##VIDEO ID:KfImjivJR9k## I know. OK. Uh. Right. Good evening. Uh, I called to order the meeting in the Hamilton Wynham Regional School Committee on Thursday, October 10th, 2024 at 7 o'clock, um, and I will invite you to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I the United God It The justice right. Right OK, good evening. As we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that this, this meeting is, uh, being recorded and live streamed by, um, HWCA. Um, And all right, we will start off, um, with Citizens comments. Um, in the citizen's comment period, any citizen who wishes to, um, come before the committee. The committee should please, if you're here in the room, identify yourself and, um. Give your name and spell your last name, um, so that we can get it correct for the minutes. Um, And um Do we have anyone on Zoom? No what you No what you is there anyone in the room that would like to speak? OK. Um, Right, seeing none. I think we will go ahead and close citizens' comments at 7:02. OK, um, next up, uh, we have a review of a portion of our school committee protocols, uh, Julia. As elected members of the Hamilton Wynham Regional School Committee, we, including the superintendent, except the high honor and trust that has been placed in us to ensure that the students of the district receive the best education possible. To that end, we hereby commit to the following in the conduct of our business. Number 4, school committee members will channel requests for information, reports, and data through the superintendent and the school committee chair rather than to staff. The superintendent will ensure that each member of the committee has equal access to this information in a timely manner, recognizing the importance of proactive communication and avoiding surprises, school committee members will whenever possible, contact the school committee chair and or the superintendent in advance of a meeting. If they have questions or concerns about an agenda item or we'll ask the chair at least 48 hours prior to a meeting that an item be placed on an agenda. Thank you, Julia um. Thank you for willing, be willing to read these slightly blurry copy. I appreciate it. Um, so next up on the agenda is, um, a review of the school committee mission statement, um, you all, that is on there because that is sort of the normal um. course of events, um, I know that you all, um, remember from last meeting we discussed reviewing it and it's actually listed again under new business, um, item E, um, to have a brief discussion about, um, that mission statement, um, I guess my, I I'll look to the committee whether you want to do it out of order because it's on the here twice or whether you want to just take it up under new business. I don't have I Yeah, I mean, I guess part of. All right, seeing no enthusiasm either way. Maybe we'll just go, you wanna do it? OK, um, so I guess what I'll say is it, uh, without objection. Uh, I would just ask that we take this item, um, to be reviewed now. Mm-hmm. Um, seeing no objection, I think we'll do that, um, so, um, Eric has put the, um, mission statement up on the board. It's also, um, on your agenda, um. And so I will say that this, if you can scoot it down just a smidge Eric, the um uh. This What's presented before you is exactly the same as the mission statement that we, um, adopted and read, um, throughout the last year with the exception of the first, it was the 2023, 2024, um, school committee mission statement and so I guess what we're just asking, I think I mentioned it at the last meeting and we discussed it briefly and we agreed to bring it back so that people would have time if they wanted. Um, to make any comments, um. About any other changes except for the updating of the year. Um, And then separately I did just want to get a little feedback on whether it's helpful or not to continue to remind ourselves at the beginning of the meeting, um, that's something that we've done, but certainly isn't required. So I will just, um, stop talking and see who has any I certainly one thing we could do if someone wants to start us off with a motion, um. Do that even have a motion. I move that we accept the 2024 2025 school committee mission statement as written and continue to read parts of it at every meeting. Second, OK, so that was, uh, seconded by Amy Komberger, um, discussion. Yeah, I just think it, it, it's too long and it mixes outcomes with the means to achieve them, and I thought a great example. Is President Kennedy when he for the original moonshot and, and his wording, it was very succinct is the mission. Statement was that um. was to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade. That was it. And I'm sorry. I'm gonna just take a quick pause. HW Cam so I I'm I'm bad I'm bad about that we're going to speak and Trent's microphone is not working. That um. So. much about hold on, let me just get the microphone working there. OK, we're, we're We're troubleshooting over there. I was just asking if you could speak into the microphone because I can't. Ironically, he was he was too happy to you may regret that, but. Hold on we're just gonna take a technical difficulty. They're funny. I don't know Um, Trent wave your arms if you need to speak and David, please yes, sorry, to recap, I was just saying that that Kennedy was a good example of a succinct mission statement which was outcome oriented and the outcome was to have a moonshot to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. It's nice. I thought the equivalent. And this is What is a very rough idea of of a similar sort of approach for us would be our school committee's mission is to ensure our schools help to create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning, together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential, something like that. Not getting into Mixing in a bunch of means to that end because that's really part of your goals. Sorry, that's really part of your goals. And And and other activities to get to fulfill your mission. Anyway, it's a thought. I think that other people have thoughts on that? I like the mission statement is written because I think it takes into account. The major areas of operation, so we've got something about the teachers who've got something about the administrators, um, we've got something about our students and we've got something about the community. Um, and those are really the four areas that are integral to our group as a school committee. We have to be able to interact with all those groups. To complete our goals. That's just me. Yeah, I agree. I like having this document as sort of a guiding light when we're making decisions to be able to look at it and say. You know, This decision Meets that part of the mission statement. No, I like it. I think we could combine the two. Which wouldn't solve your, your issue, but I like your overarching goal and then potentially we could just say, and we do that by. Yeah XYZ. So that way, I mean, we, we don't really read this at every. Meeting we read a portion of it but but again that's a separate question. I mean that was part of the motion that Jen made but certainly it. Obviously that could be teased out, like, in other words, that's so I mean, I don't have opposition to either, either way, I think both ways are great, but I think we could combine them. If David would be amenable to that. I don't know. Like there's a North Star and then there's the. Sort of ways that we do it and I understand what you're saying like a mission statement is, is more the North Star, less the. What we're doing, it's more the why, but, um. David, would you like to read it again just would you like to read it again just our school committee. Uh, committee's mission is to ensure our schools help to create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning, together with critical skills needed to maximize their potential. Uh So The one word I'm Wondering about his help like, can you read it because I. And maybe without the help uh is what I'm I I read it one more time. I'm sorry. OK, yeah yeah, our school committee's mission is to ensure our schools, You know, if you left that help to you you say it sure. To ensure our schools help. Sorry, schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning, together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential. Yeah, you could drop the. To help. I'm just, I mean, I'm just brains thinking about like if you're really a North Star that help is sort of a. Right, like we're our no there is not as strong as just like you said with the JFK mission, it wasn't help him get to the moon as he will, yeah yeah yeah yeah, and it's shorter and it's shorter, which is what you're striving for, but um. Um, So is there other discussion? Is there any, well. other discussion, I mean I heard Julia, the so the the. Motion on the table is to adopt the mission statement as written. I heard Julia expressing. An idea of potentially keeping this. I, I'm wondering, Julia, if you're looking at it, would it be that that first line would be replaced with the entirety of what David just read. Yes. Yeah. Um, And then another line would be we do that by. And then we'd have to change it just to change the tenses to tense we'd have to change it to action. But attracting and retaining. So I don't have a problem either way, but I think that could be one solution. But if people want to keep it the way it is, it's fine. Thoughts, other thoughts. Hm Um, Do you want to do like a friendly amendment and vote on that. You certainly can if you want to. OK, I'll I'll just throw this out there. I will make a friendly amendment to the motion to incorporate. David's mission statement. Beginning. That would be up to you, Jen. Oh, I have to make the motion? Sorry, no, no, no, just she's asking a friendly it's if it's OK with you then. Um, And then it doesn't have to be seconded and then voted