e okay good whoo all right that's loud great not complaining that's a good thing all right good evening um I call to order the meeting of the Hamilton one Regional school committee on Thursday February 27th 2025 at 7 o'clock pm and I
invite you all to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance Al United States of America stand next up I am G to ask Amy to read the land
acknowledgement the Hamilton W that is loud the Hamilton one Regional School District would like to acknowledge the massachusett tribe the tribe of indigenous peoples from whom the colony Province and Commonwealth of Massachusetts have taken their name we would like to pay our respect to the
ancestral bloodline of the massachusett tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historical massachusett tribe territories to this day thank you um next on the agenda we have an opportunity for Citizens comments um
there are no citizens present in the room Mr Tracy is is there anyone C comments okay uh seeing none uh we will move past Citi move on from citizens comments and the time for comments will be
closed um next up uh Trent would you be willing to read a portion of the school committee protocols please yes as elected members of the Hamilton Wenham Regional school committee we including the superintendent accept 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 members will refer constituent concerns and complaints including issues relating to District Personnel to the
appropriate person within the district chain of communication thank you um Jen are you willing to read a portion of the uh school committee mission statement the Hamilton Wenham Regional School
District committee's mission is to ensure our schools create graduates with a passion for lifelong learning together with the critical skills needed to maximize their potential the Hamilton wam Regional school committee will lead and inspire a district that attracts and
retains high quality educators by acknowledging and respecting their expertise and professionalism thank you um next up I am pleased to say we have our student representative report
uh this evening we have Anderson Craft um here to give us a report thank you for having me so coming up on Tuesday April 1st at 6:30 is the oneman show performed by Jake Ryan Flynn the show is taking place at the NorthShore Music Theater to raise money for The Hil to1
theater program auditions are taking place on Friday February 28th from 3:30 to 8:00 p.m. for all members of the high school course uh boys and girls basketball will each be hosting home games tomorrow against Cathedral and Asberry respectively the boys game will start at
5:30 with the girls game following that at around 7:30 the varsity cheer leaders will have the a meet at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday March 3rd for the msaa Regional Championship at b r Memorial High School then this morning the 93 members of deca that
qualified for States left um for Boston over the next two days they will be competing against other schools from around Massachusetts recently at the middle school winter inals have ended with new one starting up this spring the middle school also has many different clubs
happening like art art Club Corral jazz band GSA NH hjs and homework help that have been meeting once or twice a week at the elementary SCH school last Tuesday one school had a kindergarten information night for parents of upcoming students coming up on Saturday
Cutler is hosting an open house for the incoming kindergarteners and finally on March 12th and 13th buer will be hosting the annual book fair for all students thank you thank you um does anyone have questions for
Anderson Anderson I had a quick question I just wanted to make sure I got it right did you say that the boys and girls basketball are both at home on Friday tomorrow excellent go back to back thank you um all right anybody else have
anything realize you're gonna be here today Anderson well actually I did Dante told Anderson was willing to step in last moment so that's a that was really helpful I very appreciative um all right uh Anderson uh we are so grateful that you took the
time to come it means a lot to us to get an update right from the students um you are invited to stay for the rest of the meeting however we know you may have other things that you have on your plate homework and such so it's up to you but
you absolutely certainly allowed to go if you're ready to go thank you for having me thank you right um next up we have the consent agenda um do any members have any items that they
would like to hold from the consent agenda Julia do you have anything no um I should have said at the beginning I don't think I said any of the things I don't think I said this is being recorded and live streamed and I should have also said that we do have one member who is um participating
remotely Julia Campbell um so all votes will be roll call votes um sorry about that all right did anyone else have anything to hold committee members get to use the Mario cutter you can hold it to ask um we have a motion you're gonna do
it I'm GNA do it look like donkey all right uh I move that the Hamilton Regional school committee excuse me approve the consent agenda as appears in tonight's meeting agenda second second by Amy kumberg
um and there's no discussion because it's agenda uh Julia yes Jen yes Trent yes David yes Amy yes and Dana is a yes and that is unanimous of the six members present
um and the motion passes okay um next up moving right along to new business uh we have a presentation on some water testing procedures um like to invite up um
director of Maintenance facilities and operations ctis Whitman who's been U working on this for a few weeks try to solidify and get something in place uh so we're going to run the first presentation by you this
evening switch up on the presentation here this this automatically just going to go it might not can you also just do a test of the mic to make sure uh check one two check one two I can I can hear you just fine I
just want I tend to project anyway I just wanted to make sure it was it was uh recording so that people like want to watch the recording see absolutely uh thank you for having me tonight uh members of the school committee Mr Tracy Mr Leone uh so I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about
the water testing plan um this was something that has come up uh a couple times since I've started and so I really had to dig into a lot of the different uh requirements that uh
the EPA Mass d uh dictate that we follow so as such I've developed a plan I believe that's part of the exhibit that was provided for tonight um my apologies there were a few small changes there were actually changes to the law that went into fact back in October and uh
they were published on the epa's website back in January after I had already created the initial uh meat and potatoes of this uh plan so um without further Ado so primary purpose of the water uh testing plan is ensure we're providing Safe
Water for students staff members um visitors any members of the public that may come in um really any sort of uh drinking Source whether it's a faucet in a classroom in a bathroom obviously our bubblers um is considered uh as part of
this program uh that will be if you read through the plan that I provided some areas where we won't be testing a good example that would be like a janitorial slop syn I don't think anyone's going to go in there at any point and try and drink a drink of water so um so the
biggest thing about this plan is that I'm trying to bring a sense of obviously safety to the water that we're providing and transparency so if things come up uh we'll react very quickly notifications will be sent out and uh action plans
we've put in place so so like I said before uh this plan was developed in accordance with Desi Mass DP and the EPA uh Desi points to the mass D Mass D points to the EPA and it just kind of
goes around in a circle so um I use a lot of the resources that were provided by the EPA and mass D to develop this plan with keeping in mind the most strict requirements of all of that um and again I do welcome feedback to this I know um that it's not perfect in
development um but certainly you know people feel differently I'm I'm open for a suggestion to it um the the root of the water testing really started with the lcca um which was enacted in 1988 uh and then that basically La the
groundw for the LCR which has been the testing that's been uh required up until October where it was changed to the LCR which is the lead copper rule revision um which there's a few more requirements in that new uh revision that that we
have to follow and I'll get into those in a little bit um the biggest things that are in the plan so the LCR R and the LCR which were the previous uh uh action items that we had to follow there was no change in the requirements of the action
levels or the maximum containment level goal uh the Action level for lead is 15 parts per billion or less that has not changed neither has the proper requirement of 1.3 parts per million um so that's good news for us um and we'll
get into some of the testing results and we'll talk about that when I get to that point of the presentation so uh where we where we at today so I haven't just been spending my time writing the plan um there's really a lot that goes into
this so um we went through you know I've talked about the commitment to safety that's just going to be echoed through this entire uh presentation even Beyond right um we we'll do a work with Eric and Janelle and we'll try and get some stuff out in some of the newsletters that go out so that people are aware
this plan exists and that we're taking this very seriously um you know we understand the action levels now uh after going through doing the the research that was required training plan so what's really nice is that the EPA and D both have really good
resources that we can lean on for training to send out to the members of the public faculty parents par s students um good example that's the 3ts and that's what a lot of this plan was built on which is uh training testing and taking action so um a lot of really
good resources that we'll be able to build on and and be able to provide where we are right now in this is It's you can't really see it's cut off but we're on that part that's circled which is the identifying testing locations and fixtures and I wish I could say that this was going uh fast it's not so every
single fixture in the district I have to go around and measure or uh assign a number to a very unique identification code and if a fixture is a hot and cold both sides of that need to be labeled so I'm at the high school now I'm at a 100 fixtures and I'm not even close to
done uh so I'm hoping when I do complete the high school we'll we'll start getting the testing going there I'm not going to wait to do everything we'll do everything in parallel efforts so that um we'll get some uh data we can so U that's where we're at
um just another note this plan does not replace anything that the towns are currently doing so the towns are going to continue to do their LC LCA testing um that they're required to do and obviously if items come up out of those we'll action those um if anything I look at this as like a to supplement that and
obviously as our requirements that we have to follow so all right so uh last school committee meeting that I was present at uh there was some talk about some of the testing that was done uh I apologize the exhibit that had gone out previous to today had
some information that was wrong uh you know I made the joke to Eric earlier this is why I'm in facilities I'm not one of the teachers here so I I uh failed to move a desal point a couple places the good news about that is that um of the of the testing that I've seen
and reviewed the data for we don't have any lead that's above an action level so the EPA classifies at 15 parts per billion or greater as a health threat in the same language they say that it could be a health threat for anything less than 15 parts per billion so um while we
don't have anything that's above that Action level we do have plenty of data to support um you know the the the goal that we need to be working towards which is zero lead in our water so um which brings me to my next Point uh
there were some concerns I had about the testing based off my research that I have done thus far um testing methodology was one of the issues that I had so according to the EPA we're supposed to do a first draw and a flush draw so first draw is uh taken uh more
it's between eight hours and 18 hours that window is when we're supposed to be doing the testing that was not documented anywhere if that had been done the first draw is the immediate first hit you take off the tap you let the water run first second for 30 seconds and then you take your flush
draw um I don't know with what was provided from the data if the flush draw was those are the numbers we're seeing if the first draw is what we're seeing or if it's a combination so um that was one issue I saw uh not all fixtures have
been tested so when I went through the data it looks like everything that's been tested has been in kitchens uh we have done some bubblers uh but it doesn't specify exactly what bubbler or what was done that's why the numbering is so important each fixture needs to
have a unique number um so I'm not sure exactly which fixtures were done um there are certified labs supposed to use according to the DP uh Massachusetts has a whole list of them that we can send this stuff off to and I'm not sure if any of those were used uh chain of
custody on the samples I'm not sure uh how that occurred or if uh who who had handled our samples and the other big one is testing 100% of the fixtures has not been done every three years according to what I have now talking to some of the people walking around the schools like the nurses and some of the
principles they do recall back prior to covid this testing occurring on a more frequent basis so this might just be an exercise of us to return to normal and I hate to even say that in 2025 um but certainly I think that's probably where we need to go with this
with that being said I don't think any of the data we have thus far isn't something that we shouldn't be actioning or haven't actioned um I do know know a number of fixtures throughout the district have been replaced we put in new water bottle fill stations new fixtures in the kitchens have been done so um my recommendation here is not
necessarily to ignore any of the readings we have so far um I think what we should be doing is rebas lining so as part of the plan I'm proposing uh every year we're going to do a third of the fixtures so by year four we're going
back through the cycle as part of this first year testing any of the fixtures that I believe were tested or we're suspect we'll be retested and so we'll ensure if there was mitigation that it was effective if not we'll come back to
that and and and deal with that quickly um Curtis it looks like you've got a question yeah sure when you do the years system are you going do school time I'll do it across the district so it'll be a district wide yeah I know I
don't want to just do one school I don't I think we need to I I 100% agree yeah absolutely it's good question um so some of the changes that uh I can quickly discuss about the new LCR testing and I apologize I should say
LCR in that third uh line there um is we need to verify that all the service lines to the schools have been either replaced or are not LED now talking to Eric talking to Vinnie I believe believe that's already been done I just need to seek objective evidence to that so I discovered this I'm not even joking two
days ago so um beyond that there is some other tight uh requirements under the new LCR for training for notification that we will certainly be following so there may be some more changes to the plan as the days ahead go um the biggest thing again is the transparency part of
this the the publication of this I think this should be available to members of the public schools uh faculty parents um and uh yeah that's pretty much the the bones of this thing I don't know if there are any other questions I had a
quick question on the on the very last short point there the service lines those lines that you're talking about would be like the lines from from the town right that's right that coming into the school okay right thank you um excellent
presentation really really appreciate the detail that went into it um and I think that you've laid out a great plan could you just review for me the um the approach to moving through the schools over time because you said you're at the
the high school right now yeah yeah um but I think that the lead was detected at windr so what would be the time frame to get to win through yeah so the the problem I'm having right now is the labeling of the fixures so it I'm not
going to go I'm G to go one school at a time to label them um certainly winp will be one I'll stop at next I'm I should finish up the high school this week so okay so wi thp is is happening in the near
present it it'll really be a question of how long it's going to take to get the test results after that point so um I've already engaged a vendor that works with certified labs they have this certified EPA number um so they're willing to work with us it's someone we currently use so
it'll be pretty quick once once we're ready to rock and roll and then I I remember looking through the report there were past positive lead results at other that's scho yeah so it's not just winth um so we had um interestingly
enough here buer um back in September this year or last year uh we had lead detected uh 1.1 parts per billion below the LCR um but it's not zero so we're going
