Mics are on. >> Oh, I didn't do that. >> Mics are on. >> Okay. just take both. >> You want want them both? >> Sure. >> Might want to read. You never know. >> Part of our mission statement when it's
time. >> Come on. >> Ready. >> Yep. >> Okay. Good evening. I call to order the meeting of the Hamilton Regional School Committee on Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 7:01 p.m. Um, and
uh I will start off before we uh begin, I'd like to just officially welcome our newest member, uh Kristen Nune. Welcome to the committee. Kristen is uh been um >> appointed to the committee and properly
sworn in and she's ready to get to work. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um are we up on Zoom? >> We're good. >> Okay. Um I feel very loud. >> Yeah, that is loud.
>> Is it super loud or is it okay? Okay. Um Okay. Next. Okay. Um so next up we have an opportunity for citizens comments. Um we'll have an opportunity for people in the room as well as um on Zoom though it
doesn't look like anyone is available on Zoom right now. Um uh just a little uh to update you on citizens comments. Um this is an opportunity for citizens to it's an opportunity for you to be heard. Um it's
an opportunity for us to listen and you to speak. Um any citizen that wishes to speak um in the room I'll ask you um to go ahead when when we are ready to um approach the podium um I do ask you to keep your um comments to three minutes.
I'll ask Amy to be our official timekeeper and she'll let you know when you have about 30 seconds left. Um I do ask that you um give your name and address and please spell your name for us so that we can your last name so that we can get it correct in the minutes. I
may not have remembered to say that we are being livereamed and recorded. Go on. >> Okay. All right. Um if there's any It looks like we don't have anyone on Zoom right now. So if anyone in the room is um wanting to offer a public comment, please approach the podium.
Sorry. Hello, Jeff Austin, Hamilton Mass. I'd like to offer two brief clarifications. First, the role of the school committee. I've heard many times by members of this committee that they work for andor on behalf of the
children. By Massachusetts law, a school committee is governing board with specific duties. Hire and review the performance. Two, you are an elected public officials accountable to the voters of the member towns and to the commonwealth through open government and
ethics laws. Deliberate deliberate only in public under the open meeting law and comply with the conflict of interest law. Student learning is the purpose of the system. Your legal accountability is to the public and to the law. School
committee members are treated as municipal employees for the ethic purp for ethics purposes under MGL chapter 268A. Under MGL chapter 71 sub uh section 37 and 16, the school committee governs the district. It answers to the voters and
to the state law. Student success is a systems purpose, but your legal accountability is to the public and to the law. Secondly, I've also heard by many members of this committee and members of the public that they wish to align the state law of a simple majority
threshold. This must misunderstands the intent of the law completely. State law majority language MGL chapter 71 section 16 establishes a floor. A floor is the minimum level of consent. the Commonwealth will accept for regional
district debt. It does not prohibit a regional agreement from adopting stricter locally chosen safeguards that are compatible with law and approved by the commissioner. Preserving a supermajority at the local level protects both towns by ensuring
one broad district-wide consensus before taking on long-term taxbacked obligations. two, resilience against low turnout or singleisssue swings. And three, stronger alignment between multi-year debt in the
community's fiscal capacity and priorities. So my qu my request is straightforward. Govern exactly as the statute describes policy, budget, superintendent oversight, transparency, and within these voter consent rules.
and two, keep the statutory majority of 2/3 as the legal minimum within our regional agreement and preserve any duly approved supermajority safeguards. That approach serves students well and keeps you clearly accountable to the people who elected you. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. Uh I'm Beth Blanchard. I spent 30 years teaching the district at all three elementary schools in up at Gordon Conwell for one year. Um what might have been two. Anyways um I ended
here and when I retired I stayed in the teachers union and I ended up uh joining the uh retirees group and the retirees group took on the MCCAST test and the impact it was having. Um, we were
promoting and we want to thank we were the ones who were collecting signatures to get the issue on the ballot and parents and adults in the community who voted did vote to stop using MCCAST scores as a
graduation requirement and we thank you for that. I mean, that's that was hard for us to do. Um but we were wanting to return to rich and authentic learning that was not for the basis of um getting
a score. And we were also interested in promoting again a return to project-based and performance-based assessments that um are more authentic and are more rich and learning experiences to be shared. We're now rep
promoting people's forums on graduation readiness. Um, I wanted to let you know that on November 13th at 6 o'clock to 7:30, we're holding a gathering at the Salisbury uh public library for the
Northshore. There have already been different forums held in Western Mass, Cambridge, and Somerville, New Bedford, Worcester, Boston, Lowel, and Salisbury. And it's an opportunity for parents and families to get together and talk and
discuss these three questions. What should students know and be able to do by the time they graduate? How should students demonstrate the readiness to graduate? And how can school prek to 12 support these goals? So, I'm inviting
people. I've put flyers in the Hamilton Wenham Library both in the adult room and in the children's room. Um, it's an issue that actually heavily impacted uh the quality of learning and made it more difficult
to really dive into interests that students had and shape that into projects that were productive. And I'm thinking 30 seconds >> good examples of what could happen. So the posters are at the library. Um there
are some that will go to schools and um if you could register uh there's an address on the poster again it's 6 to 730 and children are welcome. There will be light refreshments and we just we want
to involve parents um in how they want would like to see students being assessed for graduation. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Welcome. Hi, uh, Deb Safford. Um, my comments today were addressed
really towards people that aren't here today, but I'm going to go ahead and do it just because what they said a few weeks ago at the last meeting is on the record, and I think it's important to highlight it. Uh, Julie said, "I think we should really appreciate the work of uh, Build Bright Futures and the groups and parents and teachers that uh, that
she spoke with that were committed to the project. We also need to take them into account. Even though this vote didn't work, I don't want to negate that group. I want to be respectful of that group. I And I want people um we have to think about the people that want the school. I don't mind debating on issues,
facts, and truths, but we can't debate on misinformation. We don't know how to go forward. There's personal vendettas. Those are quotes. And I think that that's a perspective that's going to prevent this committee from really representing the fruit of what happened. And I think it's really
important for an public acknowledgment that there should be no surprise with what happened. There was a lot of information. People showed up, tens, 50. Amy's classic comment, you guys are all showing up, but you know, the other people aren't and they're the majority.
It turns out they're not, as I've said before. And I think it's really sad two and a half months after the election for people to still be stuck. And I think that needs to shift if this committee is going to have the respect of the community that they're going to hear
what happened and move forward. So with the prof professional polls and the stream of feedback and resistance, people showing up, people standing here at the podium and talking, I just wish that there could be a self-reflection and analysis as if you were a corporation. You know, businesses that
have a product that fails, they do a self assessment, a reflective analysis. What worked? What didn't work? Instead of pointing figure fingers and saying there's misinformation and uh personal vendettas and we should just remember those people that didn't
win because I guarantee if it had gone through, you would not be thinking twice about those of us that have been standing up. So I would like to just have an acknowledgement of that and I really hope that we can move forward in a way which is productive and constructive and reflects the fact that the community spoke.
Secondly, regarding the floor ceiling issue um again to reiterate the twothirds town meeting threshold supermajority actually did reflect what the majority of the community wanted. >> So it was a great metric to actually show the support. If you uh consist
consider going down to the minimum floor as the requirement, you know, Mr. Tracy has 15 hours 15 days of sick time. The state requirement is five. So, you guys have chosen to give two weeks extra for sick days. Unless I've misread it.
That's what I saw in the contract approval. That's fine. I don't care if you have 15 sick days. I really could care less because we're actually exceeding the minimum. So, it's the same concept to remember that >> that there's a floor and a ceiling and when there's a floor, we can always go above that. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. Welcome. >> Thanks. Um, I appreciate the eye contact that you guys have been having. Sometimes we come uh Beth her Asbury Street. Um, sometimes we come and you're looking at your computers and not
looking at us or you look at the people that you want to listen to. So, I appreciate the eye contact that I've been seeing. Um, I just want to touch on what Jeff said about the 2/3. If an individual town can have a 2/3 and a region can't, then dissolve the
district. Okay? That's how I feel about it. So, if you guys aren't going to fight to keep to 2/3, then we should just dissolve the district because an individual town shouldn't have the ability to have a 2/3 on a big vote like that and a region not. And that's how
strongly I feel about it and I think a lot of other people do too. And I think you're going to hurt yourself. People are already pissed off if you try to push this simple majority in the regional agreement. Okay. So,
um, I had a crazy idea. I thought you were actually going to like start looking for solutions after the vote was over, and I really haven't heard an acknowledgement. And thank you for the eye roll, Amy. That's very helpful to good communication.
So, I'm looking to build bridges, and I think that's what we tried to do. I too could not believe that I heard the words, "We don't want to negate the people who worked hard." You would not feel the same way about us. You would not feel the same way. The huffing, the
puffing is really helpful right now, and that might be something that you might want to consider. Um, you've been negating the save small schools people for almost 2 years, but you don't want to negate the building bright futures people. Do you understand how
disrespectful that sounds? this rem um sorry. Yeah. Anyway, so um do you even listen to what you're saying? Would you ever accept that statement from me or anyone else for that matter? You just kept ignoring us
until you couldn't ignore us anymore. You turned your back on the majority of the community. Clearly, you now know after wasting tens of thousands and millions of dollars on town meetings, on a feasibility study, on elections, we
now have the proof you were waiting for that a majority did not want the consolidation. Trent said it best when he said he did not want to get to this place with no project. >> You ignored us over and over and over
and over and over and over and over again. So, I would ask that you would stop whining at these meetings and that you would, if you need to whine, do it with your friends. You've missed the signs. We've had road signs and you've missed them. And to move forward, these
are my suggestions. We asked you to slow down. You didn't slow down. We asked you many things. Okay. Suggestion number one, acknowledge a loss and apologize for wasting time. >> Thank you. >> Stop saying misinformation. It only
pushes people away. Investigate the other school options. No, you've had other people speak for longer. >> No, I am very Uh, welcome. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Scott Matter, 12 Old Cart Road,
Hamilton. As you develop next year's budget and capital plan with Hamilton and Wenham fincoms and select boards, I have some requests which I also made at Monday's Hamilton select board and will suggest to Wenham as well. First, ask the five
boards to share their main reasons for the failures of the new grammar school. Otherwise, how can you learn what to do next? Here are some items to discuss publicly. There were no options. It was either one
big school or nothing. The change from twothirds to majority voting. Social media presence, promotion, and correction of misinformation. Number two, hire a social media team to
promote your plans and counter misinformation. reporting at each school committee meeting and regularly at select boards and fincoms. School renovations are the largest capital spending the towns have by far.