on. I think so, um. Yeah, that sounds, so do we have a second for that friendly amendment second by Trent. Um, I guess what I would say just as a if we, this is my two senses that if we were to vote for that, I guess what I would really like I do and. Is only just to do that, get it written up, and then maybe put it on the consent agenda next time, um, just because I want, just I don't want to have the tenses be wrong or the, um, that's a good point. So I was like seeing it in black and white. Yeah Um, So Um, I don't even know how we would word that because if we vote on it, um, well, I think. I think it's been made clear that it needs to be brought back or that it needs to be. I don't know Somebody help me out in the amendment to the friendly amendment could be putting it on, putting it at the start of the mission statement with the caveat that we bring it back to the committee for full approval. Sure 22, that's a lot of amendments, but I think basically what we're, what we're looking at right now is um adopting the, um, First line Of the mission statement to reflect the line that David Frankel read to us, um, and then, um, adding, you know, this something like this will be done by or by. The committee will accomplish this by the following and then correcting the tenses, um, and then we can just put that on the agenda for approval, um, and then it really will be the committee would be looking at. You know, typographical things and tenses and that sort of thing. All right, that was a lot, um, so that's what we're voting on. Does anyone have any other discussion? Part of the original motion was about do we want to continue to read a portion of it. Um, Mhm. We need to that's does anyone have anything to say about that? I like it. I like it too. And This committee can always change it. You can like if you get, you know, if you uh. Happy to bring it back at another time and say is this, um. OK, people clear on what we're voting on. That was a lot. OK, uh, quick question, who is going to do the massaging of the wording? With some assigned to do that if you can send me that statement, I can, I can take care of it if you want. That's a great question, but we haven't actually voted yet, so but yes. Alright, um, all right, all those in favor? That is unanimous of the, what are we, 6 members present and the motion passes. Thank you all for that good discussion. I appreciate that that was, um, and so yes David, if you could um send the wording, um, to Eric and um. We can just work that out and then I, my intent is to put it on the consent agenda. It certainly can be as always you can always move it off the consent agenda if you have discussion later. OK. Great, um, speaking of the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items that they would like to hold? Mm OK, uh, who's doing our honors this evening. Uh, Jen, thank you. I move that we can accept the consent agenda as written. second All right, so I don't know who said it first, but I'm giving it to Amy, second to Amy, um, all those in favor? That is unanimous of the members, the 6 members present, and the motion passes. Thank you for all the donations. I was I was gonna just say yes and exciting, um, exciting donations, fun donations, those are really fun. All right, can we make that just a little bigger, the book that so thank you. Um. Perfect. OK. Um, Next up we have um an E fund donation and, um, discussion on, uh, Naming, uh, Eric, do you wanna address that? Thank you. Um, as we discussed last meeting, we'd come up with a little bit of a process to, um, make sure we followed our policy that's in place and, um, follow the steps of the policy. We, we've done that, we advertised, uh, these two A and B are both for the same thing, um. The donations were advertised Monday in an email to the community. Um, People read it because I got phone calls, so it's it's, it was definitely out there. And then, um, What we did was meet with each of the groups. Solidify what they wanted to name because of this process, so I can back up this process began with the HWAFIC committee, who is the main private fundraiser for outside funds for the school, uh, facilities project up at the high school, middle school complex. The um They were linking sizable donations to the ability to choose to name some portion of the uh project that wasn't already named several of the things like the track, for example, is already named the press box was already named so whatever was available like boards and fields and. or if you wanted to, but, um, so these two donations, and we can do them one at a time. The first one is the E fund donation, um, they donated to the fund, uh, to the the project of $5,000,000. And With the the request to. Um, name the field Ed fund field. Uh, I've talked to them a little bit about this and what that would look like. Uh, each of the three fields at the high school. Uh Have a scoreboard. This one would be specific to the main field that would be on the bottom of the scoreboard at Fun Field. The scoreboard is something that comes with the project as we're building it anyway, so it would still say Hamilton one of generals at the top at the bottom would say Ed funfield. There's nothing on the field itself. So Um Everybody's in agreement to that and this is the MOU that our attorneys drew up for us, uh, to use in this process, um, And then Paul Mihalidi, he's the co-president, outgoing presidents co-president, I think, but he, uh, he was, um, Voted by the group to represent the E fund in these conversations and. This is the final, the final document, if you will, that we would, if we accept the donation and accepting the MOU for the naming rights of the main field, which is the first field with the track around it, um. Then then we would sign this after that. OK Um, I think um. I'd, I think it would be good to start us off with a motion for this, this one before we have discussion. And we have a specific wording that we had to use for this. I thought there was a slide. Am I not, am I misremembering? No, not for this one, but your motion would want to say accept the donation and the MOU for naming rights. As presented I move that we accept the donation from the Ed fund and the MOU for naming rights as presented. Do we have a 2nd 2 by Amy Kumberger. Um, So, um, But I don't, I did want to just add a couple of. Bits of information, I guess, um, or maybe I, maybe not, maybe you guys discussion. Questions for the superintendent, Questions about or any discussion? Um, can I ask what the general tenor of. The comments you received was, was it positive or negative positive, nothing, nothing negative. It was mostly because. Encapsulated and that was also an update and people were happy to have an update but also excited that we're moving donations, which I think for them meant we were making progress, you know, we, we now have to pay for what we're doing, so. Um, Um, I am gonna just, if nobody else is gonna try, I'm just gonna say a couple of things, um, I, I'm in support, but I'm just going to say a couple of things just so that the committee knows and anyone who's listening knows, um, one. One important thing for just for the future is, um, this MOU, just to be clear, it does, um, Under part 3 there does. Um, Reserve our right to in the unlikely event that the name, um, the reput it says the benefactor honoree's reputation changes substantially, so the continued use of the name may compromise the public trust or impairs the integrity of the district, da, da da da. There's quite a bit there, um. You know, one can never foresee into the future. Um, so just to be clear, this MOU is written in such a way so that if something ever were to really change, not that I have any reason to think that that would, but. That we still would retain the right. To um to do that, um. And I, I just feel like that's an important thing because this is a really naming something is a really big deal and it's, um. I, I spent a lot of time looking at like our, I asked that I would have it in front of me, the naming facilities policy and. So anyway I just wanted to say that because I was, I was concerned about it and it was important to me, um. Anyway, anyway, does anyone else have anything else to say before we vote? OK. Um, so we have a motion in a second and looks like we're ready to vote. Um, all those in favor? And that is unanimous of the 6 members present and the motion passes. Thank you to the fund. Thank you very much um. Yeah Um, Jen, can you have a similar motion for the next one. Um I move that we accept. The donation. And MOU. As presented to the school committee. For the Joseph. tennis court. Joseph Joe Marer tennis courts and the amount of 250,000. Second, Second by Amy Kumberger. Um, All right. Questions Discussion Yeah, Amazing. OK. All right, looks like we're ready to vote. All right, um, all those in favor? And that is unanimous of the 6 members present, and the motion passes. Thank Fall. Yes, thank you very generous donation. That's very, very generous and also very exciting to be moving these donations and. Um, And it's exciting to have some new names for some of the new things. It's really, that's fun. Um, lovely. All right, um Um Next up, uh, superintendent goals. Thank you. So this is, uh, we'll do it the same way I, I think if nobody has object objections, do it the same way this year as we've done in previous, kind of open discussion and. thoughts or changes I'll take back and then we final vote on it next meeting. Um, that's how we've done it for the past few years, so I figured if everybody's OK with that, we'll do that. Um, my goals are. Made much more. Difficult because of the building projects. Um, they really vacuum up. A huge amount of time during the day, at night, in the morning and concom meetings and you know we're, we're uh we're spending quite a bit of time on these uh projects and, um, we're excited about it. So, um, I think