to be seeking that zero everywhere we go testing that was done at buer back in U April which was performed by the district districtwide showed no lead here so it's interesting how in that short of time
how things could have change so you think do do you think that's because we're just testing different very yeah I mean there are multiple fixtures in the kitchen they could have just gone to a different fixture which is why I think it's important to make sure when we're testing that we use to
prescribe numbering system that we're supposed to be using so that there's no question of what it is um the metal labels that are the bottom of all the laptops that we've been given or what I'm going to be using it'll be barcoded so you know if I hit the lottery and end
up leaving the next guy can come in or anybody could come in and use the barcoding system and it'll it'll always be there so yeah thank you y there any other questions questions um does Julia have a question Julia do you
have any questions okay no thank you everyone else covered my questions so um just in summary there is some additional resources that are on this uh PowerPoint um that we can look
at these are a lot of the ones that I have referenced um um so if you want to learn more about the lead copper rule revision feel free to uhu well I appreciate the committee's time thank you thank you very much thank you
Curtis this is this is one of the things that I think uh having Curtis here full-time has been able to kind of grab the bll by the horns where as six months ago I was like all right who's going to deal with this right now between Vinnie myself and and no the the position so I
appreciate having Curtis here I appreciate his action when we met after some discussions with uh some of the committee members we met immediately he went to work came up with this put together the presentation I think the plan is excellent I think uh you know
the hard part in a small school district is just as I end up doing these weird jobs Curtis is going to end up doing these weird jobs of labeling all the the uh fixtures but that first time through should be the last time through hopefully as long as peels off the
labels but that's right yeah but at least we'll have it barcoded and it should be a system that's a little bit more you think at an elementary school there's going to be a problem peing upb we were talking about places to stick them so that people couldn't see them that's right yeah we're going to be hiding an additional one under the
picture just in case fake one GNA put a dummy one right my my son goes here to buer and I know him very well and he will definitely pealing goes off thanks again thank you thank you Dana before we go on uh just appropo to this I'd like to make a motion um I move
that the school committee charge the policy committee to um develop a district policy for informing the school committee in a timely fashion of identified uh environmental or health
risks uh okay uh do we have a second second um okay let me try to restate the motion make sure that I understood um I was say I think we actually have something like so well let's just go
through the process so that my understanding of the motion tell me if I'm getting it right is that you the motion is to have the school committee task the policy subcommittee with creating um policy around um water testing reporting
to the school committee no um this is just around the um school committee's policy for the um uh timely in uh uh for informing the committee um I'm sorry uh informing the committee in a timely
fashion of an identified health or environmental risk okay so it's really just about identifying like what is the school committee's expectation around when we're identified after it is developed and how we're identified okay so the motion is really around tasking
policy subcommittee with creating um policy language about informing the school committee when there is my gosh identified health risk identified health risk thank you and Iden yes I'm good with that okay um all
right so questions discussion um I have a question what do you you say in a timely fashion is that one week two weeks well that's what I hope the policy subcommittee is going to tell us
yeah okay wor um Mike I wasn't sure if you like had I know you work in the field so I wasn't sure if you knew no um you know I I think that um I I love the report that we just saw and um you know I know that we've had you know turn over in that
position but I think that if um if we you know just have a clear of what the you know if it's identified you know how are we going to be informed and then at what point in time is public going to be informed in a in a meeting I like I said
I think it's um I think there is something like that on the books currently and like in as long as I've been here excuse me I I I feel that we've always been um you know definitely kept up to date if anything come by but you know when stuff comes like policy
here it's not necessar for people in the room think about it when none of us are at the table right and how do we continue uh to make sure that the work that we're it's currently going on and the report we currently getting right so so I definitely like that idea you know
you're sort of putting in what is a Tim man all right well within you know two days or so of you know letting us know what the plan is and because you know War travels fast what's this I heard about lead and win
through um so I I guess I I don't want because I do have a question very very specifically about sort of procedure question is I think for me if I had made the motion uh
in spirit I am in a in agreement that this is would be a good thing to have in policy but to what David just said I'm wondering I guess my what I would be looking for if I had made the motion would be to have policy review our policies see what we already have and
then come back to us either with new language or a recommendation like I think I'm I'm curious about whether policy might say we actually already have a policy that we feel covers this or we'd like you as the school committee to say do you think this policy already
covers it well I'm hearing like a friendly amendment I don't know I just that's my I think that's part but I I hear what you're saying and I think that's sort of part of the process if we go through and we actually look for find something that's already there like okay well here's something bring it for a first
reading is this a strong enough policy get the feedback from the committee yeah I guess that's all that's all I'm saying I don't want policy to create a new policy if if I would trust the subcommittee I think TR was saying that too that to trust the subcommittee to go through the process and decide like so
and maybe that's F maybe the motion the M way it is that policy would feel free to come back and say I feel comfortable that I understand is looking um yes okay I was trying to remember
who's on policy um all right I we have a do other people have questions we have a motion it's been seconded anybody have any other questions okay um so the motion would be I'm going to try again even though I
struggled with it um basically to do to uh task policy with creating um policy language around um reporting back um when there is an identified health
risk I could try again CL I I don't know if I'll I don't know if I'll get it um I move uh that the school committee task the policy sub committee to develop a um
policy that um outlines the committee's expectations for being um made aware in a timely fashion any identified health risks in the schools thank
you okay everybody clear as yeah no I I it's good I don't know feel like I usually am able to do it but somehow um okay um all right uh David
PLO yes Amy yes Trent yes Jen yes Julia yes Dana is a yes and the motion passes uh of the six members unan unanimously of the six members present
um so and then we'll policy um at the next meeting to hear like when you have scheduled um to take that on okay um all
right uh next up uh Eric do you want to speak to this this is the budget and annual report it's the it's the budget book it's pop it back up the screen here there it is um annually once Vinnie uh
completes the budget process uh and the committee votes on the budget uh we create this book uh that we make available to the public that really outlines the entire budget process the budget itself and some other tidbits
that are U built in so this is uh similar to what we've done every year uh including things that are kind basic like our vision and mission statement um some introductory letters from myself from Dana uh we lay out the the budget
calendar and then go through each of the uh steps for the operating budget the capital finance budget Elementary uh we break it down by Elementary and secondary we look at districtwide programs and then and then key indicators at the end and this gets
published um and made available both at uh online in town halls both town halls and then um the public library senior centors we can we distribute it around around the community as well so um all right and uh you would be
looking for a motion to approve approve it this correct um David would you would you be willing to start us off with a motion sure um I moov the Hamilton wiam school committee uh vote to approve the FY 26 budget um annual report as
presented in tonight's agenda second second by Jen Carr um anyone have questions is there discussion all right looks like we're ready to vote um is Julia there Julia jul stepped
off for a second okay uh David PLO yes Amy yes Trent yes Jen yes Dan is a yes Julia Julia is off okay so uh that
is five yeses and here Julia Julia are you there she's put Julia can you hear
us yeah I can hear okay we just need your vote on on the uh budget annual report okay um what was the motion motion was um to approve the FY 26 budget and annual report and it was seconded by Jen
Carr okay yes right thank you um all right and so that is six to zero um and the motion passes unanimously of the members present all right uh next up to you Eric
is some information on the Cutler mcast um analysis thank you I pitch this back to Trent CH uh Trent and I have been going back and forth on this he requested that we put it on uh an agenda we were going to put on last meeting but it was packed
so we moved it to this meeting um I just wanted to make sure it was on it he had requested a couple meetings back um so this is the the updated version of what was presented back in I think October when the schools did their school Improvement reports this is a more
in-depth look at it so we wanted to put it here and I don't know if you want to speak to it no I I really appreciate you um doing this I was wondering if you would be able to talk about the process that went into it yeah so the the initial process was done during the
summer um with the new principal came on board uh she and uh Jen Clifford the director of teacher and learning and I went through data uh once the information was released from the state everybody's seen that data and it's not you know where we wanted to be
so we started to dig into the data and look at some of the things that um reflected reasons why we created uh a very generic uh list which was an earlier compilation of this which was really
these are the things that we're looking at when we're looking at Cutler student achievement why are they falling below the levels of the other elementary schools we dug into that built it into the school Improvement planning process for uh the um for the principal to
present part of that conversation the beginning of school year was really talking to teachers and meeting with teachers we met with the teachers on their first day of uh faculty meetings which was during the first four days before school started we literally presented all this data to them and then
we started talking to different people through the district and gathering information which is how we got to the school Improvement plan and then that's when you had asked for a little more detail on the report if you will um and that's where this came about um I appreciate that
um um so I I really find the trajectory in the mcast data that was presented concerning for for multiple years at at color um and it looks to me like a lot of the Iden issues here are related to
um administrative decisions that occurred at the school um those administrative decisions happened over what period of time do you know um the previous administration to the current so last year's
Administration she that person was here for two years um all the elementary schools work together so the three principles meet consistently like tomorrow they will meet um they go through the process and say okay this is what how we're going to address this
this is how we address this and if you go back to that time we were just kicking off CK um and there were agreements made between the administrators to say these things would happen and going back and talking to the other administrators several of those things did not happen um you know as you look at this there
are there are things that are important to the process like helping kids understand just the testing environment giving kids the opportunity get on a computer in third grade see what the testing environment looks like try to understand how to manipulate the tools
that happened in two out of the three schools um so we started having those conversations with individuals like support Personnel teachers um people who are doing our assessment managing our assessments and our interventions and that really started to kind of point us
in the direction of there's a consistency here that's related to management decisions that were made by administrators agreed upon by all three but not uh consistently followed through
um so I guess my my follow-up question for that is um you know it looks like a lot of the things here are prospective things that are going to be implemented um so if we if we step back in time
where any of these issues identified before the most recent year and and acted upon with the prior Administration not at the level we have now not at the level we had now the the PRI previous would have been really one year of of quote data where there was a
person the same person was responsible at that time so once we looked at that data set that's the one we responded to currently because the principal the new principal just came in this summer this past summer okay so I guess like what
I'm trying to to get to is like is there um is there a hole in the process that would be is is there a way of looking at this and saying like there's there's a there's a an improvement that can be made in the process of like the the
issue that was identified sounds like by you know the entire faculty over there and administration was Prior Administration um so if we had if we had a time machine and went back in time what would be the process that would
catch it before we had you know the the real sharp downturn that we saw in the last year the hard part is we respond to the data that comes late so you get testing that occurs that starts in March testing in March testing in May testing in June we don't get the results until
August which is that's when we respond we start to see the results mid August from the state and that's what happened here we had one year of data we knew it was shaky we were waiting on second year of data say that okay these are the things that these principles have agreed upon
this is a new curriculum that's in place these are the technology pieces we've put in place like typing programs um some of those things didn't happen at the color School reflected in a second year of of down data which is how we responded that's how we got to this point no I I I hear you but I'm just
looking at it like for example the Cutler Ela um if we look at the total like it it has been a downward Trend since 2021 y right um if we look at students with disabilities it's a abysmally down
downward Trend um with Cutler math grades it's you know was a down downward trade from 2019 2021 stayed down where the other schools were going up um and then again students with
disabilities um it went it went down appreciably the only one that's kind of a sine wave that doesn't seem to have a a specific Trend other than the last year was far down was was science um so I I look at that and say like are is there is there some other metric other
than the the individual data point like I look at the trend of Science in at buer and it's going up the entire look back period y right so um I just I want us in the future to not
be you know with five years of data pointing in One Direction um so that's where I asked like is there is there a hole in the process um that can be that can be addressed yeah I don't I don't believe there is I mean we just finished up this week meeting with each of the
principles instead of doing our walkthroughs we did me midyear data reviews where if you go back to the school Improvement planning we sat with them and said okay go back to your Gap closing strategies these are the things that you put in place at the beginning of the year are they working tell us why
or how or how there may not be what adjustments have you made with your staff the types of things we talked about with your staff through faculty meetings individual meetings classroom individual classroom observation uh through the evaluative process we hadn't
done that in the past this is like now we're more in depth than ever meeting with the principles uh having these conversations about instructional leadership and developing that process through all three schools so that's a it's this year would be very different than previous years just in the the