So help share the community input that happens more online than it does in our meetings. Number three, add 1 to2 million per year into a renovations capital stabilization
fund. via a district warrant article at each town's annual meeting with overrides and revice revised district agreement looming. This is tough, but waiting until you have plans for each school's renovations is
fiscally irresponsible. Renovations are coming and waiting to unveil the specifics isn't required to build funds to avoid the shock of future building costs. Number four, charter a renovations
outreach committee with responsibility to communicate with voters, promote social interaction, counter misinformation, present funding and voting options, discuss facility options, and provide
regular updates here and to the select boards and fincoms. I volunteer to help with these efforts. I sent a more formal letter this afternoon copying the select boards and fincoms. >> 30 seconds.
>> And finally, change is coming. I prefer to be part of what is best for our towns than be frustrated by lack of communication options and leadership. Thank you for listening. >> Thank you. >> Um,
does anyone else in the room have a comment? Okay. And it looks like there's no one >> no one >> no one on Zoom. Okay. Um so at this point we will close the Zoom link and we will end citizens comments. Um thank you
to all of you. Um next up we have uh a review of a portion of our school committee protocols. Amy, 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. Number four, school committee members will channel requests for information, reports, and data through the superintendent and the school committee chair rather than to staff. The superintendent will ensure that each member of the committee has equal access to this information in a timely manner.
Recognizing the importance of proactive communication and avoiding surprises, school committee members will whenever possible contact the school committee chair and/or the superintendent in advance of a meeting if they have questions or concerns about an agenda item or will ask the chair at least 48
hours prior to a meeting that an item be placed on an agenda. Thank you. Um, next up we have a review of a portion of the mission statement. Kristen, >> thank you. And just as a point of order, I'm only reading the green highlighted
correct missions. Thank you. The Hamilton Winnham 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
Winnham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that supports and guides the superintendent to execute and achieve the approved 2025 to 2026 district goals. Thank you.
Um so before we um do the consent agenda, I just want to check with the committee. Um are we don't have our secretary here this evening. Um Megan, are you willing to be the secretary for the evening? >> Yes. Okay. Um, is that good with everybody? Megan fulfills that. Um, so
before um we do the consent agenda, does any member of the committee have any item from the consent agenda that they want held? >> No. No. >> Okay. To you, Megan. >> I move that the Hamilton Regional School District School Committee uh accepts a
consent agenda as presented in tonight's agenda. >> Second. Second by Amy Kberger. All those in favor and that is unanimous and the motion passes. >> I just want to thank the ad fund for that uh elementary STEM grant. That is amazing.
>> Yeah, the ad fund is doing amazing things as always. >> Um all right, I am pleased to say that our uh next up is uh our DECA student
group. Um, and I'll let them take it away. Unless you're going to introduce them. >> Take it away. We're going to let Caroline do introductions. >> Okay. Do you guys know where Check
the speaker. Check this. Sorry. Yes, sorry for that. Good evening, school committee. My name is Caroline Cerillo and I'm one of the eight DECA officers at our high school.
You can see bes beside me is the rest of our officer team. Alongside with just our officers, we also have a team of ambassadors. Us officers meet weekly with Miss Wheeler and the ambassadors and us meet every month so we can talk
about and collaborate what we want to do with TEA. Um so what exactly is DECA? DECA is a student organization where we develop transferable skills for college and careers. Uh we try real life job scenarios whether that's like a job interview or a presentation. Uh it was
formerly known as the Distributive Education Clubs of America and now it's just simply known as DECA. There are over 294,000 high school DECA students in 4,252 classrooms across all 50 uh states, four
US territories, Canada, China, and more. >> So this year about 60% of the school is a part of DECA. And so we have just over 270 members this year with 95 new members and 179 returning members. And so each year we make sure to hold new member orientations for all our
students. Um and we also have mentor teams. So the officers each take um a team and we divide all the students among the teams and we make sure to keep um in communication with them. And then throughout the year we have comp competition prep for real world
situations. And then we also have the stock market and virtual business challenge that we host um where students get the opportunity to place um for ICDC which is our international competition. And there's also the state quiz bowl competition where students get the opportunity to compete against other
schools on a team. And then we also have fundraisers throughout the year to um raise money for DECA. And we also have speaker series where we bring in professionals um from the community to speak to our students. So we want to make sure that everybody in DECA feels like they're part of a
family. But with over half the school in DECA, that can be a little bit difficult to achieve. So our solution for that is to have mentor teams. So every year the officers come together and we choose students from across the school um to put into smaller individualized teams so
we can have better communication. This year we even had ambassadors join us when we drafted the teams. Ambassadors are usually sophomores and juniors, so they had a better outlook on the kids in their grade. So, we just want to make sure everything's as interactive as we can possibly make it. Then with those teams, we have group chats, and we
spread a lot of information on there that the students need for DECA. Some of our most famous ones are the Miss Wheeler videos where she records a video of herself talking about what we have up next for DECA and then we spread them to the to the group chats. We also have a spot for students to ask any questions
to us officers and ambassadors on the group chat. And finally, it's a perfect place for us to get them excited for competition. Competition is the biggest part of DECA. We have over 50 different categories. We have two main parts of it. On one hand,
we have projects. So, students have a few months where they prepare a project and then they present it in front of a judge in December. And then on the other hand, we have role plays. role-play competitors have to take an 100 question test in November and then on competition day when they arrive they receive a role
play. This role play is a business event so they have to create a solution or a plan for the judge and they only have from 10 to 30 minutes in order to set this up. So this can be a little bit stressful especially to the newer members but as Miss Wheeler's motto goes
you can't be bad at getting experience. The main idea for DECA is even though it's amazing if you move on to the next level, we just want to make sure that students at Hamilton Wenham can improve as much as they can through our club. So, you know, maybe in the future when they have an interview, they won't be
wishing that they'd done better, but they might even get the job. So, we just want to make sure that they can think very quickly on their feet and also have good presentational skills. Every student that's involved in DECA has to meet with Miss Wheeler to kind of find out their interests and see what
would be best for them. DECA categories explore marketing, finance, hospitality, entrepreneurship, and business management. Every competitor um receives an email with personalized competition prep that will help them
prepare for the different competitions, including tips and tricks, a practice schedule, just things like that. So, a little more about the competitions themselves. There's three different stages of the competition. There's districts, states, and ICDC. Districts
is a two-day event at the Double Tree Hotel in Danvers. States if you move on from districts is a weekend in the Seapport District of Boston and then the main event is ICDC which is the international conference that is held this year in Atlanta, Georgia. So as
Mallerie mentioned and Gabriella, a lot of us do role plays, but we get the furthest in competition through our written projects. So at the bottom you can see some of the partnerships that we're using this year in our projects. Some of them are the cord food pantry
institution for savings Hamilton police department Red Bull and the Hamilton when I'm little league. Uh so what does DEG action look like? So over the past two months through September and October, our school and community came together to support um MDA, which is muscular drophy
association through raising awareness and a fundraiser that was organized by four seniors, three of us which are here today. Um and through the musculardrophe association, we raised um just around $3,000 and we had um a bracelet and
shamrock fundraiser that was part of it where students got to purchase a $5 bracelet and they got to donate um through that. And then there was also shamrocks that were hung up on the windows at the school. And then we promoted the fundraiser through a QR
code. So each home room got a QR code and through that students were able to scan the QR code at the beginning of the day and donate and um the QR code was also sent out to um families and students across the community. And there was also a challenge day that we put together for MDA where we brought all
the students together and we had activities that were aimed to promote promote MDA and um bring students together for the cause. Um, and this is just one of the many examples of how our um, team gets
involved within the community. And then not only was this project um, successful, but um, Patrick and I along with our partner Wyatt is also doing this as our project management written project. Um, so for those of you who were here last year, you might remember
um, the social squad. Um, so that was when the a group of four students came together to run the school social media. um in hopes of retaining um student enrollment. And not only did we grow our following 60% but we also did see some growth in our enrollment rates which we
are definitely very proud of. Um and not only that but our um group placed third in the state um competition qualifying us for nationals where we competed in Orlando last April. Um, and this year we are applying that these same exact
skills to our MDA fundraiser using all that information from the last slide and creating a written project. So, it's a 20page paper which definitely helps us um, as Gabriella was saying earlier for like kind of the documentation side of things in our future. And then there's
also a slideshow where we can kind of get that more public interaction with people about that. Um this is just an example of our paper last year. Um where it's just it's not going to load.
