but I'm just saying but also we have to be prepared if it doesn't pass if the town doesn't vote to pass it
we know what we're looking at right now but we can't really pass two budgets tonight so as a school committee we're trying to look into a crystal ball of do we try to go for an override two of our Selectmen just asked us basically not to I mean I'm that's the message I was receiving that
you know a lot of towns people don't want that and there's a pretty big divide in the town I would honestly say and so as a school committee we have to decide how to work within these honestly difficult parameters of not wanting to
cut to our schools I have four kids they've gone through the school system they're doing awesome I you know like I love this school system that's why I'm sitting here and you know we want to do but you know we can only do what the town will actually vote on and it's
that's the thing that's hard for me I don't know what to predict and I can't say exactly what it will cost everyone in the town but yes Dr PR uh for the benefit of everyone can you share with
us what would happen should a budget not be or an override not be approved at town meeting and I'm specifically talking about about timing and the fact that desie could step in in our place desie wouldn't step in because we're meeting net School spending even even
with the cuts well with at least the you have to have an you have to have an approved budget so a budget would have to be approved at town meeting I don't know if you want to open it up to the the um select people here but only the board of Select can choose
whether or not to put forward an override so we could even decide tonight okay we're going we want to go as level of service and they could say we're not going to put forth an override but I'll let the selecton speak well I was just going to say I mean like with kids in
the school system I I would love to have no Cuts level service budget no cuts that being said as I mentioned before CPA for $85 a household just got voted down so now we're talking on average of $460 something dollar per year increase
and while we all would support a level service budget even if a board is Select and put it Forward is still incoming upon the voting public the town which in this case is not the board of selectman or the Town Administrator or any of us it is literally the people voting which
is different than the town asking for a budget tonight so you have a town asking for a budget and a town voting for an override if I had any confidence in an override passing I would put it on the budget I put it on the agenda for the town meeting I don't have any confidence
in that passing based on any number of things we've seen recently so I'm only cautioning a vote based on what we can expect to happen based on the consequences of tonight not in what I would like to see happen but as a member of you know an elected body we have come
a decision to put forward to the town the voting public what will pass well and I will what we want to pass sorry and one thing in comparison and the thing is is we wouldn't have to go for the full amount either I'm just letting you know all the things I've been thinking about because I think about
this a lot that you know you're not alone the school is not the CPA I mean I I I will say that if you were to so um it's so much different but an increased tax burden on an average
household is not that much different the reason behind it could be different but somebody looking to trim their budget with no kids in the system or with no investment in the town for the Next Generation might think differently than the people who are here tonight you're not seeing any oper any opposition
tonight because we're all in favor of the school system and what it provides today tomorrow and next year well I know it's a friendly room to go for an override in you know um I'm only letting selectman speak sorry so that's not public comment well
it was because I needed information let him speak we want to hear her um I'm the chair you have to speak to you you have money you have money available you just said there $326,000 if you stop spending on the town side of the budget and you put that
back into the circuit breaker you can move that money forward you have money in the out of District placements for the kids that go to agriculture you can make that cut in a previous in a in the next meeting but we
have to vote a budget tonight based on the but you should go through the process just because you think it doesn't work doesn't mean the kids aren't worth trying I take issue I take issue with we're sitting at this table we spend
countless hours volunteering our time at this table I don't have any kids in the school but I love this school I love this down all of my kids went through the school I started attending school committee meetings when my kids were in
the school and I started paying attention and I applaud all of you for being here because we need people coming to these meetings to understand what's happening but of course the kids are worth it of course the kids are worth it and we are trying our level best to
deliver a budget that is doable for our town and provides a quality education for our kids and you're tasking us with something that's near impossible we all want to do this we all want to try I have very strong feelings about
this um but I do take exception with we owe it to the kids to try that's what we do all the time when we come to these meetings and put in the work and the research um and I would like to ask some questions
and um I sent some emails to Dr Brew um and I pulled out Excel and I'm a person that likes to map things out to understand them um so if it's