level of looking at data we spent um each with each of the schools this week we sat with all five principles individually Jen Clifford and I sat down looked at their data which is what I I reviewed Dibbles data uh across the elementary schools I ready data across
the secondary and then kind of came to them with okay here's what the data sets are here's what they're showing us tell me talk about your Gap closing strategies some of our G Gap closing strategies are related to individual buildings others are related to subgroups across our student opportunity
um requirements uh they tend to be similar usually L's lwi income and kids with disabilities so that's that's been our Focus for this year so I I love the description of the process my I guess the Crux of my question is like for the
past two years did that same process occur in a documented fashion so at that level that that seems to me like maybe that that is the gap that you are actively filling with the change that's made this year
would the change yeah absolutely because I I came in in 21 we did a whole year of kind of checking it out listening figuring out growing learning 22 we kicked in 23 24 is when we really started to dig in with ccla that was the second full year of ccla uh which is where we started with
literacy and then this year we we kicked off with math so we have these now these processes where we're meeting with we have a Consulting Group for math that meets with our Elementary uh uh coaches and principles to talk about things like what's happening in classroom what are
some of the things they they're actually doing classroom observations with our coaches and administrators and then bringing it back and running through a process of examining the data okay what is it telling us and how are we going to respond to it so we're at a very different level by jumping in with this
group tntp which was a something offered to us by the state uh that we we took advantage of so th those things are new this year they absolutely are so sorry I got to interrupt I think what Trent what what I'm hearing Trent saying one thing that sort of is
glaring to me in this process is is is when you're relying on these you know annual testing data points right you have to wait to get the results back to realize that you're steering the ship in the wrong direction as I look at this report you know the glaring thing for me
is the technology needed um you know it seems that there's a lot sort of pointing towards this and and why um we think the stud test well because they weren't the administration didn't encourage technology use for teachers now if you're meeting with the principal
a new principal you know once a month saying you know excuse me she's going to go in there and sell her apps while we're not concentrating on the technology because we're going doing XY and z and she's going to be pushing her agenda which she believes in and she's
taking that to school Direction and meanwhile so it all sounds well and good but meanwhile as we you know comparative data back to be testing against other students in the district and you know across this Commonwealth we're realizing that this class is now behind everybody
else and um you know so so what I sort of see corre if I'm wrong Trent is what are we doing to figure that out before we get the End cast results to real as I gos who may mistake right and that's part of the conversation I was just having about the Diles data uh mid year
reviews working with the TM TP tntp people um and really digging in they have um data meetings now at each of the grade levels they have plc's which are new uh for each of the grade level groups so that they're not only digging
into the data but learning together about okay what are some of the changes that we can make along the way what are some of the adjustments that we can make what are some of the focal points so we have people that are specifically looking at the the data points for each of our element kids and honing in on uh
very specific interventions that are needed at um ground level what's going on in the classrooms which is our Lac program the Lac program um we have some we have a coordinator who is managing the data and working with the coaches and the principles to determine the
intervention schedules and then each of these intervention processes are occurring at the kid level individually so they're working with one two and three kids to focus on points the data that we're getting out of our dibles and our high ready data is is being uh
worked on now and not later so not after the fact we're trying to intervene now one of the weak points that we've we're learning about as we've gone through these data meetings with our um with our principles is the the Gap uh closing of
the Gap you know your your your kids on the low side of the Gap can't just make average proc average they need to make above average gains for The Gap to close because your kids on your upper end are still making average or higher than average gain so
part of the conversation is how do we help to accelerate that for those kids who are in these um on the lower side of the gap or in these subgroups like our l so when looking at our L data to this point in the year they are um you know the in the words of the principal
blowing it away they are really picking up speed uh in a place where they wouldn't have last have that that same type of focus we have an individual now working in the classroom we put a lot more especially people in the classroom um the Cutler and the
buer qualify for Title One services so each of them has a math intervention specialist that specifically doing math interventions and then all the elementary schools have some type of an Lac program um which has it's it's run
by uh the coach and uh the L laas who are all do individual work with kids so up until last year last year was really the first year we really had it moving and cooking and this year it's it's kind of flowing much more smoothly across the
process so when you're looking at evaluations for example principal evaluation you say okay the you know instructional leadership needs Improvement so that's my tool as a superintendent to say here's how I need to drive Improvement on the instructional leadership side um that's
part of Again part of the process not it's not the public part process but it's it's part of the process of how we try to keep people moving forward I I I appreciate the explanation um I do think that your strategy of identifying data points that are more
prox un less delayed that correlate well is sound um I I don't mean to just you know go back to it I I am concerned about about the process not catching this earlier um I just I am because I look at
um you know the the root cause analysis identified really an administrative issue at the school um in several different ways um and you know I think that the administrative um lead of the school is the principal and the
principles report directly to you is my understanding um and so I think that the the solution that you that you've outlaid is great I would love to see it as a district like
um you know problem Improvement policy or something so that again you know people process not people right when these folks aren't in this room if there's a problem that's identified uh and you know everybody is a different person in this role that we know how we
measure um our success or failure in in real time as opposed to delayed time anyway that's I think that's the advantage we have now so when I took over in 21 there was at that time uh interim two
interim principles there were two people sharing the position did when did J so then 22 23 23 24 which is a window of time we're talking about right now that was a uh new principal in 2223 came back in 23 24 and then kind of
left at the near the end of the year but but finished out um and then now a new principal again so that that change is also part of the problem I believe the the leadership shift over and over and over so you go back even before that Co
time when Jen Clifford was the principle then you had two interim principls then you had a new principal who stayed for another year and then was gone to start another school and then you have a new principal again who's now going to get up that
that actually adds a detail in there that makes it in my opinion more important for us to be in the schools more often than not so we're in the college school quite often doing walkthroughs which is part of our process of evaluating and understanding
we have a process of um keeping up with pacing across the district so one of the first grade teachers doing across the district where they are pacing so the coaches do that work um they are using that information to to you know SCH they may have to go to a teacher and say Hey
listen you're two units behind what's going on and then work with that teacher to figure out what's happening whether it's you know an issue with understanding or process or whatever uh so all of those things are relatively new over the past two years last year and this year as we built up this mtss structure out of out of my first year of
kind of listening and learning about all the things that were going on so would you um be able to provide the school committee with like what what the what the process is for when something like this is identified that you you've just
built this year you've built this this real-time evaluation process right um I think that would be you know excellent to to be able to have um and then it's something that could be repeated you know down the line yeah what we do is usually at the like at the end of last
year we did a presentation with the school committee of the data and the processes along the way so we would do that again we would because we we want to look at a full year data we do three points across the year but we're also doing um kind of checks along the way if
you will so progress monitoring for for kids all along the way so it's not just kind of one stop one stop one stop it is one stop check in checking check in one stop some kids they made their gains they move out of the pro the process and we some kids could hold into the process so there's always kind of that having
flow but yeah we can definitely do that absolutely I think that'd be great yeah sorry I've been dominating yeah I mean part of the problem is also as you're looking at five years of data after covid everybody dropped it didn't matter what school you were at what grade you
were at everybody's mcast scores dropped across the board so I think part of the reason this wasn't identified sooner is separating out what's an administrative issue and what's a lingering covid
issue was hard until we saw a pattern of buer and and windr going up and Cutler knocked that made it I think a lot harder to identify the problem as an administrative issue it's tough because
then you're looking at it right so I you as I'm sitting here thinking you know about how much change has really went over those past couple of years right we rolled through three superintendence in three years as well right um excuse me
uh just sort of all the the switching of positions there what you know I'm sitting there looking at okay why do we get it right 66% of the time and not 100 right because we did we did okay with two of the three elementary schools we
didn't with the third right and so it should be concerning and we should really be reassessing the the worst part of education is also the best part right it's like we learn from our mistakes you don't want to make a mistake because it's kids that we making I mean there
sort of at the end of the day this isn't data this is kids that are now behind that we have to catch up you know and as you're going through this process I I don't you know like oh well this Gap still continues because every forward I'm like I don't care about the Gap I don't care about's Gap I care about the
actual kids are getting to need you know so excuse me as as unfortunately you're in the position where you get the Run of you know we made a mistake here but you know I also take it very personally ourselves I go okay we have to do better right we're all here for the kids so we
all have to do better and make sure that we're identifying this in a more real time basis excuse me um you know so this this really helps you know Tren your your L of questioning really help me sort of think about this on that deeper level so thank
you for that also I think it's important to note that previous to me there weren't a lot of moves made with issues that were good um so some of that stuff lingered um you know we're looking at it from not
only last year this year we're also looking at next year when we look at this data and we start to say is this An Occurrence at a grade level is this An Occurrence at a classroom level were these things happening and we're we're very willing to um take those issues on
whereas in the past probably hasn't happened because of the change in leadership you know you're like new principal you're coming in you're building your culture and next thing you know you're starting have to confront an individual about what may or may not be going in their classroom part of the job and that's that's the expectation but there's a fine balance there in your
first year the second year okay now you can you do that so these are the conversations we're having now with principles okay we're looking at this data tell me about this classroom what are the things that are different in this classroom here's what we see in classroom observations how does that correlate or does it not correlate so
these are the conversations we've been having just this week in talking with our princip about the Gap closing strategies and how they relate to even the new implementation of our math program you know what's that look like where people and it's tough the first
year of any curriculum is hard um especially what teachers have seen things is the first time they see it they kind of working through it the second year so when we did the second year of ccla the first year of CA people were like I can't do this I can't keep up second year it was like okay I got it
now and I I got the gist of how it works and then we started seeing that smoth out a little bit more and that's where I think you started to see the uh implementation across the three schools um some of the the things that you see are very explainable based on the fact that the Comfort level of some of the
teachers with with the the materials they were just kind of the in the groove and and got got it and understood it and others still needed more coaching and that's part of the this process that we've built through the past three years so well and it sounds like your first point under collaboration and
coordination was is that the principls as a group were making good decisions y but then the principal at Cutler just decided Well I'm just going to do my own thing there was no follow through right yeah um that's my major concern how do we
prevent that from happening right which is why we we're meeting with them so much more often right the part of that is we're meeting with them at their building to say show us you know so when we go to a building we'll say to a princip what are we going to see today
and they'll say we're going to see second grade CA and this is what they're working on we all have the access to the curriculum we'll go through that with the principal we'll go back and really have this whole conversation about the principal what did you see what have you seen what are the consistencies what are
the inconsistencies so those conversations have not happened up until this you know starting last year and this year I think those are a big deal when you're looking at you know changing uh a culture and changing a Bel system about what kids can or cannot do um you
know and that's that's been when you go back to when I was the principal of high school the first thing I had to wrestle with was believing that there were there was not two different groups of kids those kids and these kids they were all of our kids and changing that mindset of saying they're all of ours we're all responsible for that so it's the same
type of an approach like okay make sure everybody's believes that these kids can all do it bring in materials we've given them really strong materials research based materials we brought brought in uh both this year last year and this year support systems from the state this year
is tntp and they're a group that comes out several times a month they meet with our coaches and our principles they also walk through and sit in classrooms they do observations they give us feedback that feedback is turned into action steps those action steps then so I will outline that for the committee I think
it's important that you see the the bigger picture of what's what this has grown into since when we started it three years ago so it's important piece of the puit i i a again appreciate you putting the effort into this and um the
only additional request I would make and I don't know if it's to you Dana is the um mcast accountability report is a um item that's up on the website but it's on the November 7th um agenda is it possible to link it to this agenda just
so that there's context uh related to the um um it's a good question I not really because this agenda was posted as this and we can't really add things um it
could be part of the minutes yes it could be yes it could it could be in the minutes yes right um in other words we wouldn't the the procedural reason is you wouldn't want it to look like it was on that people would have seen it ahead of time because that didn't happen so
that makes sense gotcha um but I do agree that that would helpful information so um yes but it certainly could be included in the minutes as something that was referenced and and with like that could be done