last year I had 5. This year I have 4 goals and one of them is specific. It's actually linked to the second goal of, um, managing these projects, these two projects through completion, the first goal is we really need to develop an education. plan In Sync with The movement of the possibility of a new Hamilton one elementary school. Um, you know, we've been saying publicly that we're, we're gonna, you know, if we build this, this consolidated elementary school, then the buco would become a pre-K kindergarten school, and what does that look like? How do we set it up? What's the design, you know, so we need need to get much more in depth than that and it's gonna take some time. And, um, you know, that'll that'll probably also include some, a look at the facilities too to see if we can, can truly meet the needs of, of the, the littlest learners and Um, in their day to day and then also, uh, make sure we have enough space to, to do the things that we already have in our curriculum with the specialists that we already have in our curriculum. So, uh, we, we believe that shouldn't be a problem, but we want to now test it out and, and create an educational plan for the entire process just like we did for the elementary school, like look at music, look at art, look at all the, the, the fundamental curriculum that are, that are built into those levels. They're, they're slightly different with 3 and 4 year olds versus 5 year olds, but. Um, it's, it's a good opportunity for us to examine. All of that in kind of one scope under, um, you know, certainly reaching out for assistance from Stacy and in, uh, director of special education student services, uh, reaching out to our preschool people to make sure we included, uh, them in that process. So it'll be a fairly lengthy process and Um, Really have to be able to help people to understand what that what that looks like before you get there, so you, you know, we're, we have all this focus on the, this elementary school and moving all these kids there, but what about, you know, our youngest learners who are, um, the most vulnerable, I guess at at the point at this, at that point in life. So this first goal is around developing that plan, working across the district and, um, kind of reaching out with our, with our current preschool program, which is, uh, somewhat grant funded. Not completely, but we do have people who pay and then we have some grant money, so we have to look at all of that and see what that looks like in a bigger scale. It may give us a possibility to be able to open up pre-K a little bit more and have more seats available at the school level so that pre-K just flows right into kindergarten, so, um, those are all things we want to examine and that's what this first goal. Really starts to get into, um, working through the process and developing that plan so that by the time we get into the spring, We have that to lean on when people say, well, what happens? With the Bucher school. You know, so we can talk about the connections to the, to the regional agreement, the requirements and expectations of that, and then how we develop our educational plan is in connection with, you know, moving those kids from the. You know, kindergarten kids are all over the district, but the preschool are all at the Winthrop, so it's just, you know, consolidating that as well, so. That's my first goal. 2nd goal is, you know, the construction projects, as you know, those, um, You know this is my 4th night out this week, 3 of them for the construction project for various. Boards and meetings and, you know, trying to get people, um, information that they need. So this is, it is really a continuing goal. I tweaked it to include the schematic design phase, which as you know, last year we were working on feasibility. We moved out of feasibility into schematic design. We will submit on December 20th, the schematic design package, which will go to the MSBA for review and then throughout the spring, we'll, we'll move forward with um. The MSBA, they'll go through the whole package, they'll review it with the state and, and so there's a lot more work to be done. Um, then we'll also have to get an agreement. Uh, in place to say if the voters agree to this, then this is what the state would take on, so. To have those pieces in place before we get to town meeting is gonna be super important, so that's part of that. And then the athletic facilities project is slated now. We're, we're. We were supposed to end in July we're ending early August now, um. And crossing our fingers for the weather, but so that will, that will go out beyond this school year, so we continue to work on that, um. I spent my whole 1st 2.5 hours of the morning today with it and you know we meet we meet at least once a week, so we're, we're, uh, using a lot of time there, so that's what that goal is all about. MTSS, as I've said since I started in this job that will stay in place for 5 to 7 years. This is probably the most important piece of what we've been building, um, trying to, uh, now move to the next iteration as we move out of this year and into the next few years we start to relook at interventions, you know, fewer. Kids who need intervention. So now what does it look like in phase 3 and phase 4 of that growth process. So still working with the principal, still working with the director of teaching learning, still working with the director of student services, um, to continue to, to grow that system and, and again, now it's, I think it's in an evolutionary phase as we move through this year. We've added in our math curriculum, uh, our teachers have done a really good job at, at integrating our literacy curriculum and and our really comfortable in in that in most places. Um, adding in the, the, um, math program is a big, is a big deal for them to put on top of that. And then, you know, we'll go further with this to look at science and then depending on where the state goes with social studies, social studies may be. Brought in, but we cover a lot of the social studies and some of the science stuff with our CKLA program in the in the knowledge section so. Um, and then, uh, really interesting piece of. Yes, I, I guess it just needs to be updated. It's been a long time for this multi-hazard plan. We're supposed to submit them to the state every year. The same one gets submitted over and over and over, um. As I look at it, I, it covers everything. It covers, you know, something happens in the building, something happens outside of the building, something needs a police response, something needs a fire response. Uh, seizures in the building, pathogens in the building, so it, it looks at all of that in one document. It talks about communication, interagency communication. So, um, We need to update it. We need to, we need to use it also at the same time to look at things like our own communication process in a, in an emergency if, if we have, uh, an issue in a, in a school where police fire and and school personnel are in the same place. Are we able to communicate and we test that often it does currently function well, um, but, you know, if anybody saw on Twitter today the, the town of Hamilton has a didn't realize this, a miniature town that they practice on so, you know, those, those types of things are still available for us to to work with. They, they train a couple of times a year in our buildings. They're always in our buildings, walking through just to say hi to the kids. Anybody that's new comes through. It's the, you know, the tour over and over and over through the school year, so we still want to keep those connections, but I also want to make sure that this response plan covers is one for each building. This could be even reunification if we have to leave, say the high school. I'll use that one because I know that one the best and you go to Pingree, what happens when you get to Pingree when you bus. All your high school kids or all your high school and middle school kids over to Pingree. What happens? Where do they go? Once they're there, how do you figure out who's there, who's not, and then how do you reunify them with their parents without creating this gigantic scene. So those are the, um, excuse me, important pieces of this. Can Project if you will, it, it has not been done and I think 12 or 14 years. It's, it's time. And I think it'll take some time to get connections with working with our school resource officer, working with the police and fire in both communities, um, talking with, uh, bus companies looking at. Um, arrival times in, in an emergency at, you know, 11 o'clock and in the middle of the day, how fast can we get 10 buses to a particular site. So really going through those processes, do our communications work is our 911 process working in all the buildings? How do we know it? So it'll just kind of be a comprehensive review of. Of all the safety related things in, um, this multi-hazard plan, so. That's my 4th goal and that'll again take much of the year. We submit them each year to the state on the first of September and To leave next year will be due for an update anyway. I think it's next year. If not, it'll be the year after, but either way, it's time. We're, we're kind of behind in in updating that. And has lists of who to call, when to call, how to get a hold of certain people across the community, so. Important document. Right Um, Alright, so, um. We'll just open it up to. Questions? Right Um, Couple comments, um. If I can get this to work, OK, um, I, I, um, am always aware of the fact that when we number things we, um, are kind of imbuing them with a hierarchy, um, and I would advocate. That goal 3 and goal 4 speak to every single person in the community. Um, and goal 1 and goal 2 may or may not. So I would just advocate that we move goal 3 and goal 4. Up to 1 and 212. Not to in any way. Um, decrease the importance of the work of 1 and 2. But just because I