okay I apologize that I don't have something that I can share with the larger audience but I would like to share a work sheeet I put together and ask some questions around it if that's okay okay so I don't think I have enough for
everyone at tables but um if you can pass them around so based on the presentation that we gave that was given showing class sizes um there's a couple of things that I think are important to
note I I agree with Jessica that it feels like we should have like a one and a half um I think that it's hard hard to look at that slide can you put up the tier two slide Sarah it's it's hard to it's hard to
look at that slide and see all the minuses I am not I personally am not comfortable voting to remove or to cut $900,000 and I understand the risks and
my feeling is that um similar to what other towns in our district are doing I think it's important for us to bring it to the town and let that process play out um I kind of
ran the numbers looking at if we were to if we were to eliminate a teacher at certain levels we have we have classrooms um that currently with four teachers have um an average of 17
students and 19 students if we were to remove um a teacher just three teachers um we would still have in grade two our current grade two so
next year's grade three would be a classroom size of 22 grade four would be a classroom size of 22 and grade six would be a classroom size of 23 and then looking at what the other town
classroom sizes are and um the classroom sizes in seventh and eth grade that's pretty comparable to what's happening elsewhere in the district I need to say I don't want to cut teachers but that is an area that we
should have some conversation around the other thing I think that is important to note about eliminating Staffing positions is we are voting on a dollar value to cut we not voting on eliminating Staffing at the end of the day we vote
on the dollar value of what our budget is and then it is up to our administrators to decide how to spend that money because they have line item autonomy so last year we had a conversation when we voted the budget about um deducting our Specialists to
a01 or9 across four different FTE um and then there was some adjustments made where three Specialists were lowered to a08 and one specialist was remaining at a one that is a
decision not made by the school committee and I think those are things that it's important for um those in the audience to recognize the other thing that's on this little spreadsheet that I put together and again I apologize that I don't have this to share but um our
kids have really had a difficult Journey post pmic and the the pandemic does play a factor into why our budgets are so outsourced everything is more expensive right now but if you look at the grade that is the most affected um by the
pandemic it's our current grade um five so next year's grade six those kids had um remote learning for half of their kindergarten they had um their first grade year was hybrid and then they were math their entire second
grade those played a factor in how they're educated but they're in they're going into sixth grade in the majority of districts a sixth grade would be considered middle school we expect middle schoolers to
have a larger degree of Independence so again I think cutting a teacher at that level and retaining staff in kindergarten first grade and second grade is worth a discussion so if we were to just
eliminate three teaching positions where does that bring us an eliminating budget or reducing budget I know that's a whole lot I just threw out there Sarah can give you an estimate using the same number that we've used to
estimate all teaching positions obviously there's going to be some variability depending upon seniority and licensure my personal opinion is I feel like after studying this all I agree
some of our class sizes can be increased and still have learning be optimal and I I think that we should take it as an approach of Some Cuts but also asking for some override that's how
I feel you articulated a lot simpler than I did just now I mean cuz I I I don't think I I don't I I I think a smaller amount would be more palatable to the town and also if the override doesn't
pass then we've already started the work that we need to do and and that's what I mean I I I you know I I want to give it to the town let the you know I mean I don't actually I wish we just had the money but um I don't want to give it but
I mean this is our only option is to either you know go for the complete amount override go for a partial amount um I mean I assume if we can cut a bus we can cut a bus you know like things like that that are
yes if we were sorry because I'm doing six different things at once if we were going to cut a bus we would want to entertain the um the pay for ridership that we had talked about earlier um because I don't know that we actually
can cut a bus but we could trans transition the cost of one bus into a revolving account so if we cut a bus then we start charging for buses it's kind of a win-win because we lose the price of a bus but we gain money that we get from charging the bus the operating
budget would lose the bus and we would pay for it out of the revolving account that would be set up for the fees gained through the town um Lori to answer your question if if the tier one cuts that are made are
done and we cut three teachers then that leaves us 1.95 million apart from where the town would like us to be so not even
close I think we cut everything that they asked last year and we didn't even ask the town for a scent and then we ended up giving the town money because we cut too much I think we go back to the town and ask for an override and then they can say no but I would like to also meet with the board of selectman and talk about it then but