Okay. Um so it's like 20 page paper where we really we wanted to make it look aesthetic obviously but also keep the um information um good and informative. Um so there's that. So, we really hope
we can use these same exact skills to the MDA thing this year. >> So, as I'm sure you guys can probably see, DECA is important because it builds transferable skills, self-esteem, leadership, and community service. But to me and to us, DECA is so much more
than that. I've grown so much both as a person and as a learner through this club. I've made many new friends and new memories. I've even been to Anaheim and Orlando as part of the international DECA conference. And so yes, while DECA builds these skills, it really helps with personal growth. We thank you for
your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all um so much for that presentation. Um anybody wants to add anything? >> Yeah, I'm always just so impressed by this group. I think that it I'm I was
impressed by your public speaking skills and your presentation skills. Like these are all, you know, they're all such important things for your future. So, congrats to you guys and to Miss Wheeler. I think this is such a great >> Yeah. And it's always just amazing to
hear the to hear the number of students that are participating. What an amazing culture at our high school that this is something that more than half of the kids want to participate in. Um, it really I I feel really proud to sit here
and see what you all are accomplishing in our community, in our schools. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, >> I wish I had been in that group and
>> I know we didn't have that. >> All right. >> Thank you, Miss Wheeler. >> Thank you. Um, I think Did we just lose our presenter? >> No, it's me. >> Oh, it's you. >> Oh, I thought Okay. All right. Next up
is our annual enroll. I don't know why I thought it was the two of you. Annual enrollment and class size presentation. >> Thank you. This is something we do annually annually as we lead into the budget process. Um, one of our uh things that we track fairly closely is our
enrollment. As you know, we have uh the past few years had a declining enrollment. This year we've actually had a bump up um with an increase of 37 students overall from last year's count. We have nine in the uh high school, five in the
middle school, and 23 new students at the elementary level. You can see we do a u attached to this is a breakdown of every class and their the the number of kids in the class and overall average broken down by uh either grade or
department depending on which level we're looking at. So elementary we break down by grade and you can see the averages here on the screen. 19 is the average class size for our elementary school classrooms. Um, and when you move to secondary, you're looking at 18 for
an average class size in your secondary. It's pretty impressive to have class sizes that small. Um, many of the schools in this area do not have class sizes in that range. Uh, so it's um it's nice for all of us to be able to dig in with our kids and keep our keep our um
numbers uh reasonable within classrooms so that everybody gets the appropriate amount of attention. Um the along with this same report is the um district enrollment over the last few years from 2013 to present. So you can see the
shifts over time. Um the one caveat I will say is the 1706 uh total number hasn't been verified by the state. They don't do that till November 15th, but um we're we're the ones submitting the data to them. So it's it's a matter of just managing
who's who. And then this is a a chart of that data over time. You can see the elementary has um been slowly kind of bumping up a little bit each year. Uh same with the uh middle school as well. And this year interesting bump in the
high school. Then in the document itself and I'll just show bucher as an example is a class roster is basically the class um classes that teachers teach. in each of the buildings. Some of our names, some of the names, you will see
them multiple times because some of our specialists teach in multiple buildings. So, you may look at the Buer for example and see um the library tech at the Buer who also is the library tech over at Cutler part time. So, we have two two people in each of the special areas that
rotate between the three schools. So, you will see some duplicate names, but this just gives you some ideas of numbers at the Buer School. And when you're looking at the chart on the right hand side, it has the grade breakdown, the specials breakdown, but below that,
special education is NA. Um, special education is hard to actually nail down to a classroom because there are so many moving parts. Teachers, there are teachers that have specific classrooms like I'll use the uh castle program. Those kids are assigned to that room.
So, we can count them as a group. Um the other uh classrooms like the teachers you see below the chart of the averages, those are special ed teachers and their case loads. Those are the kids that they're traveling in and out of class with or working with individually for uh
to meet the goals and their IEPs uh throughout the the day. So we've done the same thing for each of the schools. I'm not going to roll through every one of them, but each school has a breakdown of all their teachers, uh their number of students in each class, and then the averages by the breakdown. And they
they're in order. Buer, Cutler, Winthre, Middle School, and High School. Um, so you can see how all the data connects back to these charts in the front. And that is it. Take any questions. >> Thank you. Any questions? Um, Eric, I just wanted
you said that um the 1706 that that's the number on October 1st, but it isn't approved yet or >> right. We doesn't get certified until I think November 15th if I remember correctly. Great. >> Um, I had one brief question if that's
okay. Um, just out of curiosity, and I know that this report doesn't include this, but but I wonder, do we do anything to look at children in the district that are too young to enroll yet? Sort of like the the idea of how old are our preschoolers and toddlers that could be coming into the pre-K and kindergarten program.
>> Yeah. So, we do we do get some counts from local schools. We have a preschool program, but we do not have all the preschool kids. Uh several of them are at the Christ Church. There's different programs around that kids attend. We have a we have we do have a prek that has um it's an integrated prek. So we
it's a it's a split classroom where there's seven seats for students on IEPs and seven uh eight seats for mentor students. Um and then we track around the town with the numbers of kids that we have in kindergarten. The hard part is knowing the private schools. If kids go to a private kindergarten, we
wouldn't we wouldn't be able to track that. So every every June we as we as kids sign up for kindergarten we're counting the numbers and we watched them go up. This year uh fairly dramatically from last year the kindergarteners um came in they were at 117. This year we
hadund we had 141 at one point and then a couple people moved out. So we do know that the next couple of years you'll probably see similar kindergarten numbers which will carry through. Um after that it I think it will dip down a little bit. Thank you.
Anybody else have questions? >> No. >> All right. Thank you. Um, next. So, um, we have, um, two
committees um, subcommittees that have vacant um, slots. Negotiations subcommittee and the policy subcommittee. and we're hoping this evening to have a discussion and a point. Um we have we do have a new
school committee member who uh is not currently on a committee. Um so um and we do have two empty spaces. Um I don't know how you the committee want to begin this. I would like I will say
um and I guess I was going to say it at some point in my chair report or um I am um on negotiations um and I do just want to share that we do have some work coming up. Um we are
um going to in the fairly near future begin bargaining with the um ESLs um which is >> ESPs >> ESPs, excuse me. Um which is our educational support education support professionals. Um and so we do need to make sure that that committee is
complete. Um so I'm just having my eye on that. That's not to say that policy we need to fill policy as well. Um uh but anyway, so I just So does anyone have any thoughts? I can
>> or do you have questions? >> Or do you have questions or thoughts >> like or >> Yeah. Um so as a as a the new member, I'm happy to be on a committee. Um I have done a little bit of research, you know, myself to kind of explore what the
possibilities could be. Um I'm happy to go on to the negotiations committee. I know that's an important committee and I think because this is um there is still an important negotiation to happen this year but it's not you know the largest
teacher contract. So it could be a good time to learn about the process as well as a new member. Um, so I am willing to do that and if that's not appropriate, if another committee member prefers or if it seems that you know my efforts are
better spent someplace else, I'm happy to go on another committee as well. So >> okay, anybody have you have any questions? Does anybody have >> no questions? >> I I'm happily busy on the capital
planning and finance subcommittee with my friends over here. >> Yeah. Um, >> make >> I was going to say, does anybody have a a nomination that they'd like to offer? >> I nominate Kristen Noon to the negotiation subcommittee.
>> Second. >> Second by Megan Benson. Um, is that nomination something you would accept? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, is there any further discussion? >> N looks like we're ready to vote. Um, all
those in favor? Uh thank you. >> I wasn't sure if I could vote for myself. >> Um that is uh only the fact that only the >> I will not yet start voting against myself at the first meeting. I'll wait.
>> Um that is unanimous and the motion passes. Congratulations. I look forward to working with you on the negotiation subcommittee. >> Thank you. >> Um Um Okay. um >> a policy. >> Hold on, I'm just behind myself. All
right, next we have a policy opening. Um and I guess given now that everyone who's on the committee is now on a subcommittee, um I don't know Amy if you want to speak
to policy and we can certainly potentially talk about. So the way our subcommittees work, we have three subcommittees, we have seven members. Some it each some people have to serve on two. Um right now I think it is um
Jen that serves on >> um so Jen is on um capital Finance and policy. So I would say we can think about any member that we want. I would say typically haven't asked people to serve
on three. So don't imagine, but I >> is that the will of the committee if everyone felt like that. >> But all right, tell us a little bit about >> a little plug for policy. Um, something that I like about policy is that it's our job to read through district policy. So it's, you know, it's a good
opportunity to really dig in and understand more. As far as scheduling, I like it. We meet about once a month and I'm able to do the work um, you know, late at night when I have time to read or make notes or write new things. So, I feel like it's a little more flexible
than some of the other committees that have more urgent deadlines or longer meetings. That's just my plug, but I do like >> and that and that being said, like all the committees, one never knows when something might come >> right,
but could happen that um >> so um so I genuinely don't know given that we have some people that aren't here this evening. I don't know. um whether people have thoughts on whether they're >> Do you typically nominate someone who's
not here to be honest? >> I I guess what I what I would say >> not nice. >> Well, no, we don't. I would say this is my thought is that it wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for us to actually vote someone in. Um, on the
other hand, I I don't think I think it's okay to discuss whether we might think of someone on the committee or someone here um, you know, to fill that spot. Um, I'll stop talking. Anyone have thoughts?
Oops. >> I just have I have just a question. What is the timing by which we need to fill these vacancies? So the negotiations um it felt very pressing because we really do need to begin the process. Um
technically speaking there's it's a three-person committee. So policy could and negotiations could in theory continue with just two because if you both show up then that's the majority of the >> subcommittee. So it can um but
>> we do have one more meeting before our next policy subcommittee meeting. So we could table >> that particular nomination. >> Um >> so I move to table or push that discussion to the next meeting. >> Okay. I heard a motion. Is there a second?