think that we want to. Portray the to the community that. Um, those two speak to every single student in the in the school, right? Makes sense. Other questions? Mm, yeah, um. I, I don't have a problem with, with the goals, uh, but I do feel that from a priority point of view we We are not Spinning any attention on the current students, other than the sports facilities like um in terms of facilities there's no, For implementation, there's no planning budgetary estimates for what it takes, for instance, to have air conditioning in every classroom, in every room. Or improved efficiency of heating in classrooms. And I, I think that's uh David, I'm sorry, I can't. there's a buzzing over here. I'm, I'm feeling like I have to chew the, the mic the mic, um, I'm used to the more studio mics, sorry, um, yeah, no I was just saying that I think the well all of the goals are admirable and the the projects are admirable. I think it leaves a lot of students without being affected by anything other than sports improvements. The over at the old facility I'm talking about the high school, the middle school, and Buca, um, and, and even for the students in the elementary schools that we're going to combine that's 4 years away, so what are we doing for those, for all of the students for the next 4 or 5 years in terms of improving their learning environment. And uh and so we could consider. Options. I, I would like to see at least vendor budgetary bids. So that we can see well it costs $10,000 to do that, not 150 million. And it's not to say that's an either or. But we're we're not really being served up those kind of options, and I think that's uh. That means they'll never happen. And uh and I think that would be, that would be a loss for for the vast majority of our students. Do, do we have projects on The books where we're looking to do that or we don't I think that's my point really is I think the plan right or. Yeah This, this, the odd bits and pieces, but there's not a let's have everybody have air conditioning. That's 140 classrooms plus 5 cafeterias plus 5 libraries, well, one library already has air conditioning, at least. So I, I guess I wanna, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I. Sounded like What you just you're using air conditioning as an example or something that you are or are you saying you. With like air conditioning to be a goal. Probably a makeover of HVACC, for example, if you put heat pumps in in every classroom that provides you both air conditioning and heat, and the heat is more. Energy efficient than the way we're hitting them now. So that would, that would have some. Financial benefits, but it would have, most importantly, it would provide a better comfort environment. For which is material to optimizing cognition and learning. And, and, uh, I just happened to be studying that part of the research and it's significant in its impact, just keeping people within a narrow band of temperature, so makes so makes so makes makes a significant difference so makes makes a significant difference a significant difference I'm so makes makes a significant difference I'm makes a significant difference I'm Jen I guess for me personally I. To me that isn't really a superintendent goal that would have that would need to be a district goal like I would have. I know this puts Eric in a difficult situation to have committee members saying different things, but for me, if Eric had come back and said as a superintendent goal I want to put air conditioning in every classroom and we hadn't discussed that as part of our. District goals, I think I would have been a little bit. Um I would have thought it could, could come from either direction, but if Eric felt it was a goal, he would presumably promote it to the school committee to make it want to, Get them to allocate funding for it I guess I'm just, I'm just saying it for me, that would have been something that I would have wanted. If To me that sounds like more and I'm not gonna, I'm gonna let other people talk, so, um, Jen, so when I first joined Capital Finance with Eric. I asked him like what other, I think I what other projects we were looking at because we were looking at these big capital expenditures, and Eric showed me a pile of like proposals and projects that was probably 8 to 10 inches tall. And those were a bunch of proposals and projects that that we had hired companies and spent thousands of dollars. To have them put together these proposals? And they're sitting on a desk or in Eric's case, I think they were sitting on a bookcase. In terms of capital projects, I think we have a lot on our plate at the moment. And I would hesitate to add another large capital project? Onto our plate because I think fiscally speaking, we don't have. The What's the word I'm looking for, bandwidth. You don't have the money pocket, um. To take on another capital project. So asking. Eric to put together a proposal. For another capital project seems like we're going to spend money to have a proposal that sits on a desk for a long time. Um, so I would really like to think about getting the big capital projects that we have. Mhm. On the table? Slower to fruition before we add another one. I also think that. Goal to covers what you're saying. So if that capital project does come to fruition over the next year, it will be covered within goal 2, which is already made, managed multiple buildings slash construction projects throughout the school year. So I think, Not putting a specific, you know, 5th goal regarding what you're talking about. Um, I don't think that Prevents that from happening. I think that would fall under goal too anyway, so it's there. Yes Um, yeah, I know Trent's got something too go ahead you wanna go first? Yeah, go ahead. Sure, just to, um, I think. I think I'm, I'm Misunderstanding and probably. I'm tired and I apologize. um. I, I do, so what, what I heard you say, David, is that you don't see all the schools represented in goal 2. C Um, and I guess the and then um. Amy, I heard you say that you see. The other schools potentially represented in gold too. If they, if they come to that and so I think that um a, a solution that might broaden goal 2 would be to have the preamble at the top, um. be broader than the two projects on the table, for example, I know there's discussion about a um. A roof at the the high school, right? Which is not represented in here, but it speaks to a huge constituency of people that have children at the high school that have had rain coming down into their classrooms, right? Um, so I don't know, David, would that get at least 2, would that be a nod in the direction of where you're where you're going with, I think that would be a step in the right direction. I think to clarify, I'm not saying at at the uh an actual project onto Eric's. But to and without spending money get get some of the major vendors in this place who would do this without charging, come in and provide budgetary kind of roundhouse numbers so we could say this is not 150 million. This is maybe 100 million and here's what you could get. This is what we, we vendor X would recommend, um, uh, in order to improve. improve the environments of all of the schools. And and it it would be to just give us. order of magnitude kind of of uh ideas, uh, whereas at the moment we're, we're very single threaded through one idea, which is build a *** big school, period. Really? And, and have a very fancy sports plaques. But we, we have no idea now or in a year's time or 2 or 3 years' time. We want to stack up projects in a in a sensible order. We don't have the information to make that decision we've been given one decision. It's a make or break decision. And I, I don't think that. It enables us to fulfill our role as fully as we could. So I I, I'm gonna just. Respectfully say that. I, I know that you have the best interest. I, I know that you care very much about the students I in you at the same time. I guess Me personally, to be clear, just because an individual school committee member wants to. Find out about a particular thing. It doesn't, we can't, like it needs to go through a process. We can't just say, well, we should have vendors evaluate any of all things that any school committee member. wants us to look at. So in other words, if I came up with something else that I thought was a great idea and I thought like we, it needs to go through a process and it, it does cost time and money to have vendors come in and give. Uh In other words, you're, you're sort of making a leap here that like that that the. I'm trying, I, I don't wanna, I don't want to have a tense conversation, but I also want to be clear that like you're talking about providing air conditioning for every student and that's not something that this committee Has That's disgusting. No, that's No, that's why I'm bringing I guess what I'm saying is I could come in and say I want carpeting in every classroom because I think it's really a good idea, but we haven't discussed that and so it's not really. Valid for me to say, well, why don't you just go out and get a quote just to find out how much it would be because Well, unfortunately I was away for the offsite, so, uh, that that would have been an opportunity to, to discuss it, but no, I I agree. I certainly have no unilateral powers. But it also looks I stepped on Eric's toes. There's actually a solution to this. That would have been one of my goals. It's, you approved last February, you approved the CIP Capital Improvement planning process which is designed. For that purpose, to be able to have people submit to the CIP committee, which our new director of facilities would kind of take on and They would coordinate along with the um, Capital Finance subcommittee. Figure out what moves forward, what doesn't move forward, so we've already, we're, we have a process in place we've already voted for that process so we can just kind of