I think we owe it to we can't decide what the town is going to decide there's five of us here we're not going to know what the town is going to say the town didn't want the CPA but they might want to fund the schools we have no idea I agree with you Jess but I do think that we have to wait like the tone in the
town has never been friendly to education quite frankly we've always had difficulty getting education um funded um and complaints and I'm just I'm just the guy feeling the tone of the Town watching things get shot
down seeing people talk about how they don't have any money to spend say no to every everything I I everyone in this room wants this budget to pass as is you've got Selectmen telling you they don't necessarily um want to go
for an override I personally I don't want to cut it I was pretty angry after last year's budget I was pretty fired up after January's meeting right correct so I'm with you we only had 100,000 left over I know but I'm just saying that it
go in a heartbe I'm just saying you have to like you're you can't like we have we have a tough job yeah it's a tough job it's it's not a precise thing and I would wonder so if we don't have if we if an override doesn't pass what town
services do you want to give up I'm not saying any of that I'm just saying we need to ask the town what they want to do we can't we can't cut everything and then and not ask the town Town Services would have to cut which town services are you willing to go without I to that
point though Lauren like that's not our job right now like our job is school committee members so I think we have to listen to all the other factors but I I am my consideration is that I don't I'm not comfortable with cutting
anything other than those potentially three teacher salaries and going back to the town I mean that's just how I feel I think ask for an override and then over the next few meetings until May we come up with some other ideas like charging for buses and potentially
potentially charging for kindergarten I know that's not ideal but I mean they for preschool usually I don't have any problem asking for an override I I don't think that you do I just I I'm not saying you do I just I think that it's just it's not fair to not let the town
now decide of this it's just bring it to the town they're going to say yes or no they say no we figure it out I just don't think to figure it out now when the town meeting is in May when they we could vote on it they could they could say yes just like they they've said yes to a lot of the um Senior Center we need a school
we don't need a senior center I know that's awful to say but we need a school and they we're mandated we're Mand like we have to have education we have to educate our children exactly we're not mandated to have a senior center but we voted yes on that a lot
I'm just going to put it out there that's not a popular strategy to get I'm just saying a lot of people have showed up to that meeting a lot of people this meeting and vote Yes I hope so Ken me too so I just clarification so say that
we decide to go and then it doesn't pass where what what is our scramble plan at that point then do we make all these Cuts last minute and we have no Cody the way an override works is if you put an override forward there's two
components that have to pass first is your budget has to pass town meeting so town meeting um makes the appropriation our town meeting is historically before the election so you would actually have to vote uh basically a what if budget you'd say if town meeting votes the what
if budget which be the higher appropriation that would be what if the override passes then that would pass then you'd also have a secondary budget for what the town currently afford um given no over rde so you effectively have to present two budgets a Town Meeting those would have to both timly
pass and then it would go to the ballot and if the ride passes the ballot then you would go with a higher budget that included the override if not it's whatever budget is appropriated at time meeting with de is it C Cody so
essentially we have the budget that's presented now or level service budget right those are the two options you're talking about there well it's the budget as a whole for the whole time okay but as they're closing it what happens if they go forward with the level service
budget tonight the board like been asked to decide if they want to put an override on the ballot and can we not do an override if they go with the lower budget tonight like is that not an option no we if if we do what the town is asked a level funded budget plus the
1.75% which is was the last slide um then there wouldn't need we wouldn't need an override don't need over no but we the town can't override that like if you guys decide on this lower budget tonight it's a done deal yes that's what you're
saying my first one so can I I I haven't really spoken yet no go ahead so there's a couple things that I I want to clear up uh from my perspective one I I think it's only
fair to our students for them to receive the best education they could receive as an educator I stand behind our uh children in that they need the best Services they can get so that they can meet that 70% or greater as we start
reducing teachers as we start reducing the ones that bother me the most right here are the math specialist and the reading specialist because now we're removing tier 2 support for our students which they absolutely need it it bothers me greatly that those are up there