>> Second. >> Second by Megan Benson. Um is there further discussion? Unless you guys wanted to like jump in, but I just feel like we could wait until we're all together. >> I guess my discussion would be I'm absolutely okay with tableabling it. Um
I would encourage all members of all seven members of the committee um to really reflect that someone is going to have to fill that spot and it means that someone is going to need to be on two committees. Um and I will reflect on that as well, myself included. um
because obviously I am one of the seven people who could do that as well. So I will think about that as well. Um so that when we can come to the next meeting, my hope that somebody will be hopefully some two people will be fighting for it. That's um uh we have a
we have a motion on the table. Does anybody else have any discussion? Okay, looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes. So we will add the policy
vacancy to the next um meeting. Um and uh I will just say to the two present members of the negotiations team that I will um Eric
and I will uh reach out with some dates to get um a first meeting on the agenda. Okay. Um, next up, thank you for putting that up there. Um, this is um
a list of liaison and a couple of things hoping to look at it, fill the vacancies, kind of make sure that I'm we can do this however you all want, but I wanted to if we could just if you could just scroll down to the bottom. I wanted to just point out that currently we
still have these listed as the master planning on both towns with um liaison but both master plings are complete. >> So one thing I might suggest to the subcommittee is that it might be time to
remove those since those those are both not in existence anymore or not ongoing I should say. >> Makes sense. Yeah. Um, does anyone else have anything like that that you when you read through this that anything that you think this is no longer >> relevant
>> relevant or no longer necessary? Um, I think I so just for Kristen and maybe for Megan's sake um it the liaison roles I would say that none of them are a particularly heavy lift. really is that
you are the contact person to connect with that particular group um in town. If someone were, you know, like someone from the, you know, um Hamilton Fincom,
they, you know, would see that, oh, I should reach out to Dana if I have a question. Um it doesn't prevent them from reaching out to different members instead if they want to. It's fine. It's just um on the school front, I do think we do want to at least make um you know
attend hopefully at least um once or twice a year one of the friends meetings um if possible um just to connect with them so they can get to know you and sort of and you did that I think already this year. Is that right? >> Yeah, I have been in touch with both
friends of Miles River and of Winthr. >> Okay. um because I have students at those schools. >> So I would love to if possible I would love to be on be the lison for the middle school. >> Okay. >> As well.
>> Okay. >> In addition to Cutler and >> Yeah. I mean if someone I don't >> Well then that was going to be my question is you're I mean make you >> like you don't have >> I don't have a connection to cutler other than this role. So if someone else >> does or
>> um >> Kristen do you have a connection to Cutler? >> Both of my children attend Buer. >> Okay. >> Um and looking at this list too I was just wondering and I should know this and I'm sorry that I don't but what is CPAC?
>> That is the uh special education. Okay. >> Okay. Got it. >> Yep. >> I know. I recognized it. I I've seen the acronym. >> Okay. And then also, is the athletic facilities improvement building committee still active or does that relate to the new fields? >> That is I would say that that is similar
to the master planning. Is that I don't think that we >> have any I mean >> this hasn't officially closed out. >> I was going to say it has been officially like signed off, but it is not really >> They'll probably have one more meeting to close everything out, >> right? Okay. Um,
so, um, so I heard Amy saying maybe an interest in filling the vacant spot at the Miles River Middle School. And if I was hearing it correctly, it sound like maybe open to giving up the contact the liaison at Cutler. >> Open to that.
>> Accurate. >> I would be open to picking up Cutler. >> Pick up Cutler. I'm gonna I'm just going to say I think um it it could be a good opportunity to get into the schools. I know um >> that's right. For everyone who doesn't
know, my children are young, >> right? Exactly. >> Three and 21 months. So, >> right. Um and uh I mean Megan and I have had sort of a good conversation about sort of book we are sort of the bookends, right? That my children are already out of school >> um and hers are not yet in. And so it
does as a school committee member it is sometimes challenging to find opportunities to get into the schools. Um >> where are the books? >> You guys are the books where the book ends. Um so I mean I don't So that's just a
thought we're just throwing. So thought thoughts around that that might be something that Megan might be. Um, the other two that are vacant, um, are the Hamilton Select Board and the Wenom Fincom. I
>> We're all >> I mean, I would be willing to be the Wenom Fincom. I'm a Wen resident the Wenom person, so I don't mind um, >> okay, >> doing that unless anybody else is like very motivated to do it. I do it,
>> you know. Um, and so then there's Hamilton Select Board. Um, which I I'm more than happy to do. I um, but I'm also happy to have somebody else do it.
>> I don't mind doing that one. I do always watch the slip look meeting, so I'm happy. >> This is true. >> It's true. So, I'm happy to do that one as well. I don't think we have any other like our members that aren't here tonight are all Wenom anyways. >> They're wenom. Yes. Exactly. So they would have been fighting Kristen for the
um >> um okay uh so so that was just a discussion but I heard a bunch of things. >> Okay, >> I want to just sort of review what I heard and then maybe we can try to have
our secretary try to figure out what to craft if anything. Um, okay. So, what I heard, taking it from the top, is um a potential switch from Amy to Megan at Cutler Elementary. Um,
uh, filling Amy into the empty slot at Miles River. Um, and on the H for the Hamilton select board. Not on the select board. We're not appointing you to the select board. Um, and then, uh, Kristen
on the Winnham Finance Committee. And then I did do think we have three lines that could be removed or we've suggested that could be removed. The athletic and athletic facilities and then the Hamilton master planning and wo master planning. >> Mhm.
>> Okay. Question as standard secretary. Can we do this? Do I need to do separate? >> You can do it. We can do it all at once. Otherwise, we could do it. >> Okay, I think I got it. Okay. >> I move that the Hamilton Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes. that the Hamilton
WM Regional School District School Committee appoint Amy Kunberger as the Miles River Middle School liaison, Megan Benson as the Cutler Elementary School liaison,
Kristen Non as the Winnham Finance Committee liaison, Amy Kunberger as the Hamilton Select Board liaison, and that we remove the athletic facilities improvement
building committee liaison role the Hamilton master planning liaison role and the wom master planning leazison roles >> a second >> second by Kristen noon >> wow >> that was impressive um all right is there any discussion questions
>> no okay looks like we're ready to vote all those in favor that is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes. Thank you all. >> Nice for getting that done. Okay. Um
Okay. Um next uh is the Buer uh lease. Oh, interesting. I'm sorry. Sorry, I just got signed out of my >> Yeah, >> that was me an hour ago. >> Doesn't usually happen in the meeting. Usually, it only happens when I'm meeting with Eric. Um, all right. That's
okay. I'm here. Nope, I'm I'm It's here. I can still see it. Um, okay. And to you, Eric, about the lease. >> Thank you. Uh, as we may remember earlier in the spring, the two leases for Carter and um, Bucer
and and actually Winthre 2 are all coming to ends and uh, on the Bucher, excuse me, on the win the uh, Wenham side. We reached out think right after town meeting to start the discussions with the extension of lease terms. Um
they went back and forth a little bit, got the document drawn up by their attorneys. Uh we finally got it signed by everybody on the select board and it's been officially voted by the select board. Uh the terms just need to be accepted by the school committee of it's a 10-year term. Everything else in the
original lease remains the same. There's no transfer of money or anything like that, but they just need us to accept the um the lease as presented. at least the least amendment as presented and then uh everybody will need to sign it
and then we'll get it back to the town. >> Great. Um why don't we start with a motion if you're willing. >> I move that the Hamilton Wenham Regional School District School Committee approve the extension of the lease on the Buer
School as written. >> Second. >> Second by Amy Kberger. Um anybody have questions? do not have questions. Um, well, I >> make a point of clarification. >> Yeah, I was gonna Yeah, go ahead. I had a couple, but I think you're going to
answer them right now. Go ahead. >> Maybe. Um, the the two things that I was going to mention. The top has no date built in there. It will be today once we get everybody signed in. And then, um, in the regional agreement, it does give
for the opportunity to give a 20-year lease. they've decided to go 10 because of the unknown nature of what's going on with the buildings and possible uh repairs, renovations, etc. down the road. So, they want to be able to revisit that if necessary.
>> Did I answer your question? >> Uh, yes. Okay. Um, and also I just I think you said it, but I just want to reiterate, not so much for the committee, but just for people in general, that there isn't it's called a lease, but there isn't actually an exchange of money. I know when I first began on the committee, it's one of the
things I searched through the budget and searched and searched and searched and I finally had to say to Vinnie, I'm so embarrassed, but I can't find the lease payment. Where is it? >> There's no lease. >> There is no payment. It's just an ag. It's really an agreement. >> So, a deal.
>> Um anyway, um all right. Anybody else have questions? Anything else? All right. Looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um >> so anybody who's here tonight, we'll get
you to sign before you leave and I'll track down the rest. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Next. I assume this is you, Vinnie. >> Yep. Uh so it kind of saddens me to bring this to you every year. I try to
train our budget holders and our administrative assistants to process our invoices uh timely and create POS but occasionally uh things are missed and we don't get invoices in time. Uh unfortunately we cannot process prior
year invoices without your uh specific approval. So, tonight I believe we have 13 invoices uh in front of us totaling $31,000 that were not processed against FY25 expenses and we're seeking your approval
to pay them out of 26 funds. 18, sorry, 18 invoices. >> Thank you. Um does anybody have questions? >> I don't think so. Um, Megan, >> I move that the Hamilton Winnham Regional School District School
Committee approve the prior year's unpaid invoices. >> Second. >> Second by Amy Kberger. Um, Vinnie, I just out of curiosity, is this um I admit that I didn't go back to look at last year. Um, how I mean, is this
amount sort of a typical amount or >> it's a little bit uh larger than normal? We usually bring this. would have thought that, but I admit that I did not go back to look. >> Uh, when we get the invoices, we kind of hold them until about this time of year and then bring them all to you instead
of bringing them one at a time. Uh, my hope is we do not come back to you this year. However, last year we did come back twice, I think, in the February time frame. Right now, these are all the invoices that have currently been given
to me. But again, tomorrow, uh, a department could come in with another invoice. I would probably hold it until February just in case more come in again. >> Okay. Ready to vote? >> Mhm.