um yeah and it could have been exhibit put it on like I we could have done that and that might have been a helpful thing to put on the feeds of it I think as long as they're in some way you know linked so that there's context to the discussion it's helpful thank
you um all right does anybody have have anything else on that you say it was November 7th November 7th um okay uh so next up um the agenda item says superintendent evaluation
procedures and dates um I ask for um all of you to kind of just I'm asking you basically call out your calendars and um what I'd like to do here is just have a real discussion about um like I said procedures and dates so
when are we going to when are we going to you know get the evidence from the superintendent when are the evaluations going to be done who is going to we're going to submit them to what date we're going to vote on them I have suggested dates um but I am going to ask I'm going to pres you know sort of present what my
thoughts are we can have a discussion and then I am going to ask for a couple of votes so that we all are it's clear that we've all made a decision about all of these things um so um as you all know uh one of the
functions of the school committee is to annually uh review um and evaluate the superintendent um and I worked I'll just tell you I worked backwards um so that um we would be able to
um have a vote on the uh comp compiled evaluation in June so I'm going to just if you guys really literally don't mind pulling out your calendar so that you can hear what I'm saying um what I'm looking at and again this is just me thinking it's all open for discussion
but I was looking at Eric providing his final uh summative evidence by April 17th which we have school committee meeting on April 17th um then um on and again these are
just dates that I you guys can you know um we have a school committee meeting on May 1st I was looking to be PE having members submit their evaluations either by that may 1 school committee meeting or if people wanted another weekend
maybe we could make the deadline May 5th um that would allow a couple of weeks for uh compilation then we have school committee meeting on May 15th where we could review the draft and then we would have an opportunity at the
final two weeks later on June 5th for a final vote I know that was a lot of dates but I don't know what people think about that um um I like the idea of the fifth is the
due date me do okay all right and and I what I'm sorry I didn't hear that he he likes the idea of the fifth as a d to have the weekend okay yes I do to yes I actually that was my note I actually have that written down and said because I think that's the feedback I've gotten
in past years is that people like to have a weekend um there um so those were a lot of dates just to be clear we also have some other things we need to decide around um I'm going to just sort of say
a bunch of things and you guys can decide how we want to organize any votes typically what we've done for the past several years is that um because we have an election on April 10th um so if a member were to depart
the committee on April 10th um they would in the past what we've decided to do is that they would only be able to speak to anything that occurs before that date so obviously there's it's a
small window of time but if there was something that a report or an incident or something that occurred that you know never good or bad that they they wouldn't actually be able to speak to that incident if it occurred after they had left the committee
um again this is just throwing out what's happened in the past um we the past have not invited newly elected members to be invited in to write an evaluation they would be elected on April 10th it's nearly the end of the
year so in the past we've not invited them in again open for discussion um um we've also in the past invited if a member were to have no longer be on the committee we have typically invited um those members to come back and
participate in the discussion um of the evaluation but as they are no longer members of the committee they would not be able to vote so that was a lot of thoughts um I don't know if anyone wants to throw
out anything on that all those thoughts I I mean I don't really have anything to add I think that has worked really well in the past I it makes sense that somebody who has been newly elected and only been on the committee for a few
weeks as of the time or I guess four weeks as of the time when something is due it's not really enough info to write the evaluation so I I like this plan other people
thoughts we all know there's one more decision too which is that uh we do need to decide once we decide on all the dates and sort of the rules about you know whether elected me you know what the
election who can who can write we also have to decide who gets to do the compilation and that would also be who we would all be submitting those two on the due date which tentatively we're saying May May 5th I don't know if anyone's enthusiastically volunteering
to do that job I have a question sure when is the compiled report due May 15 15th okay well it would need to be if it's on the May 15th agenda it actually would need to be the 12th at
the latest 12 Monday you get away with 12 yeah so that it could be posted so that people could review it I'm here I don't mind doing it at this place right and it's actually it is a valid concern is that we have three
members who are up in a contested election so never not been in a contest um so I don't know whether that impacts wanting to delegate someone who is not
in that position may or may not be but on the other hand we could always pick someone else afterwards theoretically if the outgoing person can still write then can they still compile or no h i
mean but we didn't we wouldn't have uh anything to compel them to do so so I'm G um I I I think it I'm just trying to throw it out there so so I heard David
say that he might be willing to do that compilation definitely um I don't know if anyone else is jumping it doing I know that you've done it in the past um I've done it in the past if something weird happens with the election I can take it over from
D so do we need a motion or like a nomination um I do think so I think we I actually do want to take a couple of votes I don't want to take too long on this but I do want to take some I think they're probably easiest to do just as separate votes do think we need an a vote on who's going to do the compilation I do also want to vote about
the dates that I we about just so that it's really clear and then I will of course send out an email just so that everybody knows that I do want it you know I want it to be something that we've actually voted on um so I don't know David if you want to make a motion
on the dates or yeah I think I have the dates correct right um actually so superintendent Evel superintendent summaries due April 17th summar
Su data um to have the school committees eval by May 5th indidual individual inial then um to complete the draft by
May 15 uh by May 12 I think I can do this my writing is terrible excuse me I moved at the Hilton and Regional school committee approve the dates for the
superintendent devaluation as follows the superintendent Summit of excuse me to be due on April 17 the school committee's individual um evaluation submittals by May 5th and the um compilation draft to
be submitted by May 12th for um the May 15th meeting school committee meeting date discussion second second by Amy kumberg um are there any questions or
comments on that going over my head sense that was all right uh looks like we're ready for a vote uh Julia yes Jen yes Tren yes David yes Amy
yes and Dana is a yes and that motion passes unanimously of the six members present um okay uh do we have a motion for the
compiler I have a motion I move that the Hamilton modern Regional school committee appoint David poo is the compiler of thetive evidence for the superintendent and as a backup Jennifer
car do we have a second second said she she said she would all left the room um all right is there are there questions discussion okay uh David yes Amy yes
Trent yes Julia yes Dan is a yes and uh that motion passes five to zero uh J car has stepped out for a moment um thank you
[Music] um I'm just making a note um okay uh do we feel like we need any other kind of a motion regarding who's G to write and the newly elected members anything like that do we feel like we're I'm open to you missed it but we
voted you in as the backup compil thanks J um you ask that question again sorry so I just had a bunch of other a bunch of other notes which I said you know talking about newly elected members and about inviting departed any potential departed members
to sounds like they're no longer with us but just no longer on the committee um to inviting them to participate again that's just been our historical practice I don't know if anyone feels like we need a motion on that I I don't think so okay just fine I
just want I just didn't want to do things unilaterally all right excellent thank you all for walking through that process with me um all right anybody else have anything on
that okay uh all right next up we have an agenda item which is just around external Communications um and we've had some conversations about this and um I know it's a very broad topic I know
um but Eric uh and I sort of did some work we did discover sort of a useful policy that already exists that speaks to some of the concerns um that have been raised um I don't actually I don't really have
a lot of thoughts on how to actually structure this conversation um I just know that people are looking for sounded like people are looking for sort of guidance around best practices about
communicating so what's this link Dana huh what's this link taking me to it's a the policy you're not getting there no I am but I'm trying to help you start the conversation I was like
good um yeah so no no no I I mean this is it's a school member Authority and it does it just addresses it's the bbaa school Committee Member Authority and IT addresses um some of the duties and responsibilities and sort of um norms
and guidelines that or expect norms and expectations I guess of school committee members genuinely I put this on here I I don't have an like I'm looking for what other people want to talk about about this or about something that isn't
addressed by this well I I think think that um I appreciate you putting it it on here because I think that we live now in a world where there's a Town Newspaper there's social media um and
that means there's lots of different ways for school committee members to um to uh speak um publicly in in in indelible fashion um and I think that
it's worth having a discussion of um you know a concern was was brought up previously about a Public Communication um I know that we want to preserve people's um you know uh rights um you
know in public communication but also I guess the the thing that I find to be most useful about the discussion is how are we being like very very clear to the public when something is is a individual's opinion and when it
is not an individual's opinion right because that's the the first thing that I see here in the authority um is like really a discussion of like the the times that you can and you cannot speak on behalf of the committee and I think that the the ways in which we
communicate externally right now that can be muddied um very easily right like I could write something on a Facebook post and I could use we um or I could just you know respond without including um you know any kind
of pronoun whatsoever and um nobody the I'm then um depending upon everybody that reads that to be able to interpret that as is that my opinion is that the opinion of the school committee um and it just it does it does get confusing
and so I think that if we um if we have you know guidelines that we all agree to is we know um you know they don't I don't know to what extent we they can be binding but at least they would be something that um everybody would be comfortable with even if the messages
that were said were not necessarily things that people agreed with yeah and I did want to add which I didn't put on here because it isn't a policy but I did I actually printed it out because I didn't realize it was going to be quite so long but um the you
know the masc does have a handbook that does also speak to to this again it's you know they're not it's not a legal document it's a handbook it's it's a um but it does speak to social
media and it does speak a little bit about it's a useful document which um I'm happy to refer people to um I do think one of the things I found helpful in looking at policy and in looking at the handbook you know people absolutely have
can make statements on social media about their own opinions and it is important to try to make clear that you are speaking as an individual and not for the committee um or if you're speaking for the committee to make sure that
you're saying that you're speaking for the committee um one distinction that I found helpful when I was doing a little bit of research and thinking about this topic was um thinking about whether the topic that you're speaking to is something that is is going to be be
going to be coming before the committee because you know something that is going to be coming before the committee um you know and this the handbook speaks to this but sort of gets is that your idea is that you're you're
supposed to enter the meeting with the potential to listen to your colleagues and potentially change your mind or come in uncertain about how you might want to vot and so that's an area where one wants to be
really cautious about putting something out if it's a matter that's going to be coming before the committee um wouldn't that if it was a matter that we knew was going to to become go before the committee and we posted it about on social media isn't that a violation of
open meeting law like I've been real careful about that well it's certainly a VI I and I am it's certainly a violation of sort of what all our sort of the policies and kind of the Norms around that the idea is that that's your job as
a school Committee Member is to take that up in the committee and use your position in the committee does that make sense other people can speak because I I am not I mean the other thing I try and do in the very rare occasions that I
have to email one of my kids uh teachers about something is I always preface the email as I am speaking as a parent to you not as a member of the school committee and that's literally like the first or second sentence in any email I
sent to a teacher just to make sure that it's like completely clear yeah and I would say that it's that's never a bad thing to do and also I would say you know in other words if
you're writing an email that is just simply you know I have a question about yesterday's homework assignment um that's very clear that that's really just about I wouldn't say it's a requirement on every there's nothing bad
about doing what you're doing but I also would say you know there's plenty of times it's very clear that you're talking specifically about your specific child and that you know I think the open meeting law issue would be if say on
social media one of us posted or answered a question and a discussion started to happen that's definitely a violation of open meeting law right um but I just you know agree with trying this does make things really money with social media
like and I I'm careful about posting on social media I try to just if I rarely do but if it's like you know someone's like oh I wish that there was a presentation about XYZ and I could say well there's a presentation about XYZ next week because that's just factual public info but I try really hard not to
express opinion about that we're discussing in the meeting but I guess like reading through some of these policies which I've actually been reviewing um for different reason there's really not
um Clarity around exactly how to you know if two of us Chim in on a post nobody else can you know like it's not that specific so it is just something to be careful about you excuse me the sort
of time that I that i' I've been here is when stuff like this be becomes an issue it it doesn't matter what the policies and procedures are usually they're gonna do it right um and un that's the unfortunate I I just
think with sort of um time wisdom and sheer exhaustion I've you know tried to find myself sort of less and less like publicly especially on social media about any which is very tough because
you know right now trying to whip up support for a school though you know so the other day I actually found myself responding to some stuff online you know I'm like oh no here but it was just a simple fact you know parking is actually
has a for oh how is that you know and explaining the those fat and then you know but it's so tough because at the same time too where I go in town you know people know who I am and I'm on the school board so when I'm having conversation you know
about anything they're like oh what's you know what's going on there and I'll say well you know watch the meeting but you know and like you know like what I would like to see is this and hopefully the board you know will agree with me when we talk about it you know
together but that you know but that's what I'm like face to face never type anything I think anything that isn't like a solid fact well and that is an important difference because when you're talking to one person face to face it
doesn't invite all the rest of the committee is not there to chime in you're not having a debate or discussion you're talking individually with a citizen and and that is a different situation and that is something that's changed that the landscape is different when you're out in the social media so I