because that is the way that we support support our students who were not meeting or exceeding and so yes every one of these positions is valuable but I am highly concerned about those especially if we're going to have to cut the teachers absolutely because they're
going to need even more support I'm concerned with the fact that we have not filled that behaviorist position um and I would love an update since we changed the title of the position and the recommendations have we filled it
still contract and services so since we haven't filled it again increasing classroom sizes you're going to have more behaviors for the teacher to deal with and they're not going to be able to deal with 30 40 students in some of
these cuts um and still be able to provide quality education high level education okay I'm concerned about safety by removing a bus how many more students are going to be put on a bus without bus monitors watching these
students and yes Library technology especially this day and age uh and art are very valuable so every one of these positions is absolutely important I myself also looked through the numbers and did some math and I I don't believe
that we should be making blanketed Cuts as far as like one teacher per grade it does not make any Common Sense we need to be looking at how many students are in that grade and saying we our ideal is a classroom size of whatever that number
is 21 22 28 in kindergarten no oh my goodness I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase hurting kittens but that's exactly what that is in a kindergarten classroom hurting kittens everyone's doing their own thing
and as soon as you get one student doing what they're supposed to be doing they're not doing and of course there's again the safety issue if we don't have the Paras to support our kindergarten classes and we're trying to teach even simple things like scissor safety in a
classroom of 28 kids that's going to be difficult as a taxpayer I am also very concerned I brought up at the last meeting our tax rate is extremely high I don't want to have to pay any
more money and taxes but I will tell you I education is a second career third career for me and I went into it because I love the kids and I want to see
children feel successful and I I will gladly pay $500 more so that our students are supported so I am recommending that we go for and
and we're all going to have to do our part every one of us we're going to have to go Grassroots we're going to have to talk to everyone we know and spread the word far and wide that we are going to
support this as a town so I am going to vote for a level service budget for for those reasons can I just add one other thing our house and our Senate have legislators right now our
our lawmakers have proposed bills that we all need to be supporting to support education they include things like Chapter 70 funds funds for Rural schools we qualify for that they're trying to
say that because we're not we don't have a lot of business businesses supporting us that we need to get more funding from the state and these laws you can look them up right on the State website we
need to be calling our lawmakers and backing these bills you need to make the phone calls because as as it was stated we're not the only School District going through this even towns like ducksbury have
voted on last I heard going to a proposition two and a half so it doesn't matter rich or poor we all need to be saying the same thing we're all saying in this room support our students and get the money where it
needs to go we need to stop funding stuff that doesn't need to be funded and get to where it's important and the only way that's going to happen is if we all make noise again far and wide Grassroots so
Karen thank you for your time in preparing the the budget but I just I'm asking questions not criticisms but just some questions please so for like even for even for tier two for special ed would we even have
the support that we need in place by law to support our special ed students by cutting another special ed teacher so when we discuss this as a team we recognize that the impact would lead to greater case loads for special education
teachers but it would not prevent us from meeting the legal requirements the the problem as you know case loads class sizes has an impact on students right and so then even
dispersing our special ed population amongst fewer classrooms is that still going to be like to keep you know to make it basically not have an inclusion class right make them inclusion you be able to still work with
those numbers too with the fewer classes to to mix the students between yeah thanks there's no official guidance on how many we try the recommended is 33 and a 3% okay so every three out of 10
students um when you go up to 40 and 45 and 50 then you have an issue because usually the um content is lower than what you would normally want for the grade level standard so specially do you think you have it covered and I'm sure they do I
just need to ask for myself um what about for the teachers contract if you're getting rid of Specialists how will they have their PR per needs so the and I I think the principal can do a better job at describing this but in the the most simplistic terms if in
fact you going to cut this many classroom teachers you're going not going to need as much much coverage for great that makes sense prep and lunch for teacher for clap grade level teachers so those kind Cuts kind of go hand in hand if you if you don't
cut as many teachers then you're going to need more Specialists we not even talking about whether or not um the impact of losing things like the Arts um or things of that nature have on children so I don't want to see as if I no I know I it's it's another level just