>> All right. Um Oh, no. You already voted. Did we vote? No. >> No. No. >> Losing my mind. >> You have a motion and a second. >> Yes. Okay. All right. All those in favor and that is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay. All right. Next up um so we had an opening discussion um at a previous meeting about um
sort of the direction that we want to move um on our elementary school facilities. Um and we agreed at that meeting that we would continue the discussion. Um part
of that continuation is that Eric has provided us with this um document and I'm going to turn it over to you Eric and we'll hopefully have a productive discussion. >> Thank you. Um I apologize for the length of this document. It was really stream
of consciousness and really trying to figure out how to keep this project in in the kind of the in full view but also uh to to talk about some of the things that did or didn't work and talk about some of the options that we have coming forward. Um so this is is really this is
nothing cast in stone. I want to be clear about that. This is just me thinking out loud saying these are some ways we can go. there could be others that that we hope to dig out of um talking with people in the community and digging into some of the the activities that have gone along the way. Um the two
things that are still very clear to me I said at last meeting uh that the consolidation lacks sufficient support to move forward but people from every side believe that something needs to be done. So what is it? That's where we need to find. we need to dig in, keep looking forward and try to figure out um
what that something is and what the the the towns can tolerate um budgetarily and what that looks like in conjunction with the budgets and the capital asks from the two towns as well. So, find that balance. Um some of the things that are really non-negotiable for us with
with these bigger projects, um we will need to hire an OPM uh and you'll need to have a firm to do renovation, uh to do the design work. Um there are uh general laws that I just cited here just for ease and simplicity. Uh any
construction contracts over 150,000 require the appointment of an owner's project manager. So we had an OPM for the Cutler school project. We currently have an OPM for the roof project that's going on. And then as well um projects
exceeding 1.5 million, you uh need to do the the authorization for debt. So we have to go through that same process. there's there's no uh way around that. You also need a designer um when you're looking at it from the perspective of u major projects so that
you can get some opportunities for actual numbers through the through the bidding process. Designers often work as people who do the design work and help you with the bidding process as well because they know exactly how to set it up. Um so that's what the first few
paragraphs on the first page talk about. Um, we have received from the feasibility and schematic design phases of the Cutler school project, we did receive MSBA reimbursements of $567,299. That's from the original 1.2 million.
Um, just a quick review of the two programs MSB off MSBA offers. The core program, that's for big comprehensive projects like a brand new building and the accelerated pro repair program, the ARP. um time-sensitive replacements like windows, roofs. Um we're using the
accelerated repair program right now to try to get into the roof project with the MSBA. Um so the there's some opportunities for us to look at. I I talked a little bit about is it is it something that we could be more aggressive and prepare a
funding request for the 2026 annual town meeting to hire a designer to develop schematic designs and estimates for one or more schools. Um that could be that could look like something where you hire a designer uh excuse me an architect and they would come in and examine whatever
you ask them to do. There are several communities currently doing three, four, five, and six schools to trying to get an idea, baseline idea. And I think you can structure that ask an opportunity to look at each of the schools, find the
needs, and then ask through the RFP process um up for a breakdown like okay, what are the kind of the essentials? What are the ADA compliance that kicked in? So you could you could break it out so that you could ask this architectural
team to do multiple uh levels of of uh repair, replacement or renovation, whatever it may be. Uh I talked a little bit about a couple of options again not in stone. Uh option one would be moving forward with an OPM and a designer be begin design estimates uh at some level
of renovation or renovation addition at a single elementary school. And this would give us one long-term view of the pro the the the approximate financial impact. You could also do that for multiple schools. You could say, "Let's have somebody come in, do an RFP, and
have them look at all six buildings that we have and say, give us a breakdown of the basics, what would be good to have, what would be really nice to have, what would be a stretch, and then put it back out there publicly." Um, I think when
you do that, we know where we'd stand out with the schools and what we had for repairs everywhere. Um, the drawback is that if you do all six schools and you have six sets of numbers, the and you pick one school or two schools to attack
at one time, those other school numbers are no longer valid because they're going to move into the future. And as we know, the escalation costs have been dramatic over the past few years. So, it'd be hard to say if if somebody said it's going to cost you, I'm just going to use a number out of my head, 20
million per building, and you say, "All right, let's do Cutler and Buer," and you commit to that, those other costs move out further because you're not going to be able to do them back to back to back to back or you're just going to be stacking debt on top of debt on top of debt, which is something we want to
uh try to avoid. We can also uh just apply to the MSBA again in April. It's either March or April. We're still waiting to hear the deadline. And once we apply, we could apply with all the buildings. We could submit an SOI for all the buildings. And
um you wouldn't find out until the fall. You find out usually in October of uh the that year that you apply whether you're accepted into the program or not. They only accept one building. They will not do multiple buildings. Um so some level reimbursement could be available if they brought us back into the
program. Uh it is unlikely when you have a fail on one side. They usually want you to wait a few years to get your ducks in a row. Uh so there's no guarantee when you'd be accepted into the program. And then use the current study documents. We have I don't four or
5,000 pages of Cutler School uh detail design documents that are already in play um that we use during the MSBA process to dig into the building itself. The current building has nothing to do with the the new building, just the current building. Uh there were some
studies done on um hazardous materials uh things like windows and paint and doors. So we have a lot of those things. Um we we need need to hire someone to organize that and get some estimates going on that information. So that would save some money being able to use that
information um because we've co-paid for it. It is ours to use. It's not owned by the JCJ team that had had created it. So um we'd have all that information to use and move forward and really start saying okay how do we move into the estimating phase and then again design that
estimating phase so you get multiple levels of estimates for various levels of project completion uh either at one or all buildings. Uh some things to think about do we look at contracting for an updated enrollment study? I uh
went back to the 2014 study and pulled the numbers that they projected. Uh as you can see in the top of this chart, 2014 study, the the the top row uh below the dates is the the the projections that were done in for the 2014 study.
And here are the actual numbers in the middle that are current that that follow our enrollment charting. And then the difference so uh the actuals are except for one year which is that co year they were um off by between 20 and 90
students >> um in each of those. So I think the further out you get the harder it is which is proven here the numbers rise except for COVID they numbers rise the further out you get it's really hard to nail down an average um you know birth
rate versus housing starts and things like that. So, um it's one thing to to think about and then looking at the maintaining the expected financial needs. If we decide to do say one building and do a renovation of I'm
going to use the Buer as our example cuz we're sitting here. We still need to maintain our other buildings. Uh example of that is we just put a million dollars worth of boilers in the middle school high school complex um because the others failed three in a row. Failed. Failed. Failed. So, um, those are things
we'll still have to kind of keep an eye on. The roof in in the high school is being done right now. Um, if that passes the town meeting, great, we move forward. If not, we're going to be patching that roof uh continuously along with the Buer roof uh, which is would be the next kind of quote roof project. So,
we have to um, look at that, look at some of the other costs that are there. As you probably remember, we have a capital um, committee which M. Benson was part of the meeting today to review the current capital uh projects that are out there and capital for us in the in
the regional agreement is anything over $25,000. Uh so we still have to balance all of that across the budget while we're looking at um what to do with a single school or or two schools or three schools. Um do we understand why the consolidated project failed? Uh this is
just my thoughts and I wanted just to put those out there. I think I've thought a lot about it. I've dug into it, talked to a lot of people, got some good insight from people on all five sides. I think there literally are five sides to this. Um, and I think it's important to for us to dig into that as
we as we move forward. Um, do we simply want to work at bringing this the Cutler school into compliance with code? The code compliance was, as you remember, the lowest option. It's also the lowest uh level of repair. It doesn't get everything done. It just brings it to code. Um, so that would be something we
could just say, you know what, let's just bring a Cutler to code. That would be um I can't remember the actual cost on it, but it was several many millions of dollars uh to bring to code, but it's still an option. So, do we just do that? We again, we have that that all the
materials to to look at that and see what that would end up uh costing us over time. Uh do we renovate the Cutler school without MSBA support? Uh what I have learned in talking to a number of my colleagues around uh Burlington's a good example right now they are doing an
MSBA elementary school project with the MSBA. They are self-funding uh Burlington High School project which is uh what Andover was doing a few years back until they hit that cut two years ago where they cut uh where they had to cut 34 staff members. So the some some
districts are looking at it like that. Certainly Burlington's in a much better cash position than we are. Much much better. Uh but just how some uh communities are approaching it. You can build, you can renovate without the MSBA. Um there are some, you know,
people who think that might be cheaper. It's hard to say. I haven't been able to compare the same projects on both sides of the coin, but um it would it would certainly be a full load cost that the towns would have to bear. And then can we renovate more than one school at a time? It really depends on what we
decide to do. So, if you do two $50 million renovations, I would say probably not. Um, so it it really decide you really need to determine how to how to figure out that balancing act because no matter what you do, you take out a bond for I'll just use a round number of
10 million for one building and that's a 20-year bond generally, sometimes 25, but generally 20. Um, and then you wait a few years and you do another bond and say that's 12 or 13 or 14 million that goes on top of the current bond you
already have uh out there. So it it becomes a a stack that gains uh value really quickly and um really increases taxes really quickly too when you start doing that. So it's it's a again just something I just wanted to have on the table. uh no matter what we do, we'll
still need an OPM and a designer at some level because of the general laws. And then this just goes on just talking about a little bit of my ideas of having a community lesson uh listening session. I think it's important to just open this up and let it fly. I mean, it sounds
terrible, but I think that's the way to do it. Like open it up, let people come and say, you know, I think you should do this. I think you should do that. And constructively and positively, if you have something positive to add, come and tell us what you want to know. and then just take all that information, pull that in and start to build a direction.
Once we build a direction, put it back out to the community and start to say, "Okay, what types of things did we hear?" Um, and I think that way will give us a little more guidance. I don't know that a number of people in the community, especially in our elderly session, are ready to go forward with
hund00 million in projects. So, I think that's that's, you know, just an example of a group that's often unheard that we need to dig into and and try to figure out where they sit. Um, and then the uh the the design really still needs to meet some educational
requirements. We do need a space. I'll use Cutler as an example. Cutler has that modular wing that is rotting to the ground right now. We are trying to hold it together. um trying to keep it keep it keep it uh working in working order.