have a I have a question that you kind of sparked when you were talking about um when you started your comment what is oh I know because you were like what's to stop somebody really from saying what they want or doing what they want and
that's kind of the question I've been having when we discussed this topic what is to stop any of us from doing what we're talking about like I don't I don't want to I I really believe in these policies and the ethics of not speaking for this committee but there's
not that says what happens if a member does yeah no there's and and that's true and it really is a matter of and that our protocols kind of say something along the lines of when people get off track they'll get called out in
this meeting and that's really the only right um you know there's not right we don't have school committee jail we I don't want school committee jail but but it just feels a little bit like what is the consequence or what is
the action that we a school Community member is the only current member of public office that can't be recall right for any reason I've always thought that's a little correct it's it's unfair like if you can recall the Selectmen you should
be able to recall the school commit is there a reason that's only new too that's only in the past couple years yeah know I know um yeah I and I I don't know the answer I but I do know that that is true because I have gotten to
answer that question for members of the citizens um C about recalls um so yeah um so I think the accountability comes into this group I mean unfortunately
unfortunately falls on the individual right right in and it falls on all of us as an individual it falls on the individual but it also falls on the committee right but the reality is there is no committee jail there's nothing right so if you go through the process
and I'm not saying I know firsthand but if someone on the committee was to file an open meeting law violation on the committee the AG would then get back to whoever the chair might be and say you have to resolve this where you then take
the entire committee and say we can't do that anymore and that's the resolution correct which is the problem in the first place again not saying I know that from firsthand information no thank you for that um
yeah and I and I and I think ultimately I mean the ultimate judgment is on at The Ballot Box with the voters but that's a long time and that's not I think you know I think
it's the having this conversation right as much as I do again I've been here nine years at this point and I've had you know this come up every few years or so just and every time we go back we look
at the wording of the policy and everything and we make it a little bit stronger and the more you talk about it the the more solid a document we create the more solid a base excuse me um you know the committee gets and the foundation that continue
the work to move forward so as long as we just sort of keep doing that keep reminding ourselves why we're really here what we're here to do and you know at the end of the day we go home to our that you know we're you know we're okay and but like you know these
conversations are always great to have excuse me is is as much as it very frustrating at the same time um and I think it needs to be made public like I don't think any of us were
aware of how stressful the problem was until we were informed what was going on yeah and I I mean I well I guess that's what I'm saying is that when we're sort of Amy was sort of saying about what what are the consequences and
the consequences are you know it's a fine line like people are people and I love I mean I think Trent I love Trent having sort of pushed to have this conversation because maybe the answer is that it would be good if there were an opportunity for people to bring forward
questions before they take action in this meeting like you know um you know or ask ahead of time I'd like to do something and I'm not sure and I and and that certainly that has happened I
have had people email me and ask you know can I do something and I've you know consulted with the masc or whatever to find out like yes you can do that no you can't um but I think it would be great if people were more proactive
about like I'd like to do something and to David's Point sometimes that's not easy because you're just looking at a post and you're like I could answer this you know um and but again we all make mistakes I mean I you know so I don't know that it needs
to be called out every single time someone makes a mistake I that things happen I mean I you know I've told many times before I was in the grocery store and I got a phone call from Michelle Bailey who was like you cannot do that um you know and it was a genuine
mistake I I genuinely you know had thought that I was within sure I mean it makes sense this isn't our full-time job correct with this every three years I think it's fair to have a little leeway but well just I think you you brought this
back to operationally is there operationally any is there any operational you know recommendation that we would like to to make to committee members like like Jen was talking about you know if I'm gonna send an email to an individual
teacher this is what I do um I'm less concerned about onetoone Communications with there being a misapprehension of I'm speaking for the committee or I'm not not I'm I'm more concerned about you know a a editorial that is you know in a
you know something for five years the person that reads it five years from from now if it doesn't say it explicitly right um and so I know that um is is that something that we would say like you know we want that moved to the front
of of of a discussion like and there's no enforcement it's just like that's if you're if you're going to have you know a a editorial or a social media post or something that could be um perceived as
you know speaking not as an individual social media posts harder to put that big long you know disclaimer but in my opinion is you know an easy way of doing that I don't or just post on social media so I'm going to look like a leite when I'm talking about it yeah you and me
both so you're just proving that you're yeah um yeah no I I think um I certainly I don't know that we want I like the idea of sort of establishing like the best practices and Norms is
that it's always good to say to clarify I'm speaking just for myself or in my own opinion or something like that um you know and and remembering that there are you're allowed to have opinions and
you're allowed to and and and even like you're and that does that disclaimer does allow you to do that um and that's important to note um as a
separate thing there are separate sort of uh Norms around not doing that for something that's going to be coming before the committee um so like it's a very different
been voted on by the committee and is now moving on you know saying your opinion on that it's it's it's already the committee has already made a statement on it the committee hasn't made a statement on something yet um I would really caution people against
putting a lot of opinions out there because the idea is supposed to be coming to the committee with an open mind or potential of mind yeah I I appreciate the discussion uh Julia I don't know if you have
anything to I just making sure you I don't know I'm I I appreciate the discussion I think that all we can do is what we've been doing because there is no you know like you said there's no real consequence um other than
accountability and having these kind of open conversations so I think it's just important to to continue the discussion and to share resources like this as as much as we can so I pretty much agree with everything that was said yeah
and I'm happy to I mean I know you could all find it but I'm happy to send the link to the masc handbook um which did does have sort of an Ethics it's not a chapter it's like a few pages couple pages on um that was I thought helpful not nothing not that it
was brand new but just helpful and sort of spelling it out um okay are we ready move on okay uh Vinnie you're going to do the prior year
invoices first right he's do first e okay the first thing on my agenda for tonight is approval on prior year invoices uh now what happens here is as you know on June 30th our fiscal year ends on about uh the middle of July we
officially close our books if an individual ordered or uh contracted with an individual and did not submit an invoice or did not submit a purchase order by the time I CL the in July um they don't have any funds encumbered
therefore any invoices have to be brought in front of the school committee for approval uh because Mass General law states that we can't pay prior year invoices with current year funds uh this happens we bring this forward to the school committee probably two times a
year any invoices we receive after or around July 15th we usually hold on to them till about the October November time frame and then bring all of them for forward for vote and then anything re we receive after that we usually hold
till about February or March and bring It Forward again uh instead of bringing them one by one because it would almost be every other meeting you'd be voting on one invoice uh today we just have four invoices uh the bulk of them are invoices that were left behind by an
individual who doesn't work here anymore so they uh their employment ended for whatever reason on June 30th and we subsequently received invoices after that and then the invoice uh the vendor did not send it to us until about October uh so tonight we're just seeking
approval for these four invoices so we can get the vendors paid okay thank you uh David you want to start us off with a motion um I moveed the hamilt Regal school
committee approve the payment of the invoices that appear on tonight's agenda um under new business letter F second second by Amy
kumberg anybody have questions is there any discussion all right looks like we're ready for vote uh Julia yes Trent yes uh David yes Amy yes
and Dana is a yes and that uh motion is approved unanimously of the five members who are present so my next item for tonight is to review the FY 25 yearend Financial forecast as of quarter two ending uh
December 31st 2024 uh before I dive into it there's just one thing I want to mention or maybe one thing I hope you take away after all this is although we're considered a small school district we do have a $45 million budget and there are
a lot of things going on uh every year by the time we uh approve the budget on February 8th 2024 and by the time we end on June 30th 2025 in that 17th month period a lot of things can happen that
change from our budget to our actual and on top of that there are a lot of moving parts to the budget you have all your expenses your revenues and your offsets changes in any one of them are going to be reflected in your changes uh to your forecast so if there's one thing you
take away is that there is a lot going on and a lot of things uh can change before the year is over uh so ultimately uh we are happy to inform you that at this time we're projecting we will end fiscal year 25 in
a positive balance of approximately $430,000 uh as you see after I go through the presentation this really is uh an extraordinary feat uh considering what is going on this year uh this is that chart based on our department or
location our five schools and our seven districtwide departments uh spread out again is that $430,000 balance this is that same chart based on the 12 Desi categories uh the department of secondary elementary and secondary
education states that a Regional School District has to monitor and approve their annual operating budget based on these 12 Desi categories uh you'll notice off to the right is my projected column there are currently seven Desi
categories that I am projecting might in a deficit at year end tonight we are only asking for transfers for four of them if you notice the three in the middle uh they're really small balances and I don't I think that by the time the
year ends we might be able to close that Gap and not need the transfer and the reason for that is once we start issuing transfers and we start moving the money around it definitely gets a little more complicated and a little more confusing so I always try to at least leave as
much the budget as the original to help explain everything when we come to Q3 if those three uh Des categories are still projected to be in a deficit I'll ask for a transfer at that time uh but tonight as you'll see later in the presentation I'm only hitting on the
other four so like I do with all of my presentations I really try to make as much detail in it as possible um there are 19 slides towards the end of this uh presentation that break out all 12 of
our schools or departments uh based on all 12 of the Desi categories so even if we had one teacher uh that was at one school in one Desi category that worked one additional hour that we didn't budget for that additional funds are
listed out in the detail at the end so I literally detailed out every single change in value no matter how small or no matter how large like most of my presentations I'm not going to go through all of that detail I've made a couple summary slides that I'm going to
go over and then I'm going to advance to a few of the detail slides that I'd like to go over with you uh because I think they're big ticket items that you should at least know a little bit more about uh so obviously the first thing on here uh in terms of the summary we're going to
go over our deficits first uh the big the big thing is our negotiations now everyone has heard me talk about it at nauseum as it relates 26 budget uh for those in the audience or at home who haven't uh listened when we created our
when we approved our budget on February 8th 2024 only one of our five Union contracts were settled uh therefore we had to put an estimate on what we thought our Cola was going to be our cost of living adjustment when those
five contracts were finally settled uh the result left us in a deficit of about $1 million in our salary accounts so again we put in an estimate of what we thought everyone's salaries were going to grow year-over-year and those actuals
came in which resulted in a deficit of about a million dollars spread out across the school in addition another deficit we're facing is in our AO District costs one thing I will point out is the balance you see here is not the ending balance
that I'm going to discuss in a moment uh but it is a large deficit that we do have to with uh there's two sides of it there's the tuitions where we have projected a $435,000 deficit uh before offsets and
then our Transportation uh deficit for a district is coming in at roughly 264,000 uh the last thing in terms of our deficits is our building and our building equipment uh as many of you know most of our schools are about 70
years old and this year more than any year since here our equipment is really failing at a much higher rate uh Curtis has been ripping out the hair that he doesn't have on his head over the past few months uh related to all the equipment that's failing uh the biggest
thing as we've discussed with you is the high school and middle school boilers uh at this time we are estimating that we might uh end with a $485,000 deficit that I will go into a little bit more detail in a moment I do have a minor update to the slide as it
relates to buer flat portion of the roof that I'm going to get into more detail in the detailed slides and then last our high school and middle school AC air handler unit in the library failed at the end of last summer and we're estimating that that is going to cost an
additional 140,000 that this year uh on the flip side we do have some surpluses that are helping us out in handling our deficits uh one big thing is some of the uh great financial
decisions that Eric had made over the past few years as it relates to our a of District tuitions uh ever since covid back in fy20 uh the district has prepaid tuitions every single year they've ranged anywhere from $1 million to 1.4
million uh for those of you were here in fy20 when the schools closed uh we were left with the residual balance at the end of the year uh we had thought when fy21 was going to start that we were going to have a huge surplus of new
expenditures whether it was PPE or whether it was some sort of equipment to help with the hybrid new technology so the decision was made at the time to use fy20 funds to prepay fy21 tuitions which
ultimately frees up that money in fy21 to spend on something else well when fy21 ended the exact opposite happened that we thought was going to happen we spent less money than we anticipated therefore every single year we've rolled
forward those prepaid tuitions uh saving them for a rainy day and for fy2 uh it's a monsoon as you'll see in a moment um one other thing is around our health insurance uh this is an area you
may have heard me talk about a lot this is really where I set aside um kind of additional funds to help us out during the year uh in case we have any unforeseen items so with health insurance there is a lot of moving
Parts just to go through some of them you have our participation rate so when we set our budget we take our very last invoice which is either January or February depending on uh which one we pull and we budget for exactly how many people are enrolled in health insurance
on that day and plan ning but when the next year rolls over we could have a drop in participation so not only are we budgeting for every single member that is enrolled as of that day if we have any vacant positions