bring that back to everybody to say. Here's what you voted for. Here's what we agreed to, and then to go through through capital finance the way it's designed is the capital improvement. Um Committee Which is a subcommittee of capital finance, they would just gather the information, start to figure out, uh, ways to get. Pricing, bidding, whatever, where we can some of it we have to pay for some of it. Groups will do for free, but gather some of the numbers, present those to the capital. Uh, and finance subcommittee, and then that committee would determine what goes forward to the committee for a possible capital inclusion. In next year's request for Budget Outside of the bar it would have to be, you know, the capital, uh, requests are. Generally debt exclusion, so. Because they're just because of their size, so they're not, they're outside of the school budget. So that that process is already in place so it's not. Necessarily something that we. Need to kind of bend into my goals you could, but we already have a process we could use that. To do some of this work and people can just say, oh let's look at, you know, the, the high school roof was a good example because we did submit an SOA in April. We'll hear about that in November and if we get that, yes, we'll add that to the list, uh, because actually, no, I think I have a new person who can do that now, so, um. Still getting his feet wet, but we're just trying to, um, you know, kind of take on some of these things as they come because that roof comes to fruition. We got to go to the taxpayers and say, OK. We need the money for the roof even though the MSBA will cover some of that cost. We don't know what it would be if, if they even accept us first of all, and then what the grant would be, then we'd have to, so we have, we have to contend with that next year on top of a school and on top of a. Uh, the regular budget, so. There is a process. All right, well, thank you, Eric for that. Um, is that, um, so can you just remind me that. would just an individual member would go, would submit something or does it go first to capital finance. So the way it's designed is that the. The, the, the facilitator of the CIP would create a form that would collect this data so he'd send it out and collect this data and then that person would coordinate it with this the capital planning. Uh, committee Apple improvement planning committee. All right, well, OK, I'll that There's more process there that I, we would need to make sure we understand, but thank you for that we have it all. That's what I was just looking at. I, I knew we would approve something last year, but we do have a process. All right, um, thank you for that, um. Yeah, no, thank you, but, but. That would make me happy. Yeah, that was helpful. Um, other. Uh, other questions or comments on the goals. Um, Not surprisingly, I have something, um, so, um, I just want one quick question on goal number one, which I, I would. I would support what Trent said about rearranging them though. I don't actually see them as weighted, but I understand that it could be the appearance that they're. We did and so I think that makes some sense, um. I just wondered about the I liked this. I liked that I liked very much that it's a philosophy and it's really an opportunity. To really create a vision and like a real. I'm, I'm a true educational plan like it's an opportunity to see this and so I guess what I wondered about is at the top it's called pre-KK transition, but I didn't. I guess when I first read the heading, I sort of thought it was gonna be about like process for how to transition the kids into the new building, but that doesn't really sound like I like what I think it is I like better, which is, which is really creating a deeper educational plan and philosophy for what it means to have the opportunity to have a pre-K. And K Building. So I guess I just want to make sure I'm right about that, that that's more what it is the word transition, it would be fine. Yeah, I just want to make sure because I, I. Like I said, I kind of like that better what I think you're really getting at, um, and then this I actually already sent to Eric and I would encourage other people to, um, but I just wanna say it. Um, is that this is a really in the weeds, but on goal number 3 on the MTSS, um, I Got in there about the standards, and Eric and I great minds think alike. I printed that out too. Um, and I, Um, I really looked at, um, He's got a couple there for standard one and I looked at standard one and I really felt like I would for the MTSS I really wanted to look at one A, which is about curriculum. And the reason that I put that to Eric is that like when I read that what's exemplary, like, you know, what a level. What an exemplary of standard 1A would be, it just really sound seemed to me like that's really what I was part of what I was looking for in the MTSS. This is just me saying that, but um it's. You know, about empowering administrators and staff to collaboratively plan, adapt, implement, um, and, and that's kind of what we're doing in these, um, this all this new curriculum and then continually monitoring and assessing progress and providing additional supports as needed. Um, So I made a recommendation that one A. In there and then. So I don't know if other people have any other. It's a good recommendation, can I look at the deliverables for that goal? I remember having a question about them. The MTSS. Yeah Oh, right here. See if I can fit them all if I can fit them. They Aren't really, and this is my problem with this school is there weren't really quantifiable. Deliverables in there. Um, it's more of a check box set of deliverables and less of a Report on monitoring the improvement or the Quantifiable improvement that we've seen through the program. Uh Which has always been something I've been interested in, like, is this working? OK, makes sense. Thank you. Maybe it could be something like, um, I don't know how often you collect the data 3 times a year. Yeah, so just. 3 times a year reporting to the, the school committee on the data. I don't think you need to be 3 times a year. Yeah, yeah, you'd want you'd want you'd want you'd want to see year to see how the progress is going year to year because last year when we got that presentation, I think that was the first year we saw like substantial, um, we always saw little bits of progress, but it almost seemed like we turned a corner last year. Um, and I just want to keep an eye on just to back to sort of the indicators I think that that indicator at the top, you've got indicator E for standard one, which is the data informed decision making and a lot of that is getting at what you're talking about and so it's like so like a lot like. The good part about that is it's kind of a little bit baked into the goal that you're saying, you know, like proficient for that is, you know, using multiple sources of evidence included blah blah blah. So you're just kind of saying maybe put that more concretely into the benchmarks. That's all I, I can do that. All right, um, anybody else have other thoughts on goals? OK, um, so it sounds like Eric, the plan is that you'll bring them back next time. Um, and, um. In the, you know, in between, I definitely encourage if you have. People want to just go directly to Eric in between so that feel free to send me what you have. OK. Um, all right, next up. I, uh, school committee meeting schedule change. Is this you, Vinny? Um, I can do this one. Yeah, I can do this one. Vinny's got a few coming up, um. So we're, we're Building the year-long budget calendar, as you know, it's a full pay, well, you'll see it in a little while. It's a full page of my, you know, I don't know 30 dates that we meet and work through the budget and realize that the tentative vote. Uh, we need to shift it to January 2nd for it to to be to follow the regional agreement requirements of 30 days before. The final vote. So We have to take the tentative vote. Uh, on January 2nd. And then, um. That leaves us that extra week after we, when we have to make the final vote, doesn't, we usually, we have an extra meeting built in there in case the final vote doesn't happen, but this helps us if we move the January 9th meeting to January 2nd. Move the 23rd to the 16th that allow us to be on the budget cycle for the appropriate 30 days needed. Before the final budget vote and gives us that extra week of cushion in case the final budget vote doesn't pass. In this committee. So I guess I'll just say that to me when I look at these two dates, the one that I'm concerned about is the January and 2nd dates, um. Because that means we would need to have a meeting. I I want everyone to like look at your calendars. I, Eric and I can start though. Does it start the second? No, that that was my concern as well because we're doing college tour so my, so one of the things that Eric and I talked about is we certainly could First of all, we can certainly ensure that that meeting is Basically focused on the tentative budget, right? Um, secondly, we could have that meeting on Zoom. That's what I That's what I That's what I was really will be important. I mean it isn't a very important. So I, so. I guess I just want to put it out there that, you know, this is a tricky thing. I realize that that's a really difficult day, January 2nd is a tricky day. Um, Uh, I, I, and I don't know whether the 16th poses any issues for people, but it doesn't seem like as problematic a day, um. So I don't know if there's. Thoughts, discussions. I'm fine with it. I, I, it makes sense we can do it on Zoom, I'm golden, yeah. Yeah, I think originally my original intention was, you know, second's not a good day and I moved it, but then that squeezed us for that extra week and we should note, I mean it is, it's the 8th day of Hanukkah. I'm not sure if anyone if that. Um, affects anyone's calendar. It's the no it's