It's uh it's really beyond its time. So that piece of the puzzle, this is just again my opinion would probably need to go away. We'd have to replace that. There are four classrooms in there plus plus um art and music in that wing. Uh so it's just an idea of like okay, you know, people say what's the worst
school? The worst school through the process has always been the Cutler. The MSBA came out of nowhere and said yes, this is the one you need to start with. we had identified it years ago. Um so I think that's you know just something to keep in mind and then um
really I I just hope we can start to determine an initial direction so that we can move forward because ultimately I think again we all want to we all know there's something to do and we all need something that we can all be proud of and say okay I was part of that I was in
the conversation and this is what I'm I'm really happy with the the outcome. Um, so just just some thoughts. You know, I apologize for the length of the memo, but I think it's important to keep this conversation on the front burner um till we can get some things done before
we get too close to town meeting because as you know, if we don't have anything on the docket by February, we are not going to get it on the uh the warrant for town meeting. So, it's it's really a shorter window when you factor in the holidays and all the time off coming up. So I think just just want to open up the
door for the committee. >> Um so Eric, how do you want to structure this? Like I don't know what other people have. I have like a whole page full of notes. So I don't know how you want to structure this conversation. Like do you want to like I don't I if
you don't have thoughts we can just try to >> No, I I think I think if you look at it from the perspective of the the committee um I need some direction. >> Yeah. No, I >> and I think I think we we have the the
ability to at least kind of set a direction. >> Yeah. No, I I I think Yeah. I just I'm just talking just in terms of like the actual conversation here. Like I don't know if you want to >> Yeah. I think I think >> start with like like I literally have a
whole page of notes for myself. Some of them are questions, some of them are >> That's okay. I think >> I don't know how everyone wants to >> let's just jump in. I don't think we need to make about it. Yeah, >> it doesn't necessarily have to be organized. I think it's really okay. >> We need to start having discussion. I wish everybody was here, but I think, you know, we'll still need to bring this
around to everybody else so that we can include them. >> Yeah. All right. Dive in, Amy. >> Oh, yeah. You go ahead. You want me to start? >> Sure. >> Um, well, first of all, thank you for doing this. I think it was helpful. I I read it several times and made a lot of
notes. I And I guess I want to preface what I'm saying by saying that these are my thoughts right now. This is just a discussion. I'm not like I'm listening to >> Yeah. the committee, to Eric, to people in the community. Like I'm not there
just my sort of initial thoughts. I think I I want to reiterate that I do think that the two sort of upfront the two the premise that you laid out I think I feel it's really strong and important that consolidation lacked
sufficient support and that I I have I feel like we have a lot of evidence that the community does realize or does think that something needs to be done to improve facilities. So I feel comfortable
unless I hear in the future like I have not heard a lot of things that go against those two that good. I think that's a solid premise that like personally um I I guess I don't well I do have one we
could start with a question is that >> when you're going into the options there I wanted to sort of discuss the options between option one and option three like and I guess that these are not all the options in the world and I definitely have tried to generate kind of out of
the box options and thought about things that are outside of this and I've, you know, kind of put that out to you and too, but but I just want to make sure I fully understand what you're outlining in terms of the difference between option one and option three. My understanding of option three
um is, you know, we have all that stuff from Cutler and you'd be looking or we'd be looking if we pursued that at those initial first of all the current existing conditions at Cutler we have. Um but then also starting with that
point, we have things on renovation or ad rena that work and pursuing one or or one of those at Cutler. Is that what you're >> essentially focus on Cutler? Now >> outcome of option three would be a
renovation of the Cutler school or an addition renovation of the Cutler School. >> Correct. >> Right. Option one sounds like it could end up being that same thing, but it's more broad in that it could be a renovation or renovation addition of any of the
elementary schools. Is that I just want to make sure I understand like what the difference between option one and option two. >> Yeah, I think the when you look at the um option one, I was trying to focus it in on any elementary school just not you know the
the option three is dead focused on Cutler. we have all this information, let's use it, we can save some money in the process. Option one is uh you know take two steps back and decide to do something different or focus on you know at least one
elementary school or low low-level um renovations of two. Something that says you couldn't do two at at a time. It'd be a little bit chaotic. Um but but yes, just just trying to I'm trying to just open the door to some idea of
moving forward. Those the schools we know that need the current the most the most in-depth work of the of the elementaryaries. We can, you know, then then try to put everything else in order. I would put the middle school to the bottom of the list because it's the newest building. We've replaced all their windows. We replace now their
boilers, their heating system. Um so that will should hold up for us, >> I guess. And again, I I'm going to preface it like 700 times that I am very much still open to hearing different ideas, different opinions. I'm actively seeking different ideas and different opinions. Um, but because we're having
this conversation, I do say like for me as I read this, I there's it's appealing. Option three to me is appealing that we have a lot of the groundwork. um that Cutler School is we've
identified as the most in need. Um so of those I like I am but I have questions about applying simultaneously for the MSBA. Like I and I wonder I have questions about like well would it make sense for us to apply in April to the
MSBA and pursue option three simultaneously or do we separate those things out and say like let's pursue option three and wait till 2027 to apply or do we apply in 26
and then if we don't get anything in the fall begin pursuing option three. So that was a lot of >> but I think you I think you just made a great point like >> you want to hear other ideas so I think it's important >> I'm having this conversation publicly
because I want people to hear what I'm thinking but I am not >> which is why I brought it here >> but I think it's I think it's important like the opportunity of having maybe a couple listening sessions different times of day different locations different groups of people and
present this to them and and maybe other options. Okay, here are six options. What do you think? And just get some feedback from that perspective. But I I think if you do that, you still need some numbers out there for people to digest because I think it's it's it's where we got stuck last time. All of a
sudden we we didn't have numbers and then here's I forget what it was 15 options and that's a lot to swallow like what what to do. So I think getting it to some reasonable amount. Um, but I again I think the the idea of
finding some way to get the information we need from the public is an important first step before we get into even saying let's go in this direction or let's go in that because the the opinions that we hear outside of these meetings might push us to go in a different direction. >> Right. It could be option 12. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know.
>> Yeah. Somebody could come up with an idea to say why didn't you think about this, this, and this. you know, I think about my friend Ed who stood up here and had some ideas. I', you know, revisit Ed and his ideas and think about >> No, I mean some of those things. >> Um, so I'm going to say like two more
things and then so um one is I really have >> thought a lot about this and again >> I guess my mind could be changed but at this point I I am c everything I say feels risky to
say. It really does. But I I don't want or I see that it I think it wouldn't be the ideal situation for us to follow. I'm worried about following in
the model that I see Ipsswitch having gone down. Um I that while I actually believe very much that consolidation would have ultimately
been the most financially like in the long run I think it was the most the best financial decision and I really do respect that that is not what the voters they did not agree with that I am concerned about
and this is not me criticizing Ipsswitch I like but I'm concerned that what happened to them is then they went back to the drawing board seven years later and came back with the same result which is they still felt that consolidation was going to be the best financial
option and now they're pursuing essentially the same project several years later. I'm very cautious about >> nervous about that >> that I >> I
that I understand how that happened. I guess I just wanted to say that that's something that I'm worried about. Again, I'm open to hearing people's other ideas. Um, and then the only other thing I wanted to say and then I'm going to stop is that I really think and I've literally tooken
a million notes. I tried, you know, googling and searching and chapp cheaping and everything about how to create some sort of a body or entity that could help us as a community. not
help us but help us the whole community to agree on an established set of facts so that we could like if that body I'm imagining that body and you can insert
the own your own aims but think of the two most diverse people that you could think of in our community and if we could put those two most diverse people in a room and they would agree on like the cost that we could agree or the size of the building or the like whatever it
is. I'm not saying that like facts. I'm not talking about opinions. I'm talking about things because I think that that really was a problem is that there was differing um there were differing sets of facts out in the community and that really made it very difficult to have conversations that. So I don't know how
that would get created, what that would look like. I like but I would like it to be that I'm trying to make something up that isn't related to anything because I'm not looking to sort of inflame anything but like in other words if we were building
and someone was trying to say well the building that is you know is going to be set um or let's say somebody described the size of the lot I would want that's a good example like if if there was a dispute and one person said the one
group was saying the size of the lot was this and the other person was saying the size of the lot is that. I would love it to be that there was some body or some organ or group of our citizens, people in town that could sit down and then they would be able to put out yes, we've confirmed with whatever that the lot is
actually this size. That's a dream that I have and I would love to hear ideas about how that could happen. Um, well, one of the things that I wrote down that I wanted to talk about was the possibility, sounds kind of like what you're talking about, of forming our own
school building committee. Um, not to make decisions, but to help collect feedback and have discussions and maybe be this dream team that you're talking about. um where like this committee
could decide on sort of the ingredients of that committee. I would definitely like to see educators on that committee, people from the community, you know, kind of what you're talking about. I think um so that was one of the things that I brought tonight that I would like I
don't know if that's possible. Um and I feel nervous talking about it too because I don't know how it would work as far as leadership. Um, but that is something that I did write down. So I think I'm kind of thinking of the same thing.