in the budget we also budget full health insurance benefits for all those positions when we approved the fy2 budget there was 12 vacant positions out of those 12 vacant positions only five of them actually enrolled in insurance
which ult ultimately uh represented a $240,000 surplus from those individuals not taking health insurance uh it's about a $22,000 for each individual's uh benefits in their health insurance for a family plan and we budget the full
Family Plan cost for each of those vacant positions making sure we cover our liability because it could ultimately happen every one of those people could enroll in our health insurance it is unlikely but it could happen and this is again where we see
some of that residual balance at the end of the year uh because it's unlikely going to happen so I try to build in uh some of those additional funds within the health insurance we also have a uh this year unlike other years we have
what I'm calling a negotiation placeholder uh so as I mentioned we didn't have all of our Union contracts settled when we approved the budget the cola that I into the budget uh after seeing what was going on in other communities I felt might have been a
little light so I tried to incorporate a few additional funds the $184,000 is equal to a 1% Cola for the entire District so I Incorporated a a more funds within our health insurance account uh to cover any additional Cola
that may have occur uh in addition to all of these you have your health insurance premium rate so everyone one knows that your health insurance increases year-over-year for our fy2 budget uh working with uh NFP our insurance brokers in Harvard Pilgrim
when we set the budget I set it at an increase of 99.99% they had told me to do 10% but it really just didn't feel right to me to be double digits so I made it 9.99 to make myself feel a little bit better when we actually went to negotiate we
were able to negotiate a 49 % increase uh so that is a reduction of 5.09% which on a four which on a roughly three and a half million line item represented $164,000 savings because of that reduced
uh health insurance premium rate that we were able to negotiate in addition to these three things when we go to set the budget uh like I said we incorporate the benefits for every individual who is actually enrolled but we also build in an
additional one to 2% for enrollment growth because anyone at any time could walk into the door and say my spouse lost their health insurance they lost their job I need to enroll in the district's health insurance so we always try to build in a little bit more for
any of those instances and again it's usually around one or two% so that additional participation growth was about worth about 82,000 and as I mentioned before our actually dropped so not only do you have that drop in participation but now you have that
additional um growth rate that also is going to be left at year end uh the last item just for our surpluses is around our salary savings from vacancies uh this is an item we see every year it really varies from year to
year and is very unpredictable uh for fy2 if our vacancies continue for the remainder of the year we will be looking at a balance across the District of about 350,000 now this could change we could
have one of those positions filled uh tomorrow and this number would be reduced by the time the year ends uh one of the biggest positions we currently have as a vacancy is our school psychologist uh where we budgeted about $101,000 for that position and it has
been vacant for the entire year and we anticipate it will stay vacant till year end okay so like I had mentioned I usually try to detail out all of the uh additions and subtractions and our variances throughout the year I've
included here our summary chart I've tried to categorize all the major expenses uh and put them all into buckets this is included as an exhibit uh in your school committee packet if you want to see it a little bit bigger uh one thing I would like to point out
that I noticed uh this week I did make a little bit of an error it does not change the bottom line uh but historically when we set our budget we know what everyone's salaries are going to be for the next year so when we put in their budget and the next year actually comes when we run our analysis
most people come up at zero because we budgeted exactly what their salaries are going to be if a variance does up there's really only three reasons it would happen you have your salary scale advancement so somebody submitted to move along the columns in the salary
schedule but didn't meet the requirements and therefore did not move and did not receive that higher salary so you would see savings there uh the second reason is turnover so that individual was here we budgeted for them uh but for whatever reason they're not
with us this school year and we have a balance left over from their salary the third re is really just an error I put in the wrong amount for their salary and now there's some sort of variance there the error that I made was around the salary scale advancement so for this
year there was a fourth thing that threw it off and that was the cola so everybody was coming up as a variance because we did not budget enough for their salaries it skipped my mind that out of that number I should have backed out the
salary scale advancements for the people that did that did not fill the requirements so I incorrectly accounted here at the bottom for the additional fy2 Cola of roughly a million dollars it should be about $80,000 higher and there should be one
other line item on the left hand side for salary scale advancement savings it does not change the bottom line there would still be 428,000 at the end it's just where I categorized it I just wanted to point that out uh in case somebody is looking for that number uh
within this chart so if there's no questions there I'm going to advance to uh the few detailed slides I want to go over that I wrote the numbers downwhere uh so the first one is maintenance uh as I had mentioned um a
lot of our equipment is failing this year so there are two big ticket items that we're looking for uh transfers for tonight again that is the high school and middle school library AC unit uh I believe at the uh during last summer um
a lot of it was leaking we tried to repair it uh it did not last very long and it started leaking again I believe a few weeks later uh so at this time we are going to put out to bid the replacement of that AC unit on top of the library uh we're estimating that
that will cost about $140,000 uh one sorry one thing I wanted to mention uh desie has rules on where these things get categorized so if we make an upgrade to one of our pieces of equipment and it is less than
$150,000 it gets classified as extraordinary maintenance and Falls to our maintenance sta if it is more than $150,000 uh it gets categorized as a capital item and goes on our capital fixed assets D so because these this
item is under 150,000 it's why it's in this spot right here the second item which we are not completely committed to yet is fixing the Cutler parking lot obviously all of the upgrades we're making at this time we're really we're really not
focusing on cutor and winr however it is a little bit of a safety issue we really want to see what happens with the boat before we determine exactly what we're going to do here but I am setting aside about $50,000 to fix some of those gaping holes that are there uh we did
have a few students and a few employees um trip in those areas uh so at the very least we're at least going to fill the holes but again it it really depends on what happens with that boat on what direction uh the next item here is around our Capital Acquisitions uh an
improvement and rep of our fixed assets uh so right now this number needs to be updated uh as I mentioned before so Eric uh myself and Curtis uh met last week and one of the discussions we had
was around our year end balances uh so we were looking at it and we were determining that we were probably going to be somewhere around our 430 to about 600,000 at yearend uh so we came together and really tried to find what kind of project or project one because
there is a lot of projects already going on uh that we can tackle between now and yearend um as I said we're really trying to stay away from Cutler and winr and as you can see we are putting a lot of money at the high school middle school
already so obviously we went and turned to buer um when you look at buer you look at the heart of the building what do we really need for the place to function you need your heat your roof your buildings and your ventilation well our boilers were replaced here about six
years ago so those don't need any replacing so then we looked at the roof there's two different sections of the roof here you have your original building where the roof was replaced uh about I think 18 years ago maybe and then you have your addition which is out
back which was replaced I think 21 years ago and there's the flat portion in the back uh that needs some work done so one of the items we thought was to start working on replacement of the roof in the back of buer uh we estimated about
$200,000 to replace that however since we met uh and discussed the buer roof we received an update from our Engineers on the high school middle school boiler replacement and the new estimate they gave us was
210,000 more than what I built into this budget we are going to be putting that out to bid within the next three weeks that comes back the way they think it is we might not work on the buer roof this year we might have to divert all those funds to the high school boiler because
that is much more of a priority for us right now if anyone's uh driven behind the high school middle school we have rented a 18wheeler trailer that has a boiler rental inside of it that is currently heating our building um it is very
expensive it burns oil and non gas which isce price uh so really the high school and middle school boiler are a lot bigger priority than the current um small section of the buer roof but again
if those bids come back lower we'll probably focus on the buer roof or if between now and Q3 if additional funds free up maybe we still look at doing the buer roof but currently right now that is being put on hold and all those funds
are being diverted uh to the high school boiler replacement uh we are currently estimating that the boiler will cost somewhere uh in the in the forecast right now we were budgeting at about 450 we are moving that up to about 600 to
replace and remove the boers that are current okay one last thing I'm going to go over is the special aition question before you move on um
a yeah you can you can just like do a hand signal I'll interrupt you um the so um that's a lot is there any way in which the
decision for next fiscal year to use and to cover operational expenses is stealing resources from B we didn't fund this year to so if we didn't have the money this
year we wouldn't have probably would not have made that recom recommendation to do that for the 26 budget does that make sense so yeah I'll I'm gonna ask question slightly different if we didn't make that decision does it change the way that you
approach these problems moving forward did not do that no because ioose to use this year funds to replace High School boiler we have to
start that process right now if we wait till July July 1 to start that we will not have heat I I hear you yeah and we don't need the heat in July in June right we need it we now
um are there any of these capital projects that are going to uh bleed over into the next fiscal year in and will those projects be impacted
by that decision uh some of them may bleed into next year and the decision to do that means there's almost no funding for those projects um unless we free up funding within our budg or unless uh we
get approval to use some of our Capital stabilization so we do still have we could still act on some of these things if they were an emergency but yes making that decision does pull away resources
from and anything that we don't know that's going to break from July 1 on so then what is going to I'll stop and let others comment yeah got okay
um um I guess if if that does happen if we do have these projects that bleed over and or something else breaks let's just assume that's a probability right um are we not going to potentially let's say we have a $250,000 unanticipated
cost that year occurs next year are we going to not have the ability to respond to it because of the decision to use end to cover operational expenses uh I will say our ability to
respond to it is a lot lower it is not completely out there are other resources we could draw upon but with that decision lowers our ability to react does yeah no it does and then the light
dimmed which was how my we're saving money we're trying my personality like has the same effect at the moment um okay that decision is without a doubt pulls away from our ability to respond to any
equipment going down okay so then if if we do run out of money next year next year to fix these things is do we have to go to a special town vot uh I would ask what the committee wants
to do my recommendation would probably be to tap into D to pay for those things which would require a town so we do have residual balance in our that we could use for something like this but
the towns would have to approve it voters would have to approve that in addition we still have $500,000 in our Capital stabilization fund that we transferred this year that we could tap without $500,000 that's like one air
conditioning unit or like a dozen eggs yeah will say I I find your panic I hold off3 report because I think it's much you see
where and to be honest my Q2 is still conservative when we get to Q three I really unleash the funds that I don't think we're going to spend just as an example between Eric and I we probably have about 70,000 and just
um had a word for it concy contingency funds sorry that aren't included in that 470,000 so I have not Incorporated that we are not going to spend those yet so Q3 is when we I really kind of unleash
the what I don't think we're going to spend I still have some reserved and there are assumptions made that every budget holder spends everything and that never happens and that never happens so we know we'll get some bounce back
but I I do want to actually say the level of panic you have right now really is your true welcome you're trying to keep everything Al realiz so many balls which is why I started with there a lot of moving Parts on to my
[Laughter] tuition um so I'm just going to start in a different order that's presented here just to help kind of explain it obviously right here it's just in order of the dollar value uh but when we
create our 25 budget and we look at what we anticipated we were going to spend for a of District tuitions we're coming in at about 435,000 over budget so that means either we have additional students
that were outplaced which I believe is not accurate I believe one difference what it really is is the students that we did budget for are going to either more expensive schools or the schools that they are going to have raised their price more than we uh raised our budget
for it so because of that uh we're looking at a $435,000 projected deficit for the tuitions uh that's what you saw on the um second slide I went over however we are receiving an
additional $2,000 in a circuit breaker offset so that's the state reimbursing us for our AO District tuitions that we spend it's a mandate that they put on us and they fund some of it they don't fund all of it we've gotten word that we're going to receive about another
120,000 that would bring our $435,000 deficit to somewhere around $315,000 deficit in addition to that as I had mentioned we had prepaid $1.3 million initions at the end of last year
if we did not do this I would be saying a much different story right now we would be talking about hiring freezes expenditure freezes and a complete budget freeze which means we would be telling teachers in principles you're not buying anything else for the rest of
the year whatever is in your building right now is what we're using there's no more orders for your pens your paper whatever you're ordering is completely on hold until July 1 whatever vacant positions we have right now we're taking them off school spring and we're not
hiring them if a vacant position occurs next week for whatever reason someone comes in and says they're resigning we are not replacing that person because we need to bridge that Gap and cover our deficit so if we did not prepaid tuitions we would be in a much dire
situation right now I understand that not everyone loves the prepayment of tuitions it definitely makes things confusing but again if we didn't do this we would pretty much be in a $700,000 deficit right now and we would trying to
be coming up with ways on how to cut our costs between now and June however yep you can yep um okay so this is for this year we used last year's money to pay for this year's tuitions did we do the
same thing for next year on here I'm stating that we might do it but only for $100,000 next year and it's for the same reason we have been doing it to just give us some sort of cushion for next year however if something happens
between now and June I'm just the boilers at buer go down and it's another 600,000 but we won't prepay any tuitions and we'll use all that money to do it but if we end the year right now as I think we're going to at roughly 430 I
will be asking you guys if we can prepay a little bit for 26 but it's it's less than 10% of what we prepaid for 25 that is correct and if you would like me to do more I would be more than happy I just didn't this was me introducing that