actually not though, it's the that's what my calendar is saying I think the last night is the first on my, no, I don't know, yes, it's the night before coincides with Christmas and New Year's, yeah. Yeah, so it's the night before, so yeah, so that, but thank you for being on that, but I don't think that that's. Um, down on New Year's I believe. Yeah. Um, So I, I mean, I guess we do, we probably do need to vote because there's a change to the calendar so we do need to vote on those two date changes, but I also really do want to just hear if like if people feel like that's not doable then like let's come up with a solution, um. So it sounds to me like it looked like people thought Zoom would be a good idea. Um, and probably lots of reminders and realistically as people have been through the process, if you're in the process all the way up to that point, you have a pretty good handle of where we're at, um, and we still have time to make changes. So this is tentative, say here's about where we're gonna be at and like last year we chipped a few more things off and then, and it slightly lower, so. Um, and, and Eric, do you feel like that that meeting there wouldn't need to we you and I, I feel like we can make it so there's nothing else on that meeting except the tentative budget, Vinny. I'm gonna show you in a second, but the budget calendar does have some presentations that week, but I can, I can move those and have the budget holders come either before or after that meeting, so. Oh, you mean not just you, not just you present for. Student services, teaching and learning to present, but we can, we can maneuver, we can move those around, yeah, yeah, I just, I'm just trying to be mindful of the reality of what this week is gonna look like for people on the. We can pull those backwards. OK, and then, and then, um, and then that still allows us to have that. The, um, as needed, if needed meeting on February 13th, um, which is a really important um. Just in case, kind of a meeting. Um, all right. Uh, Jen, do you think you can make a motion. I move that we move the January 9th and January 23, meeting dates to January 2nd and January 16th respectively, with the meeting on January 2nd being planned to be an online meeting via Zoom. 2nd, 2 by Amy Kumberger. Is there any discussion? OK, um, all right, all those in favor? That is unanimous of the six members present and, uh, look forward to seeing you all right on that day. That would be great, um, all right, uh. Thank you all. In 2025. Vinny has his budget beard going. It's already started, he started already. OK Mm Change my OK, so I'm here to present our FY 26 budget calendar. Uh, so tonight is kind of the first kick off uh of the budget process. Um, I hope all of you have got a chance to look at this. I do want to point out, uh, a couple of important dates to make sure you all have them on your calendar. Obviously the most important one is February, um. Sorry, I already lost it. February 6th. Where we vote the final budget calendar that is a supermajority, so it is important that Uh, everyone does come that, check your calendars that way you can have. And that's February 6th. I'll wait while you all check it. Thanks. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah The normal time, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just a normal meat. I mean, it's it's cycle, it's on the right, it's on the right day, but it is very important. And in case which we hope it don't, that the budget does not pass that day. We do have our backup date for the Thursday after that, the 13th. That would be an off cycle week, but hopefully we don't need it. There are 2, there are 3 others, but the 2 I'm going to start with are the quintuple board meetings. Uh, for those of you who have done this before, that's the one in this room with somewhere between 30 and 40 people. It's the full committee of both towns, boards of selectmen, uh, and Fincom, the town administrator and manager, the finance directors, uh, all of us, and. Me and Eric, uh, those two, the first one is Wednesday, November 20th at 6:30. And the second one is January 15th, also at 6:30. And those are the all member meetings. Uh, and then the last meeting I want to point out, which is the one we just discussed, is the January 2nd, uh, where we 20th is a Friday. November, November December no I heard December. No, it's not you, it's me. Uh, so Wednesday, November 20th, and then the other one just to make sure I didn't, uh, mess it up. uh, Wednesday, January 15th. Both at 6:30. Uh, and then like I was saying and like we discussed the other one is Thursday, January 2nd, where we vote on the tentative budget. Um, so there are a lot of dates on here, but I just wanted to highlight, uh, 4 of the most important ones, some of these, not everyone has to be you. Um, they are capital planning meetings, so not all members have to be there, but I would just recommend. Given the list a quick read and make sure you know which one, you're supposed to go to. Does anyone have any questions on the calendar? I can, you can keep looking at your calendars to make sure it works. Yeah And Great, thank you. Everyone's OK with it? Yes OK. Thank you for making those calendar. It's helpful. I won't be able to make the November 1. Cause I teach The quintuple. Honestly, as long as you have that final one on February. I'm golden th that is the. Well, for the for the tentative, you need a supermajority also just the final. OK, everyone's good with that. Oh Quick flash, yeah. Uh, so my next item on the agenda is a student activities, uh, presentation, all the data you will see in here tonight is for the prior fiscal year FY 24 going from July 1, 2023 to June 30th, 2024. Uh, just a little overview on the uh reconciliation process here, our normal district reconciliation process, uh, compares our bank statements to our financial software, which is called Infinite Vision. This is just like a normal balancing of a checkbook, you compare your bank statements to your ledger. However, when you apply this to student activities, it almost creates a little web effect because we have a 3rd platform that we use called QuickBooks. I'm sure everyone's familiar with it. So not only do we have to reconcile our bank statement, um, to QuickBooks, but we also have to then, uh, reconcile the bank statement to Infinite Visions and then Infinite visions back to QuickBooks. So this is really 3 different hands in the pot here, Kevin, our district treasurer, uh, handles the bank statements. I handle Infinite visions and the building principles slash administrative assistance handle QuickBooks and their ledger. So it's important that we're all in communication and then we all. Um, document and record all the transactions timely because once one of us, uh, does not do that, it really creates a problem and all of us have to gather in a room and tick and tie every single item, uh, and, Creates difficulties, uh, but we don't have those difficulties right now. Everyone is recording everything correctly. I just wanted to display um how the student activities accounts get a little confusing. So just a quick overview on the activity for fiscal 24 in total throughout the 5 schools, the districts spent approximately $219,000 within the five student activity accounts. Um, as you would assume, the biggest one is at the high school where they dispersed $184,000 themselves. Now they are writing the checks and depositing the money at the school level and that information is sent up to us. So they're the ones that are doing most of this work is at the school level. Um, at the end of FY 24, we had a total balance of approximately $108,000 again with the high school representing the largest portion at 76,000. Uh, so every year as part of the student activity process I have to present to you our subsidiary accounts. So within the 5 student activity accounts, only the high school records this at a subsidiary account level, which means they break it out between every single club. The other 4 schools, it's really just one pot of money where everything goes in and everything comes out only at the high school do we segregate between clubs. Uh, so here I broke out all the detail in FY 24 you beginning balances, your revenues, expenses, and your ending balance. Uh, just one thing I wanted to point out, you can probably see on this chart, Decca is without a doubt our biggest club. Uh, they dispersed just under $100,000 in one year. Um, You have a question? Sorry, you can ask. Is this a mixture of high school and middle school because I thought the high school didn't have an LGB. They have an I at student activities account, uh, uh, this is just the high school right here. Um, I was at Decca. So Decca is without a doubt the biggest club dispersing just under $100,000 in the second runner-up is the class of 2024 that had $30,000. So DEA is literally 3 times the size of the 2nd place club, uh, and really does represent nearly half of all the activity that flows through our high school student activity account. Um, this is just a continuation of the list because I didn't want to put it all in one slide because it made it uh. Pretty small, but at the end of the day you can see our final balance is just under $76,000. So tonight really. All we are asking is for your approval to continue with these 29 clubs, uh, if you compare it to the list before, we are not asking to continue, uh, with the prior classes because those have been closed out, uh, but right now we're just moving forward for FY 25 requesting to continue to maintain the this list of 29 clubs. And That I have just a quick question about. Oh, this is last year. Never mind, yep, I was gonna say why do we not have the. Got it, never mind, um. Uh Uh, do you have a question? Go ahead. What is not specific. What is not specific, uh, occasionally we will get a donation or um a profit share on our pictures, uh, that