>> Yeah. Like I Yeah, I >> Well, and I'm intrigued by I mean, so Scott Matter spoke earlier, right? I think and and he had sent us an email. I'm intrigued by his citizen-led committee to do some of this like
outreach, right? A renovation, what do you call it? A renovations outreach committee. Um, so I'm not sure if that's like similar to what you're saying, Amy, or like >> I guess I think I'm actually slowing it down even. I think I'm not really talking about how to communicate out
those facts. I'm just talking about like I just would love if like there was a way that like when you got to a conversation with someone when you were saying well you
know the whatever the grass at at the Winthrop school is green and they were saying no the grass at Winthre school is blue that you'd be able to go to a this committee and say like the committee's done the research and actually the grass
is purple and like that's >> what's actually like that's like so that we could all be like okay and we'd all in I mean there's no such thing as all but most people in the community would see that there were representatives on that group or in that group that they
trusted and believed and so if th that group >> all agreed then it would be likely that people would be like okay these are the facts um I don't know and again I think that's sort of fantasy I I think maybe you're talking more about how to communicate the facts like
>> Well, no. I mean, and maybe I interpreted that a little bit differently. I think he was saying more about like working together to come like to identify solutions. So, I think it's kind of similar, but his had like a huge citizen element to
it. >> Yeah. No, I think that's I mean I think that's what Eric's talking about about the >> um listening sessions about >> like and I don't know how to create those. I sent Eric I'm not even going to share it. I did send Erica kind of a crazy idea because I was like we're
trying to think outside the box but about how to ensure that those are really robust listening sessions and not um like and not like to get big involvement
from people like >> you know >> and like yeah constructive feedback not just like an airing of grievances I forward looking I mean forward looking I mean that's part of it is like that what what I think we're needing to look is
like what do you want to do >> now >> like >> um >> I think that's where we need >> because yeah so I'm sorry keep going >> you have more >> I have more but I don't want to keep
talking um so some other things that I wrote down um and I am also grateful Eric for this list. I think it's really important that if we do something like option three, I did mention last meeting, I think we should leverage the existing work that's
already been done like to, you know, to save some money hopefully and have some vision about planning. We've got a ton of documentation. Um, I do think though it's really important if we do something like option three, like go go go all in
on color, that we identify priorities at the other elementary schools and really jump on them. Um, things like HBAC, like some of the things that came out while we were talking about the other elementary schools. Um and I think you
know trying to you mentioned numbers like it's important for people to see numbers and I agree and I think you know HVAC savings things like that like I think those are some things concrete numbers that we could get but I have questions about
you know obviously it costs money to get those kinds of bids and things like that. So, it's hard to find a starting point, but I'm I would be more comfortable going all in on one school if we also had some things in place for
the other schools. Um, that was another thought that I had while I was reading this. And the enrollment study, I also agree with that. I think >> Oh, can I ask an enrollment study question while you're asking? Do you have any ballpark on how much an
enrollment study costs? >> Depending on who you hire and what you ask them to do, roughly between8 and $20,000. >> Okay. I Well, I guess I because I really was like I have no idea. I >> It's not my favorite option. I I like I just you know that when you look at this
chart, it's you can probably reach out five to eight years accurately. After that, it falls off pretty quickly. Well, and even that is not I mean I don't know whether the you know there's a range obviously there's a guess some guesswork. It's
>> like I'm not sure about how >> it's dependent on >> sure how useful because we see that by the time we get >> to an actual project >> like particular when you're talking about say kindergarten.
>> Yeah. many of the children that would be in don't exist yet. So, it's hard to count them because >> that's true, >> you know. So, >> but we do have things, you know, the the pending project at Gordon Conwell, you know, that could be a significant
enrollment >> could be, but we don't know. That's part that's like a >> like maybe it's a big variable. >> It would be important, but it's also like if we don't know for sure what that's going to look like, it makes it really difficult to actually do the enrollment study.
>> Definitely. >> The difficulty with an enrollment study in small communities is the numbers are so small. It's it's you're starting to look at birth rates, house sales, things like that. Like there are years when there's 150 houses sold in in Hamilton and there are other years when there are not. So it's how do you how do you guess
on that? How do you guess on live birth rates for 20 years out when you're the you know there's there's a lot of movement now with um the the people that are in their front kind of 60 and over and 60 and under there's a lot of shifting and with the um apartment
dwelling units you're seeing some even more unusual shifts that communities have not uh built into any statistical analysis. So those types of things would would I I just think it's your accuracy is going to be shortlived. >> You're better off spending your money looking at
>> the buildings themselves to say, okay, what what's the basics? What are the basics? Bring them all the code or bring them to code and do this or you know, so three or four tiers for each building. Well, the other thing is one of the things that was I thought that the MSBA
required with the consolidated proposal that the MSBA required that I thought was actually a really good requirement was that you had to show where and how you would hypothetically build an addition if your population grew. And so
it might be the kind of thing where >> if hypothetically we pursued like a a renovation addition, maybe we made sure like that we had that kind of a plan in
place so that like if that occurred, we would already we would save our future selves some of the hassle. I mean, that was part of the original project was that the MSBA wouldn't let you build this unless you >> did some work to say where and how you
would make add additional classrooms if that came to be. >> Yep. >> So, I guess I wouldn't want to do whatever we did. I'd want that to be a consideration and maybe that eliminates a little bit of the need of I mean it does I know I'm this is not my area of expertise certainly predicting
population but these numbers sort of feel like you know is it really that different than somebody just taking a ballpark guess of how much like well I guess the point is more about like your point about MSBA requiring a plan in
case of a big boost enrollment like maybe that is the point rather than trying to nail down the actual number. >> And so one thing that I've been experiencing is the potential of building like an out building, >> you know, and I don't know about, you
know, this there's definitely like security concerns about having say like an art and music building on the Cutler lot, you know, having kids go outside. Um, which could be wonderful going outside. >> I love going outside. >> My high school was in five buildings and
a lot of benefits. I do know >> you're talking about a modular unit. >> I'm not talking about necessarily a modular unit, but >> just a separate building. >> Just a separate building. And I don't know if that would help us as far as um you know triggering upgrade costs
based on like I know like one of the biggest issues with renovating the schools is if we hit a certain threshold, it then you know requires us to upgrade a whole bunch of things. And while I want to upgrade all of the things, I do recognize that that's not going to be possible at once. So that's
one thing that I'm interested in, not only for solving some of these issues, but like that could also be an enrollment plan where if we suddenly have this big enrollment, can we build an out building? I I don't like the idea of using modulars for anything because
we see now the issue of why that's not good. You know, we've got these really old modulars. So, I wouldn't be supportive of that, but I am curious about the rules around outbuildings um and kind of a long-term
plan of you know connecting to an existing building, things like that. >> That's like really interesting. Like I think that's and also I don't know that we do know what the modernday modular like the modular
at Cutler school >> I know is not meant to be >> old was not meant to be anywhere near this old. I've told this story a thousand times but my 29year-old son went to the second grade there in what they were describing at the time as an
extremely old modular building that shouldn't still be here. And so like that's but I don't know like are there modular buildings today? I don't know that are more better than that. Like I don't know. I mean
>> it depend it depends on what type of modular you're looking at. So if you had a modular build that was a permanent build that would be much different than a temporary modular unit for >> was like a temporary Ours was like a temporary that was temporary for >> overgrowth. It's like an accessory dwelling unit for school.
>> Yeah. >> Right. Well, that's a creative idea. >> Um, and then I I kind of think I don't know. There's one more thing I wrote down that I'm not ready to talk about yet. >> Okay. Sorry. I mean, I've been talking a
lot, too, so it's good. >> Um, >> what do you what do you think about community listening session or sessions? I >> think we have to >> I Yeah. Well, I have thoughts. Go ahead. >> I'm in favor. >> Oh, yeah.
>> Oh, for sure. >> I But I'd like to maybe brainstorm some additional ideas because because we've had some um and I'm curious to hear like exactly what people's ideas are about format. Maybe we don't just we don't figure that
out right this minute, but like coming up with more >> and I guess I wonder I want them to be open to everyone. Mhm. >> And I wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial
for and I don't and that's something I would look to the public but to suggest like so back in the day I used to run parent groups pre like preschool parent groups. One of the ways to build a good group,
like if you want to have a group of 10 and have a really productive conversation, you don't just put it out on a flyer and say, "Come to the group." You actually usually call one or two people and say, "You would be a really useful member of
this group. I'd like you to come." um and you and people come because because they got invited. So I would want to create
again to be clear I'm saying it should be open to everyone. I'm not say but what I'm saying is that might be helpful like Eric just mentioned senior citizens for example. It might be helpful to specifically reach out to a few people
and I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how we identify people but like to invite them to the group. um like people in diverse commu parts of the community. Um I don't know
>> I think the difference between the six forums we did and the listening session is would it be important to delineate that it would literally be to gather as much information as
possible not sell anything say anything show anything there'd be no PowerPoint it' be come in the room and let's dig into this what are your ideas what are your ideas what are your ideas. What do you think? What do you not like? Get it all together. Get it summarized. Bring
it back around after it's summarized. Get it back out to the public and say, "Okay, here's what we heard." >> I think we we really just need to take those steps. If we do that and and literally invite invite, you know, send out a mail to every house. We've done that. Send out that information. Have
people, you know, each group bring 20 people. I don't know. And just so we can come in the room. And it's it's I think I think it's important to lay the ground rules um up front and I think people would adhere to that. I mean there's nothing to fight about. It's really okay what
can we do to best position our communities moving forward financially and academic and educationally. So that's >> and I think you want to hear the ideas like you I mean maybe this is too in the weeds but like to me in a listening session one of the things you want to
say is like >> let's just hear everybody's dream and everybody's vision of what you'd love to create and like acknowledge that like we get that there are probably like you could come up with your dream and there are going to be obstacles to it and
there going to be challenges but it would be good to hear what everybody's because it it's an an opportunity to hear like you know if 15 people all shared different visions but each person
started off by saying you know like would I really my dream is to you know whatever support you know that the you know we the education of all of our children and that you know that everyone in Hamilton
wants to send their children to public school that's my dream. If everybody had that dream, but then they had 15 different versions of the type of building that they want, it's it's powerful to say like what an amazing thing. Like everyone in our community wants to live in a community where everybody wants to send their kids to to
public school. Isn't that amazing? Like I I just think you want people to dream big even if you're not being polyianaish about it. You're not trying to pretend that there aren't obstacles. I just do want to hear those ideas, creative ideas about like
let's you know outuildings or this or that or like you know >> and I think it might be helpful as well to maybe um and again new to all of this so I don't know how we do this in a public body forum like how we do this but um
like a lot of what I do in in my work is gather feedback in a structured way and so maybe accompanying some open discussion with like a structured survey where we're trying to gather because I think it's really important for us to also understand priorities because if if
people are mostly concerned about cost and like doing multiple projects then that's really going to inform the direction we go right and I think if people are then if some people though are more concerned about well we need to make sure we have an equitable experience for all students or like all
we just bring our schools up to code like I think Having some of that direction in a structured way might be helpful as well. And and doing like a structured survey is one way that I just as a a person who works with a lot of data, it can be really difficult when you're trying to parse open comment um
in like a meeting. So >> I love that. I think that's I think I mean like Eric said there are at least three sides and maybe five or six sides you know but yeah it would be good to understand like
>> you know is is the priority cost is the priority >> is the priority small schools is the priority like what is this priority like >> and like what is the problem statement we're trying to solve and we might have multiple problem statements and then we have to then prioritize those and work
on those in a phased fashion. that just helping to understand what are we what is the community looking to solve I think is >> I like that >> I think it's important also just like all of you sitting here
tonight afraid kind of having a little bit of fear of saying certain things that would be the first thing to overcome in any public meeting all right we want you to come there may be people that say I'm never coming because they didn't listen to me the first time but we need to now figure out ways to
rebuild that trust. It'll be slow and it'll be steady if at all. It'll just be an opportunity to say, "Come in the room, be heard. We're not going to take any action yet. We're going to gather information. We're going to take that information, mash it together, bring it back again,
>> and then we'll go through it again." So, I think that that process helps >> to help build the trust. I don't think it's >> Yeah, >> it's not going to happen overnight. It's definitely a longterm process, but I think part of that is >> also trying to align it at the same time with the realities of
>> of town meeting and and the the budget process and things like that. So that's, you know, it may not happen this year. It may >> and we have a deadline of February, isn't it? Right. Because I think that's what you're saying here, Eric, is that if we want to put forth any requests for town meeting in April, we need to have
that figured out in February. And we are saying that we want the listening sessions to inform the options that we approach and what we go to the town with. Right. So So it's like, sorry, I'm like a project manager. I think like very sequentially. So it's like if our
if our milestone at the end is April town meeting backing up to that is February budget, what do we need to do to get to that budget request? >> Well, it seems like then I mean to me we need to have again everything feels scary to say
because I but to me it sounds like if we need to have a listening session before the end of the year because if we don't have a listening session till January, I mean I don't know if that's true or not. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how we >> or otherwise you're going to have because I think you need to have more
than one. You could have two in January. >> Maybe that's better. People are I mean I guess we're only a couple of weeks away from being people being very distracted for >> holidays >> by the holidays. Well, then I guess like so question for you Vinnie and Eric who
have more I have no experience with this to get to like the cost of what option one or option three like to understand how much that would cost and then the ask to put into the budget request. What does that look like? How do we do that? >> I don't think it would happen this April.