I wanted to do it again if we have um a larger the decision really needs to be made because remember whatever we end with this year is going to go into our 27 budget and remember in 26 we used two
million to supplement the budget so the discussion really needs to happen at Capital how we want to end um 25 are we gonna end it as large as we can to help the 27 budget are we G to
use some of it to fix something else are we going to use some of it to prepay to help if anything happens in6 so that will be discussed in capital was intr that I still would like
to if if we assumed that next year was going to be similar to this year and that meant that if we didn't prepay $1.3 million of tuition we would be in that
Bleak future that you just described exactly because next year you don't have that million additional that was a 25 item only because we didn't have settled contracts we have settled contracts for 26 and we incorporated that additional million
into the budget so it it in terms of salaries it won't be as bad in 26 as it was in 25 in terms of building stuff I'm not sure okay so that that almost reassured me and then it went
back that's that's what I do make you feel good and then pull it back by every day I have a question it sounds like there was some surprise about the rise in cost of tuition for this mine item do you is there any way to anticipate or
know whether that will happen again um OSD has already set their rates for next year I believe it's um the problem here was we had students switch schools
um so like you don't how would you know that yeah yeah there's really no way to anticipate that especially nine months before the school year starts that's just something that kind of happens um the state does have
mechanisms to help out with that uh if you do if your tuition's I believe if they rise uh I think it's 15% year-over year there's something called extraordinary relief where they give you more circuit breaker money to help
offset that we are under that Threshold at the moment though so think that was it on that um so just to go over it tonight we are asking for the transfer of our four Desi categories that's our teachers our P Serv
our operations and maintenance and our capital and fixed assets again our teachers um it's related to our additional Cola our pupil Services really relates to our um deficit in our AO District transportation and then
obviously our operations maintenance in our Capital uh revolves around the additional need to replace the high school boiler and the AC unit of uh so tonight we're asking for those four transfers so we can get going on some of those
projects and fund the salaries that are unfunded at the moment take any questions and I forgot to mention practic before I'd like to at least extend an offer I know A lot's going on and I know it's confusing if anyone
wants to meet and talk about it one onone and go into the numbers a little more or just understand better budget process works please don't hesitate to reach out that's what I'm here for I understand it's confusing I applaud you for
understanding how it is through my you know six budget presentations a year so if you really have further questions or you go home and you think of a question really don't hesitate don't hesitate to ask thank
you and I've asked many a question so he's telling the truth um do you want to start us off sure uh excuse me I moveed that the Hamilton one Regional school committee approves the
fy2 operating expense budget transfers as recommended here in by the assistant superintendent of Finance Administration and is presented on the previous slide entitled fy2 Q2 transfer
request second second by Amy kumberg hold on one second um okay uh does anybody have questions discussion um okay uh so I think uh
Julia has Departed the meeting okay so um all right so now we are all in the room so um looks like we're ready for a vote and we no longer need to do a roll call um everybody's clear on the motion all those in
favor that is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes thank you guys thank you thank you oh very nice I like the juggling excellent um all right uh let's
uh run down some committee reports uh Capital Finance I should have let me see okay yes we did meet um I I wrote down 3 or4 pm but not
the date so excellent we met on a date at 34 p.m. uh and um Vinnie went through a presentation on the budget projection at the end of the year um and reged again with the importance
of the tuition prepayment that we just heard about and then we scheduled our next meeting for March 1th um policy policy so I finally got a good number of dates to meet I'm just waiting
on janelia back to me about a couple of evening dates okay still sorry and now it sounds like you guys have two tasks we have tasks now I wrote them down excellent put together agenda y great uh
negotiations um and then we have a secretary report so yeah I emailed out earlier a very indepth and extensive Deep dive that uh
Janelle did using I will say that I came up with the idea for but um yeah she went back uh I think found every missing thing since the beginning of time here um because there are a few from you know
2017 yeah that I don't even know how to begin trying to search for that stuff I'll check my notes I was here bridge and like I mean I could guess but f what's G to happen if those can't
be found but Dana I did see that Dana went through and actually threw a lot of notes on here yeah so the those there's four those are accurate date those four that say duplicate dates that they are they're accurate that they are missing but they are also listed above so they're listed twice yeah I really I
just sort of forwarded this out um yeah just to get it to everybody but I definitely have to go do a deeper dive myself for it all yeah so I'm I mean I'm hoping I I and it's very funny because to Trent point I did think to myself I'm gonna write on this document it's a shared document is this going to be okay
is I really thought about it I really was like we are not deliberating I'm telling you I have a draft right that's um exactly what it's there for um so um and then I just wanted to say on one of the things that I filled in one says Amy
wrote the draft Dana has it I have it you wrote it for some reason I have it so I like okay it's a draft that you wrote I don't I know why it's in my but it is and I have it um yes so we'll go through this and then uh figure out throw them all on a consent there so
what I was say so I did I briefly spoke to Janelle this morning because I was saying to her like as an example you if you're looking at the document that David shared I have a draft of Capital Finance
minutes from 2022 I have it in my file and so I thought to myself well can can I just send it to Janelle and she said to me yes if you send me a draft and say put this on the next agenda she'll do that so like if I sent
her the Capital Finance minutes from that date in 2022 she'll put it on your next Capital Finance oh I see agenda for you to review I mean I don't know that that's what but I mean it seems
like I mean some got another system older stuff too I would have to imagine we could just put on as long as it's not you know anything we did um you know an executive session right that we could just put on a consent agenda to approve as a general committee
no I think that that's probably true because most of the other drafts that I have are all negotiations which I'll do have executive sessions which is why I was not thinking that way so we then you and I can throw together for a for a negotiation session minut meeting and approve
yeah so yeah so I mean I think absolutely so would then the procedure be then if people have these they should send them all to you or do they should they send them to Janelle to say let's compile a well all I would do is for them to
Janelle okay so I don't know if it's easier for her I'll ask her okay and let just let us know procedurally what you want us to do because I did I have I just was I asked her about about that specifically about that Capital Finance one and she said well yeah they just put
it on and then whenever they have the next meeting it'll be on there and you know it'll be fascinating reading about what happened in May of 2022 you um this is what you really said to figure out who who really runs the
show um so okay um but the hope is that people will go through and um oh yeah I mean I I have and I could just ask that where I wrote down Dana
has notes notes is a broad term so let's just say if you have notes you might want to say you might want to actually chime in it's not like has draft and has notes or
too very the draft is like I've got it I got this um so okay I'm just looking I just added another executive session that I know I have so I'll thank you for putting this
together this is really again I can only colors I was gonna say all right so um you know we are meeting next week if possible I would like to put this um under the secretary report next week just pop everybody look
at this so that we can just say who's filled it in where what is what's missing um when I was on with Janelle I also did sort of talk about um sort of format for the um minutes they can
definitely be brief into the point um but I will ask that we put them in you know they should be in full sentences and with some level of punctuation they should need to be just they should need to be ready for
public viewing because it is the official Snapchat right exactly goes back to those notes I was talking about are going to need some updating um okay anybody have anything else on that
yes all right to you Eric all righty we have some good news that we received yesterday in our msba we attended the msba uh board meeting uh they at which they have uh voted to approve the Cutler elementary school project in Hamilton
whenham Regional School District to consolidate the student population of the existing Cutler ele Elementary School and wi Elementary School and construct a new facility serving grades 1 through five on the site of the existing Cutler elementary school they approved the maximum total facilities grants are
48.9 million um and um the possibility of increasing it to a higher number of 49.7 million based on owners contingencies throughout the project uh we have 120 days after this
notification to uh send in all certifications of local approvals for appropriation and necessary local votes um showing acceptance of the cost asides the type and scope the timeline and the custom for the for the entire project uh we get those votes from the town Clerks
when the town meeting's over uh and when uh the ballot is is finalized so we'll we'll cross our fingers for those two days and take that information and send it back to the the msba if the community
votes to support this project at both Town meetings and both uh ballot boxes the uh state would then execute a contract with us which basically is the contract uh that supports this document and the
approval by the board um that they would they're very willing to be involved in paying the grant amount in in within our project so that's that's good news for us we uh we wanted to try and get that done before we got into town meeting so we knew our final num so we we had that
meeting yesterday uh Dane and I attended along with members of the the project team uh Vinnie as well to Curtis was on that call as well so it it was exciting we had a number of our we had a State Rep on there miss gner who uh spoke uh
about the project as well so um good support all around and we looking forward to continuing the process in the same vein last night I did the fifth and final uh public forum uh for the project in which we did a day in the life of a
first grader um we had a new video set created to help us to uh V help people to visualize that and what it would really look like we also went over with the tax implications for both in towns uh using the information that we have received from both Hamilton and whenham
fincom I got to say both groups did a fantastic job of breaking down the data simplifying the data and really going deep into the numbers if you want a lesson in regression Theory um the vam fincom took two full meetings and went
through uh a fabulous breakdown of the numbers and whether or not they were willing to support it and uh both voms are supporting this project as presented as the best option given all the U the things that are are happening around the
community uh along with our our budget their budgets their Capital expectations our Capital expectations so uh some good news there and then um as part of the you know the forums ended we did five forms but we're
also doing some some open house tours starting Saturday uh 10: to noon at the C School we're going to open the doors and let people in show them uh what that building's all about we're also going to repeat that on the 15th same time 10 to 12 me myself uh some members of the the
district and uh members of both the OPM and Architectural team will be there to answer questions we still have a couple more zooms that we're going to do with some Elementary parent groups um as well between now and town meeting the other exciting news was we
uh F thing that we're doing this already but we had our kindergarten parent night for next year's kindergarten class which is exciting uh it's great information and we appreciate our administrators and our kindergarten teachers um and our specialed staff who
attended that meeting and really laid out the information uh Jen Coffield comes out and lays out the process of registration how to get to the forums that and really helps get that going we have uh more than we had last year at this time we already have over 50 kids
signed up which is more than last year um at this time so we're looking to hopefully hold right around the same number probably seven classes of kindergarten students next year continue the trend and then finally um it was mentioned earlier but I got to say it
again good luck to the 93 students who took off for uh Boston today from the high school to the DECA State this this weekend so today tomorrow and then the award ceremony will be Saturday so no Saturday uh and also good luck to our
boys and girls basketball teams who are uh entering tourn play tournament play Friday night at the high school both games will be be there back to back boys first and girls will uh begin right after the boys game is over that's all I have it's so funny my wife just texted
me ask Eric about any updates about Deca none yet they just got there um all right thank you for that um anybody have any other question have a question um Eric do you have an update
on when we're going to have a publicly available calculator for people's tax implications not yet they said hopefully the end of next week after okay so this is a problem we are five weeks
away right we're five weeks away and there's no way we're going to be able to get this calculator in front of everybody that needs it right like how are we going to how are people going to make an intelligent
decision based upon what they can afford yeah the information if they don't know the information is out there both on it's been on for weeks for the fincom sites we we put it out last night we put out what information on the tax rates the tax impacts so an individual can go
and find their tax impact yeah you could if you intended last night Forum you can figure out your tax impact based on the numbers that we received from the Hamilton and whenham fincom we also have a sheet coming out on uh Monday I think Monday or Tuesday of next week that will
break down uh the 20 years and the annual rates of increase so the bond is a decreasing Bond and it'll decrease over time so yes you could figure out based on your assessed value um people can also go to the DLS website where you
can just put your own house value in it'll give you your number uh for each year because it's a decreasing you have to you have to back up so first you said we it's we don't have the information and now you're saying that it's in several different places so I I just need some clarification I don't think I
say that we don't have any information I just said we had the information that we gave all last night okay then Vinnie said that it's going to be available sometime next week or the week after yeah it's a finance group that we work with that's putting together the calculator so as they can get it put together we'll get it out
there and okay so then a calculator doesn't exist correct not right at this time okay then what are all the other things that are being discussed so the last night's Forum we presented the each of the towns their current tax rates for FY 25 the average value of a house in
each of those in the two communities and then the breakdown over a 20-year span of the de decreasing Bond based on a 4 and a half% uh bond rate okay this is is maybe the 10th time that I've asked for
this and I think that it is it is not meaningful to say this is your average house because nobody lives in the average house right um people are going to be making decisions based upon the household income that they live in and
so we have to allow people and and we have to give them time to find the information and then to make a decision around the information right and that means it can't be something that comes out two weeks before vote it's not going to get in front of everybody but early next week as so I can finish my sentence
early next week we have one pagers coming out that will have the same information if you're you know you take your house value divide it by a thousand and then here's your multiplier for each of the years we we cannot be asking people that that is not that is US
failing to communicate right why I don't agree you don't so no I think people know the value of their home they can access it on their tax um bills and then if we give the cost per $11,000 I think that's something people