to makeing Sure certain yeah and so that was the rationale for keeping PE and music then to just choose to what we have to offer physical education has to be offered um annually does
music well all of all of your specials have standards and we're trying to maintain some of the Arts um if I were to is well I feel like everyone's spoken so if I were to
summarize somewhat it seems like we're all in favor of an override I'm my thoughts on that are if we ask for Less do we have a greater chance of a passing or do you think it doesn't
matter person I don't think it matters I think for to be respectful of the board of selectman that we should not you know meet them show that we're trying to make a good choice that's respectful of them in the town's
wishes but still not cutting all of that here's my concern my concern is that if we do our part and did cut some we still have the unknown of Silver Lake and what they're going to bring
forward and that could very easily be the you know the camel that you know the straw that breaks the camel's back so to speak so again without having a crystal ball in knowing what Silver Lake is going to vote we're kind of between a rock and a hard place here I feel like
we did a really good job reducing last year but maybe it wasn't reciprocated on the other end and I'm I'm saying that just because their costs are a little bit higher than ours
and so I I just want to throw that went from 39,000 to 41,000 much less of an increase so I don't no I is that correct that it's well I I think the difficulty last year with silver lake is you had a
an extreme reorganization where more more costs were shifted over to the Silver Lake [Music] budget and they didn't have the benefit of things like C circuit breaker to offset so in Halifax we did take a
circuit breaker offset a sizable circuit breaker offset last year which leads to an impression that the budget has increased by a greater percentage than which if you take that off it's 10% which is still large but not
23 and they they kind of reduced the amount that they had to go back to the towns for because they used a an account that had some funds in it they did but they're not they don't have that this year to offset correct well so we're we
submitted so e and d stands for excess and deficiency it's the Regional School equivalent of what you refer to as free cash on the town's side so we submitted our end to the Department of Revenue at the in December and we just heard back
from them a week ago that they have looked at it and then myself and the district accountant met with the Department of Revenue today and we're given a list of things that need to be adjusted and then we need to Res submit so there is this thing this amount of
money eend D that Silver Lake will end up having some amount I don't know what it is yet I'll let everybody know as soon as I know but what I will tell you is generally end is used for uh capital projects maintenance of
buildings uh things like that and so we tend to think of the middle school and high school as being these brand new and beautiful buildings but they're 20 years old old and part of the infrastructure is failing so we can't take all the e
and d and say oh let's offset the budget yet one more time and then lose hbac or something like that so can I ask or just bring up one other point that I think before we do
any kind of voting is important to think about um I am in support of voting level service but I'm also a realist and a pragmatist and I don't think um that like I don't think it's guaranteed that we're not going to be cut making
cuts at a later point I hope that our town rallies and gets the override um but I you know I have my my thoughts that that may not happen um and if that's the case
I think that one of the questions that I have is at what point do we rally and come back to the table and look at other options is are we doing that in June to make those cuts or is that something that the administration if the override
doesn't pass sorry Cody if the override doesn't pass we will have already passed the level funded budget at town meeting correct so we would be looking at all three TI of cuts if it doesn't pass that's just how it will be okay so the other thing that I think is important to
point out and I keep bringing up the word regionalization this problem that we're dealing with this year I don't think it's going to change at all in the near future um and O overrides aren't sustainable to that point um so I do
think it's imperative that we start thinking about how we are structured in our on our district and how to fund education on a longer term because um there are overlaps in how we run I mean
poor Dr PR is going to four um school committee meetings and Sarah and Dr Pines and you know it's just it's not sustainable it is an inefficient way to run a school district
um it is creating inequity when you have three Elementary and intermediate levels that are funding separate budgets with separate tax funding it's just I cannot say enough if you want to move forward
and try to get this level service budg budget all of you in this room also need to be rallying about regionalizing our school system because we we've we've got to find some more efficiencies eliminate redundancies and
absolutely absolutely is doing four budgets that's insane give her more 10 hours back Shar cost budget five and I mean again like that we could
be sharing costs with other contracts I just again even convers Contracting like to have in-house versus Contracting is always going to save money and then also if we regionalize then we're eligible for regionalization grants for busing