isn't assigned to a specific club, so we put it in the not specific, not specified until the end of the fiscal year and we then disperse that money amongst all clubs. Um, so it's meant if there's not, if there's money that comes in that doesn't specifically belong to one club, that's the revenue part of it. The expenses is really two things cost of QuickBooks and the cost of getting your actual checks from the bank. Um, they probably spend maybe $30 a year on a, on a book of checks, so that's. Instead of dispersing. You know,, $1 to each club. We just put it there and put it against any. Miscellaneous revenue. Julia, I was gonna say, would you do the honors of making the motion. Oh, hold on, looks like no we're back. There's a class missing. No, that's what I was gonna say, but it's. It's not, I think. Go, can you go back to the motion? Yep. Did I miss a class? So the motion is for the 2425 school year, which is this year. Class of 24 already graduated 26, but do we need to add the cost of class of 228, yeah, they don't have any money yet. Thank you for articulating that. I was trying to think of what I was trying to say, and then I was like, wait, but it's stained glass like I could. In anticipation that they may raise some funds during their freshman year, the class of 28 would need an account. Or we can come back and add it like we've done in the past. Friendly, uh, yes, class of 2028 be added. You wanna add it now. amended. She hasn't even made the motion yet, so you can say 30. 30 clubs including the class of 2028. OK. I move that the Hamilton Wyham Regional School Committee vote to approve. The listed 29 high school subsidiary accounts for the 2024, 2025 school year with the addition of the class of 2028. Do we have a second 2nd by Trent. Um, any further questions? Any discussion? OK, all those in favor? Uh is unanimous of the 5 members present and the motion passes. Thank you for that. Thank you. One more item. Um, so the last item here tonight is approval for our prior year unpaid invoices. Uh, I'm gonna be completely honest, I hate presenting this to you right now. I really don't like that this happens, uh, but occasionally. orders are placed throughout the schools and a purchase order is not created. Now I continuously talk to our budget holders and our curriculum directors. And really try to um. Work them to never place an order without creating a purchase order, um, but in these instances you see in front of you that did not happen. I've had conversations with every single person on this list, uh, in some circumstances, this is not the first time it has happened. Uh, in those instances we have removed people's access to ordering things, uh, in particularly staples. We have added a layer of security that those purchases now have to come through the business office before they are processed at that point we verify that they have actually created a purchase order before we placed that order, um, some. Vendors, there isn't that capability though with staples there is, so we put it in place, um, but things like salter transportation, they don't have anything like that in place. Um, so sometimes a purchase goes through without a creating a purchase order, which isn't. Uh, not That they should hear me say this, but it isn't the worst thing if it's in the beginning of the year, but if you do this in May and June, right before I close the books. You don't have an opportunity to create the PO and then I close the books and you end up on this list. Now, I'm gonna be completely honest, I have one item on this list in June when I was covering for. The director of facilities maintenance and operations as well as the HR director. I went to Winthrop school in the custodians asked me for a supply order. I try to complete that order immediately, called Next Generation, placed it and said to myself, When I go back to the office, I'll create a PO. I didn't and then in July I received the invoice, so just being completely honest, it happens. Uh, I don't like that there's this many of them and that it adds up to this amount. Um, but again, We are all human and we miss it occasionally. Yes, sorry, question is, is it now a digital workflow or is it? You know, because you were converting some workflows. From manual Multi-part stationary term. it's, it's the order. And the order approval placement now in the some vendors are, but not, not for all of them because they don't have that. Capability like Salter, for instance, they don't have the capability to have it routed to the business office to verify that somebody at the school level created a purchase order, uh, if a school calls, I'm using salter as just the example to say they need a a bus. Salter just sends the bus. They don't call, they don't ask for a purchase order or verify anything they send the bus and. Um, send us the invoice months later. Is that what you meant by it? Sorry, I, I because I was wondering whether you mean internally or we, is it our internal generation the PO versus the vendor. I mean, I, I just presumed that. That you either manually or, or digitally created and then. But A digital or or by mail, send it. It's all digital. It's all through the infinite vision software, so the school will, you know, Make the request, the requisition and gets routed up to me to review when I to approve the PO, create it, they then get notified that the, uh, PO has been created and whoever created it then emails it off to the vendor. Um, not all vendors require a purchase order though. Before. Your position, it's just, it's basically a discipline issue. And uh overworked issue, uh, in some of the circumstance. But yes, it's a The first one. Um, so in total, yeah, I am asking for approval to pay just under $18,000 of prior year invoices with current year funds. That means everyone's current year budget will get hit for their individual purchase orders and they will have to manage kind of that double year of expenses within that account for this fiscal year. Uh, attached is also a copy of all the invoices and a brief. Explanation of what happened in most cases, it's just, uh, ordered without creating a purchase order. But I can answer any questions Yeah OK, uh, looks like we're ready for a motion if you're. Did you write out a motion or I just I move that the Hamilton Wynham Regional School Committee approve the prior year's invoices as presented. 2. Like about Amy Komberger. Is there any further discussion? Right. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the 5 members present, and the motion passes. Thank you guys. Sorry again you even have to. The list of shame, so we'll call it next year. I'm just kidding. Thank you, Vinnie. This looks, this is like my entire bank statement right there. You have to walk around the cafeteria and follow it expenses, um, OK, uh, committee reports, uh, capital finance. Um. I don't remember when we met, we did. I think it was, was it Monday? Did you meet on Monday we have a lot of meetings scheduled. And we talked about the um. Calendar That we just voted on the budget calendar. Review the FY 24 close out for expenses and then I went over the, uh, revenues as well. Mhm. Uh, planned out the budget calendar for the capital meetings as well as the kind of. Quintuple board and walk them through. Mhm. Final Budget vote date and how it has to be 45 days before the tentative and then. of 30 days before. Yeah. Thank you September 23rd. We have one meeting scheduled every month from now, I think until. Yeah, OK, and they're on the, they are on that calendar that you listed. Thank you. That's all I remember and policy, I know that's me, uh, I didn't bring my notes so hopefully Amy can assist me because Amy was the secretary. Yeah, the update is the same from last week. We are planning on meeting on the 21st, um, excellent to work on the document, the full committee asked us to create. Awesome. Thank you. Sure. Uh, negotiations we will be giving an update in uh executive session. And uh our secretary is not here. So I don't think we have a secretary report, um. Um, anybody have any questions on any of the committee reports? OK, to you, Eric. Thank you just a couple of things, um. It was exciting to see the, uh, Wynham Fire Department here the other day they came by with their um fire safety trailer, the new one, it's an updated and upgraded one, so it was fun to to see them. They pulled up in the back here and kids in the beer in each grade got to go out and learn about, learn about fire safety, you know, they have, when you go inside, they have a little seating area for all the kids and and then they have a little kitchen set up so they, you know, OK, what do you see wrong with the stove they put. bags on the stove and things and move the, the, the pot handles around so that they have those discussions and then the coolest feature is they have like a mock room that they go into where you know they'll stop, drop and roll, so they actually let. Simulated smoke come into the room and, you know, they have to roll, go to the floor and roll and then exit the, the trailer at at at the same time and then they get to see the fire truck as they come out the exit door they're right there so it was, it was fun the kids had a great time. They were very interested in, you know, going into the trailer and learning about, you know, what a smoke detector sounds like when it goes off and. You know, it's just fun, but I, I appreciate the, the, it felt like the whole department was here. There were a lot of people from the fire department here from from one of them and we really appreciate their assistance with that. It was, it's, you know, it's it's, it's almost an entire morning for them, so, um, it was, it was a great opportunity and. Gonna roll that around to other schools too, but. I will say Colin came home and asked if, um, the batteries are all working in our smoke detectors. See that? And I said they will