are capable of I agree that a calculator would be easier for folks so I like that idea but I don't think it's impossible to come up with the number I think that it looks like we're not trying to be transparent so can I just jump in and
say about um Eric just mentioned um the Venom fincom spending all that time and I actually at Eric's recommendation I actually watched the whenham fincom two meetings where they did this work and it
was really detailed and what I mean they my understanding from watching the meetings is they are um finalizing what they're going to present they're finalizing what the slide is that they're going to present and while I appreciate you're looking for a
calculator I actually found slide to be quite what they're creating is a 20 it's a 20 year you know block that shows you for various house amounts you know how it decreases where it starts off at year one and then goes down 20 years you can
look at this chart which is different than just plugging in one number and coming up with what it is for this year like it was am I making sense about what I'm no I I understand I just I think that we we are always trying to we are
always in this situation where the message that we're trying to send and the message that's heard is confounded by the fact that the we we think we're being transparent and we think that we're communicating clearly and people
have lives and jobs and kids and what the only side of the information that we're giving them is not the one that's going to actually be the tax impact which is going to be substantial right yeah it just is
there's no way around that right we put that out there the the biggest voices against the project that I have heard are about taxes yeah and we've known for a very long time what the approximate cost is
going to be we now have the actual cost and I think that it it is really incumbent upon this group to do the work that's going to get the information so that people can know what is the impact going to be to me I I I agree with you
what you're wanting to do but having watched or and having watched the work that the vom fincom is doing in other words the I don't want to speak but but the
fincom each Town's fincom has to be the one that does that work because yes and no right so so I actually mentioned something like this to um the other night on the school board um
School building committee meeting right I and even I even said like even if we instead of just saying oh the average house in Hamilton's 800 the average house in one's a million which is I think the two numbers that they're using I'm like even if we did a here's the um
you know the average for 600 800 a million 1,200 or whatever so least you're breaking it down right yeah so so you're at least you're breaking it down more because I hear you know who loves the idea of watching those meetings and the stuff the people that are already
going to vote Yes for it no no I'm not I'm not suggesting people watch that meeting that's not what I'm but but but please listen because what Trent is saying right when I hear Trent saying what I completely 100% agree with them with is is we need to we need to it is
our job it's not you know the fincom job the fincom jobs to figure out what the numbers are it's our job to now Market our product if we think this is what's best and what we need to do is we need to make this as clear as possible to these people that
are on the feds right these are very the numbers are very real right they they're it is a big number but I mean we're going through you know the budget tonight and all I thinking of is like if we don't build new schools things going to break down and you know what I mean
and so it's a very real thing and you know it's funny and I I don't mean to put words that trans them out but I'm hearing him say Well if we want to get this new school built this is the material we need to get into the hands as soon as possible to these people who
are on the fence absolutely right I mean I I've said all along I think we'll get a majority of the room it's getting that 66% that we need you need you need to get a lot of people that I guess what I was say in the gray over to the green no I agree what I was saying was that it is
we want to the numbers need to come from the fincom the numbers they need to do that work I hear what you're saying about communicating those numbers in a way that's a
usable form for people is a different I guess I was just trying to say num you know even to sort of take it one step further you know I very I'm privy to more information most in all of this right I've seen these numbers and then
I'm like what is my assessment value of my house you know what I mean like so like there there's even like that I'm like is it here or is it here you know and like so like even even g a calculator is still having them to chase them down to you know I'm sure I have a
buil PO fall you know lying around someplace whatever but like having to go and actually do that work the least the less work we can make people do the better it is for us in our ultimate goal if we see that the school is our
ultimate goal and I would add to that I'm sorry um that we have very defined ways that we're advertising this right it's going through your newsletters every single um uh principal has it sent
out in their weekly um it you're taking out ads in the newspaper like we we can put a a QR code to a calculator in all of these places right no that's a good idea I think the good news is we're all in agreement that we want to broadcast
these numbers so maybe thinking about like concrete ways that we all agree are going to achieve that can we do that now can we make some well I mean I think this calculator is really it yeah at the Town level the towns in Trent had asked
last meeting to have you know can we send out a letter to every household the will not do that because of the uh the way the numbers work they're not you can calculate it out for 20 years the only one that's going to be accurate is the first year because it's going to
depend on the split each year across the two towns that CH it changes yeah every every single year a long discussion at the wi income that's part of the problem that they're they're having and saying let's send this chart out because
whenham uh excuse me Hamilton has a that has just what you said 500,000 600,000 700,000 up to a million dollars with the impacts easy to do but I Trent wants to hone in even more on if you're
8597 you know $700 I get that I understand that well because then somebody who's looking to move in to the the district could say well if I'm buying this house right like and and I I do think that it's really concerning
that um you know the whenham fincom was in the newspaper very prominently last week right um that that that that whether or not that was the intent
it reflected very negatively on on the trajectory of the school district to my mind um and I think that I think that we need to be as as uh deliberate as
possible in getting the information that people are going to use to make their decision to them and what really concerns me is that we're we're getting closer and closer to a point where you know like next week is is one month out I think that we should have a calculator
that we are advertising in all of our um venues by one month out when we're meeting again next week so yeah I mean I think that's a great goal I don't know how we
know I don't know why it can be Google a it's a finance group that we work with that works with bonding agents to make sure the numbers are accurate and make sure they they're literally taking each Town's data pulling it in and creating the calculators they're creating two one
for each Community yeah two separate calculators couple times to try to figure out when and why I gu we can keep haunting them and I just emailed them again just can just keep hunting in the meantime the onepage document that I've been working on with Eric has the sample
charts and the dollar per dollar amount per thousand so in the meantime we can prioritize that to get on next week's meeting for approval and then we can distribute it to like Library Senior Center places that we have identified that folks might not get
information online or we also have two other charts coming out next week that are we were waiting for final numbers from the pcoms that'll break down the 20 years again when you get into year two it's not an accurate number it's going to shift slightly depending on what the split is but I don't think people are voting based on what's happening on year
19 I think they're going to be voting in the first year year one yeah so that year one's the most accurate well year one is the most accurate and it's the most expensive right so it is good to show that it's good to for people to understand that so it's the it's you
know both of I mean that's an important point that it's the most expensive so that you don't have this fear that it's going to be more as the years go drops have gas do
we rolling small because it's at the end of it's at the end of life cycle and also you have the to your may have things rolling off like in other words that's part of your tax I get I'm trying to figure out what I can
do to Market this um the the document that you said you're putting together are we mailing that to everybody don't so we typically distribute it at that's that's the purpose of it okay I know I you've
included it your emails right yeah it goes out in my email Facebook but we we've done Town mailers on the project to the whole town right I would put probably more detail into it than because this is really a one page quickie like here's the school
budget on one side and on the other side here's the breakdown of the the tax implication so I think that if if we had you know six different million to 500,000 estimates of what your year one looks like and we were able to put that
out while we're waiting for a calculator to get built that may or may not be built in a time that allows people to get it at least that would be something that we would be proactively getting to everybody we we have that for Hamilton we we just need to do it for one Hamilton's already done that work they
they you can basically steal their sheet update their numbers and recreate the same thing for for when okay so that's that's part of what's occurring Monday or Tuesday of next week we're going to take the sheet from Hamilton the sheet from wam now that they're done make them
look the same and then get those out to people we can we could include them in the mailer I just I worry about the same thing that the fincom worry about with sending something out that shows 20 years that's not really accurate can we put a a foot note saying yeah that's
that's what their conversations were are like how do we make a note on this presentation this is not this is the best right this is our best estimate estimate here one would be right year two would shift depending on the shift year three would shift depending on the shift um it would just depend on
how kids I think all you need is 500,000 one right except you want to make sure that people understand that it is 20 years I mean that's information
they need to have like right you know well some people don't know what that means like that's a good point to be really clear about like this like that just to be I mean in other words to be clear about that like this is how much it is and and well anyway what I I already said
what I thought arguing over how clear it is and not sending out the information no one's gon this is what we presented last night what's on the screen this is a sample of what I presented last night um one for Hamilton the next slide's for Wenham they're based on
average single family we can and uh include this in tomorrow's weekly if you want to put this out kind of like actually I think it's already in there because it was part of the Forum um and then the idea is to really take this and make say six columns five 500,000 to a
million or you can go as high as you want and then literally crank out a spreadsheet based on the the increase uh per thousand each year which we have the charts from both Hamilton and wenom and and I do I'd like to say I do agree that
a calculator to trans is is a good idea yeah we'll get it out there as soon as we get I will say I do think like this I mean because I've seen this information before and like to me like if I was like wait the numbers
just change but I was yeah show I switched to when I'm sorry I was like wait um but I do think this is useful information even though I know that that like yes nobody lives in the average home but you do have a general idea like
if you live in venom and it says that the average family home is a million dollars you have a general idea like is my home worth more or less than that you have an idea and it says okay it's going to be $2,100 like okay that's a ballpark
it's a starting point because I think you know a couple of months ago people would have no idea what ballpark we're in at least this is like okay I get it this is how much money we're talking about and and I agree with you for
people that are not food insecure people who are like going to be voting that you know people who are going to be voting that are living paycheck to paycheck no I the the small difference between you know something makes a big difference I I do think though that for that same
group being able to show that you know it decreases over time is is important right and and and it's interest like it decreases over time it doesn't decreas a I mean it gets down to half the amount at year
20 but it doesn't decrease drastically but just knowing that like it's never going to be more than the first year is good information right like that so I think that means it's time yeah no it is just about it is yeah
um can I just ask a question really quickly if we're planning on S of turning the one p one sheet flyer into a mailer is that what we're talking about doing or are we talking about a mailer that exists that we're adding this
to there is not a mailer that exists we can use that as a mailer okay so I just want to talk about the timeline a little bit because if we're wanting to bring this to meeting next week so that we can has to be approved next week we need to do that we would mail it out within two
days we' need to stuff them and okay so to the post office and whatever they cycle time is and you and I need to have it for Monday to be on the agenda right okay Al technically the agenda yeah it just needs to we can update the exhib
yeah yeah we can add the exhibit on or Tuesday so that's that's I do want to make that I want to actually say that so people can hear that is that like we as a committee do this what I think our agendas and I did not invent the way the agenda is done and I think it's done really well that we put all this
information in an exhibit form on the agenda it's really great for people to be able to have that is not required so as long as the information comes to the committee and to the public at the same time it's fine so in other words the agenda if if if you're presenting the
flyer at the agenda I mean at the meeting for the first time that's not ideal because it would be nice to have us have time to see it but it doesn't mean we couldn't do it that um so we start tomorrow pushing out the tax rate impact go out in my weekly that's the
first time well the second time we started last night yeah I think the the the third time will be Monday or Tuesday of next week and then we'll that firey approved get that out get the calculators up and running we continue to harass the people that are working on
it for us we usually have we sent that out before with the warrant with the warrant no because Hamilton doesn't mail only one mails their warrant to each household Hamilton does not okay and I don't think they would let you
put yeah I have to get permission from the moderator just to use it at our meeting so last time we did something had we did a mail that we actually mail okay so if we approve this Thursday of next week then we can start sending
it out so that feel a little and I agree I support having a calculator that people get yeah we get but I also would support putting out what you have right now because you've put it out I mean you've already put it out publicly so let's push it out like the what you
have well it'll be on the same page that no that's what I say it's it's really time to streamline and clean up all the information right we have a data time we're
overly overly transparent I think ter last meeting that is really the case right so transparent no one can see anything now it's time get to to the gist of the messaging yeah you'll see
the website change tomorrow I think tomorrow it's scheduled to change we were updating it yesterday and today all right anybody have anything else a lot of boxes moving around it's all box based um all right does anybody have anything
else uh my chair report I don't really have anything to report I did want just official mean I guess the only thing I is that I did want to just officially confirm regarding the upcoming school committee election um on April 10th that we the um
time for nominations um has passed and the following people have submitted um papers uh Jeff Austin Courtney Ashwood David Frankle David PLO and Amy comberger are running for so that's five
people running for three seats everyone could still change their mind but um but nobody else can join in um uh anyway I didn't and that is uh oh I was going to say something else
but it's gone for my mind it's almost 10 o'clock all right um second all right that was motioned by David PLO and seconded by Trent all right um all those in favor yes and we
are adjourned you second for