correct or something to that so there's yes there's Regional Transportation reimbursement and that's something our school committee is has you know we applied for a grant it's being studied for our three towns we're trying as hard as we can um
I think that it's important to note too that we almost didn't get the benefit of the grant that we won because um the town voted down the MBTA um 3A um resoning which was the will of the
town but there was an impact to our schools um thankfully Kingston has that um Zone they're in compliance with that so we were able to shift um the budget or the grant to Kingston and they can continue to explore that work um but
again like you know votes have an impact on our children that we don't always realize so agreed so my question is at this point is does someone want to make a
motion for a level service budget level service budget or with an override or do you think we should pair down some things and ask for less of an override that's the discussion I feel like we're at at this
point in my opinion I think that there's several people at the table that um spoke passionately about level service with an override and if we feel strongly about that we should put that forward so
I would make a motion um that we vote a level service budget um at some point if we don't get the override then we know what it's going to look like when we need to make Cuts do you have you have to um say a number to for the level
service hold on right but you take a look at the slide you this one copy of the last slide it's this one looks like this so is she reading it for btim no it needs
changes so if you're voting a level service budget that first number needs to be 8,247 1111 8 million sorry 8247 1111
it's not this number on the FY 26 over here 8,379 no okay okay number one more time sorry yes so the number in the top line should be 8,247
1111 that same number gets repeated in the third line 8247 111 the allocations in the middle the the $132,700 stays in both places the final number at
the bottom is 800 8,379 18816 okay so that's that first that's that number so I'm voting the 8 million or making the motion for the 8, 247,000
you read it you've got to read the whole thing un I have all thank you one day sah that final number is that number that was on this page correct 8,379 1860 okay I'll make a motion to move that the Halifax school committee
approves 8,247 1111 as the fiscal 2026 local education budget operating budget and further that the total appropriation of 8,2 $ 47,1 is in compliance with education
reform acts of 1993 and recommended by the superintendent of schools and further the school committee directs the superintendent to allocate the following additional fund sources which total $132,700 5 and anticipated fiscal year 26 Grant
and revolving account funding totaling $0 the final approved exp expenditures for the school will be 8,379 8,379 1860 in seconded right I'll take a vote Katie
yes Lori yes Karen no that's yes I'm a no so it passes um that's all for the budget right yes okay can can I ask a question well we're still on it because if it does not pass
for whatever reason can we still discuss um charging for buses and possible kindergarten to make up for some of the losses that we could Anor does does that make
sense after the fact yes so it cannot be discussed now but has to wait until after the town vote is that you could discuss it at any point we put that on the agenda next month so keep in mind that if you're going to charge for buses or charge your full day
kindergarten we would need a revolving account in order to put those funds into and we would need to get a revolving account approved to town meeting so so that needs to be done prior to town meeting so it's something
we should consider voting on tonight so that that get on to can we vote on that tonight though it's not on our agenda or we have to add that we're just talking about creating accounts okay so because it would have to be on um the
town warrant correct submitted to the town to be on the warrant um I going to the board of selectman meeting tomorrow night I can I well it has to be on the agenda though I guess but right um do if we're just talking about creating accounts it's just something I need to talk to the
town about correct or well if it needs to be on a warrant we need to make sure we meet the deadline is Cody still here Cody when is the deadline for the warrant uh technically the warrant closes March 11th it's going to print probably at the end of March as long as
we have the refres from the school by the end of March that's fine you can make the account right you can request us to make the account you can put it on the one you can always decide after fact whether you close the account can we make the request right now or does send you something okay I'll
email you okay and that doesn't mean we have to fund the account correct just creating account is creating an account correct could it be used for kindergarten as well like it it needs to be two separate accounts and the town meeting approval is what allows you to carry money over from year to year to
year all right so so we can create accounts but it's the carrying money over that that requires town meeting so I'll make a motion uh for our chair to contact the town offices to create
two resolving accounts one for charging for kindergarten the other for charging for busing okay sorry all in favor I I I all right um so as far as dates to
remember February 17th through 21st is winter vacation February 25th is a joint meeting and our next Halifax meeting is March 10th 2025 um can I get a motion to close the meeting I'll make a motion that we
adjourn next meeting we have a second second thank you all in favor [Music]