go off at 3 a.m. if they're not. But he did and I said It was so random What did you do at school today, um, and then just a reminder for people on Monday, there is no school. Indigenous Peoples' Day, so there's no school next Monday. And then, um, kind of a sad note. I, I want to extend the district's thoughts and prayers, uh, to the Ipswich schools, their community and the family who lost the student, uh, this week in the senior class, um, terrible event that occurred and, and, um, you know, we, we actually had sent some counsels over to help, help with that situation, but um just wanted to make sure we, we put that out there that our thoughts and prayers are with the family. In the community Oh, that's great that we sent resources over. Thank you. That's a one good thing about all the superintendents here, you make a call, you get what you need, you know, we all, it's, it's comforting to know. It is and we're, we're little communities and. Right Um, Does anybody have any questions for Eric? No Um, I don't have much in the chair's report. I do wanna, um. The only thing I do want to highlight is, um, Amy had sent out a schedule to ask people to sign up. Um. To be available to provide information and public information, um, regarding, um, the school building project and, um. Thus far it's just you. I'm the only person that signed up for anything, um. So, I guess I'll take feedback if people are not feeling. Like I'm The guy can make up all kinds of stories in my mind about what like what's going on, but if it's something other than just scheduling if you want support about like how to talk about the project or questions about I know Julia did it, um. You stood with the architects and and presented at one of the open houses Winthrop, and I've done it a couple times and um. For me, the more you do it, the better you get at it and the more comfortable you get, it's true like people do ask similar questions over and over. You get really good at gesturing toward the board, like what's really what makes it easier for people to understand like which part of that board and um Eric put these at everybody's. For Janelle did put these at everybody's. Did everybody get those like flyers for you to either. You know, hand out, bring if you're going to a meeting, it has a lot of also the information that you may need and also if you sign up for one of these things you can bring these flyers and give them out to people, um. So I know people, people don't need to say anything, but Uh. Like It definitely encourage it would the more we get out there and ask and engage with the community we can hear what kinds of questions they're asking, um. And I think I shared maybe at the last maybe I shared at the last that at the volunteer, I think I might have already shared this, but at the volunteer. Um, fair, I, I had, you know, one of the One of the best conversations with someone. We were not, he and I were not on the same page about the project, but it was one of the most respectful conversations that I've really had on a difficult topic and I there was so much goodness that came out of that conversation I had, you know, that's not an easy thing to do and I felt really good about both of us that we were able to have a really complex conversation about it and I think it's really good to get out there and the more we can do it the better and to have those kinds of conversations, um, so that's just my pitch, a question I have is. And to you and to Eric is. You know, based on the outreach work you're getting, you're getting, um, and this is anecdotal, obviously, but are you getting a sense that that that you're changing hearts and minds, from where we were, or people dug in. That's a I think that's a fabulous question actually. I, I like I, I think that's really important and I it's totally anecdotal, but I definitely felt like there were Several many people that were genuinely curious and hadn't already dug in one way or the other. There certainly were people that were dug that's real, um, but, but no, I think that's a great question and that did make me feel good. I did, I don't know what you, but I did feel like there were lots of people of new families, we had, yeah, we had a number of new families we were able to give out, I think we, I forget how many we give out over 350 flyers. Um, but we also had. The same question multiple times at each of the open houses or is this that 3A thing? and he gave us the opportunity to say no, here's what the difference is and here's the school project. So that was helpful because a number of people really thought the yellow signs all around town were related to the school elementary school project I and I I in terms of changing hearts and minds like that, I did feel like. was able like you could have a conversation and then people would walk away going, OK, I get it. That's a completely separate thing that like you can be for or against 3A and that has nothing to do with whether you're for or against the school building project they're separate, um. So I'm glad you brought that up because that, that was, that was huge because the first person that said it said it to one of the architects and I just caught out of and I wait a minute, and then I listened a little more intently and they, they were very much uh of the, of the mindset that this was the 3A project that everybody was talking about so it's a confusion was a little helpful to to talk to and and it happened in each of the open houses so that was, uh, good that we were there and you know again these these these are the flyers we gave out. People are happy to have more information, um, they seem to be happy when I send out little updates and things. It's like, oh, OK, now I know where we're at and then as we move into the project. Uh, schematic design, some three-dimensional in the interior walkthroughs are gonna come about, so that'll help people to see what it looks like to give them the visuals, so. Cool, thank you. Can you pull up the uh spreadsheet again and I apologize because I didn't even the spreadsheet for the, um, Signups. Oh. We're still talking about that, right? Yeah. Um, I apologize because I didn't even sign up for anything now. Oh, it's not here. So some of these things are probably not conducive to having these kinds of conversations like I have personal experience with Halloween happenings at Winthrop, for example, it's a very loud event it would be really hard to have conversations. There's a DJ, um. And also this, anybody can add to this document. I just wanna make sure like I can take a look at it periodically to make sure we have what we need, but all of these. Events we'll need permission to table that, right, Eric? I mean, if, if people are going, just let me know and I can just let the principal know that I have the table ready and we have the boards ready. There are boards at every school set a board, so yeah, I just need to know what you need. I mean, I, I don't, yeah. So we yeah, we'll need And I, I see like Amy's got, which I think is really good if, if, I mean in our dreams, it would be 22 school committee members, because I think. First of all, you learn from each other, you learn what from what the other person says, but also just it's great to connect with different segments of the community like different people know. You know different people, you have, uh, it's yeah. I was kind of looking for feedback too from. People on the committee who's or members of other school communities like would these be good? I just looked on the district calendar, but I don't know anything about some of these, the, the fun run, I wonder like I'm. I'm volunteering at the fun run, so I don't know if I can. You're not running this year? Uh I'm gonna hand out I don't know what they're gonna have me do whistles, water bottles. The fun runs hard because people are kind of all yeah that's I don't want to hand someone a paper when they're when they're running. No, I'm trying to think strategically, logistically about how, how that would work. How, what do you think? I'll be at. My 5th grader is very excited about the high school open house, um, for some reason, so we're gonna go to that so they're I'm kind of in the same boat where some of these events I'm attending. Right there in a different capacity, but. I can definitely add more. On here. Um, yeah, no, I. I think I can say I, I mean, I will be in attendance at the Fun Run for sure. I don't know about the movie night, so I could put my name down as like I mean as a representative people know people know who I am and they know who Eric and I think that's the reality is it's right, some things are going to be more conducive. To spending, like, in other words, that volunteer fair was a people were. Hanging out and talking and pamphlets, but some of these are gonna be more like a quick grab a flyer and go, um. So Well, I'll take another look at it. I think it is important to have representation from the school committee and I think it's important to have. A variety of representation like in other words. You know, What if someone it's just. We all have, we all see different segments of the community. It's good to have. A mixture. So anyway, Continue to sign up. Thank you very much for doing that, Amy, um, with people need Amy to send that out again? Yeah, you I usually need 10 emails before I do something. Um, alright, uh, topics for future meetings? Sign Sign Sign Sign up OK, uh. And if there is nothing else, I'm going to make a motion. OK, uh, I moved to adjourn into executive session for purpose number 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the HWREA where an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair so declares, and not to return to open session by Ay Kumberger. This is a roll call vote, Julia Trent. Yes, they would. is a yes, and we, that is unanimous of the 5 members present, we are adjourned into executive session.