>> I think a budget request would be for >> to do that to get to do the planning, >> right? It wouldn't >> you'd be you'd bring in a planner who would put everything together to get things ready for um u a bidding pro uh estimation process, >> right? It wouldn't
>> So, you need to nail down an estimation process so that you can say here are the >> I'll just use Buer again. Here are the three options for renovating or renovating additions at >> Buuker. >> Um so the the bottom one, as Amy said, we have a little advantage because we have a lot of that data. We just need
somebody to organize it and get those estimates ready. What that looks like in an RFP, I've asked every person I can find that's doing a building project to give me their RFP so that I can look at these and say, "What is it about?" You know, >> you may be in the $400,000 range just to
get something done for just get a baseline of each of the schools. >> And sorry, do we have to we have to do an RFP to to get to the number that we can request or we're we're requesting money to do the RF? No, we would we would work with professionals, come up with a a number just like we did for the
um for for the Cutler initial project. The number 1.2 came out of the data that we took from the site the um MSBA website on project costs and >> uh through each of the the modules the nine modules we went back and we went through and we said what's comparative
to our town sizes, what's comparative to our elementary school and that's where we came to the 1.2 million. >> Mhm. And then these professional groups have decide can they do it within that or not. Some will say I can't do it within that and they walk away. And we ended up having I think four on each
side, four OPMs and four or five um designers that were willing to step up within those cost parameters and and some couldn't do it. They outright said they couldn't do it. So you'll get people. You just have to find who's who's willing to do it within the parameters. But we wouldn't just come
with a blind number. are literally reach out and like I have a bunch of RFPs right now for districts that are doing >> um something similar trying to just get a baseline on all of their buildings. So I have three different >> and that would be the amount that you and that would be the amount that we
would if we were to do this if if if if um that would be the amount we would come to town meeting with the request. >> Right. And once we got that number, then the RFP gets built to say we need we have we want we have a put out a request for proposals for and we outline what we
want >> in that request. So we lay that out exactly what we want. We want this this this and this. >> People bid on it and say, "Yeah, I can get it." You know, they're not going to touch it if they can't get in within the number we have. So >> yeah, understood. Okay. So, I'm just
being my conservative project manager self here. I don't know if we can do all of this by February, right? Listening sessions and do this and try to rebuild trust, engage the community. Like, I think it's very regressive. It's we're year end, right? It's Q4 holidays
are coming up, right? There's a lot going on. I'm just h right and I understand we have to do this in like an open forum. We have to plan all of these things. It's slower than in my corporate life where we just do things overnight. Um >> well, right. There are I mean, keep going. Yes.
>> Yeah. And so I'm just I'm just like I'm just trying to be really realistic. I think we all want to do something very quickly and try to do the best for our community, our children, our learners. Um I just don't I'm just I'm just
stating that my my milestone planning brain is like I don't know how we do this by February. um if it's already November 6th. >> Well, that I mean that's one of the things I said. I said, "Well, like maybe that's not maybe you apply. I don't
know." Like, you know, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't get I guess I sort of feel like it doesn't mean we shouldn't get started. Like in other words, >> request something and then still >> No, no, I'm not talking about requesting. I'm just talking about the listening sessions. Like I think it seems like we haven't voted or anything, but it seems like people are on board that that's going to be valuable work.
>> I don't disagree. And I think what I think where I'm jumping to is like is we do these listening sessions. We're trying to we're trying to achieve multiple goals. We're trying to rebuild trust. We're trying to engage the community. We're trying to do all of these things. Part of that is clearly setting expectations around what this is
going to lead to. And I think if we don't clearly state that we might not be able to immediately jump on this and do something and get something in the budget for next year, right? um like if we don't share that upfront with folks in these listening sessions, I do think that's going to just already upset
people. Like I think we have to be very clear that like our window is rapidly closing. >> Yeah. >> And and so we're still committed to doing listening sessions, but it may not lead to immediate action. >> No, I think that's
I don't know. I think that's real. I also think we don't know. And so like we want to also be open to the possibility again which I don't anticipate but we do want to be open to the possibility that like we could have listening sessions and it could become abundantly clear that the community does have a very
specific direction that they're ready to go in and like I mean I don't feel like we've seen that but it could happen like it could happen that the community comes and really is like we have a really specific direction. This is really what we want. We're ready to go. And maybe we
are ready to go. Like >> ATM's not your final stop either because look at how many special town meetings have occurred. >> There's opportunities beyond the April town meeting. I mean everybody once I get in front of everybody in April town meeting because that's generally the
largest attendance. It's where people expect the things to happen. But >> but for the budget I >> the budget will have to our budget will have to be this would be separate from the budget because it would be a debt exclusion. >> Okay. I think but I think everything you said was re important and real. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> I'm sorry Kristen, did you have stuff to say? >> Um, sure. And I don't want to repeat kind of anything that's been said, but as a new member and trying to kind of dive into the deeper layer of this um you know community challenge that we
face, my sort of gut feeling is that this is going to be two school committee budget cycles to get to an answer because we're going to need to request some amount of money this year to help us build a plan,
right? Because I think money follows a plan. So, you know, we have to I think spend the time needed to build the plan. And I think there will need to be way more than two listening sessions. I think it's going to have to be 24 months
of listening sessions, feedback sessions. I think all of these ideas are good to be thinking about. Is there a citizen-led community? Is there sort of information arbiter? I think we need like all the legs of these stools. And I think for me the valuable
information that I'm trying to understand as an early part of a listening session is what is the information that people need to be comfortable to make a decision because there are so many intersecting challenges here. And I think that was part of the challenge with the last
round of school voting is we had intersecting challenges of unknown municipal budget, zoning changes. There's all these questions that people have and I think understandably people are reluctant to say, "Well, I'm going to approve this debt this year and I'm gonna I could be being asked at next
year's town meeting to approve debt for something else that I don't know what it is, but maybe somebody in the local government or someone had an inkling this was coming, you know. So, I think we need a bigger contextual picture of
what's going on." So, and again like Dana, I'm not I don't want to tie myself to any one opinion or thing because this is really early days, but I think it's going to be difficult to know what to do with the schools without more estimates
for what it's going to take whether we tier these things. It's like building envelope, building systems, learning changes. I don't know how we do it, but to try to get more reliable data as to what all of this will cost because that's the first
question a lot of people are going to ask. And I think that's a human and understandable response. I don't know that that always gets to the heart of the learning challenges or the educational benefits we're trying to deliver by aligning facilities with
programming. But I think we're going to probably need to figure out what money we need to have better cost estimates for these renovations and what is the whole landscape of all I think Eric said we have six buildings. Um what what what
are we like three elementary schools, the admin building, middle school, high school, like what is the what are we really looking at? And I would encourage if it's possible and maybe this already exists and I just don't know but our you know partners in the two towns like what are they looking at for facilities
challenge like this is a three-part problem I think and I think without more information on all of those parts I think it's going to be hard and and some of those parts are not our responsibility but I think without more kind of communitywide information on
that it's going to be hard for people to make a decision about a significant, you know, borrowing that's into the tens and tens of millions. Um, so I think that and I think some of these listening sessions too just because I've managed facilities and managed the general
public and dealing with them and I think I'm I'm curious to know I think some of these folks probably have a number in their head of what they think this should cost >> and I think that would be instructive like >> where where is the community in thinking what this should cost and then how can
we support understanding where these numbers come from with prevailing wage an OPM and a designer and why is it so expensive to build a school where it is far less expensive to manage a facilities project in your own home or your own private business where are all these numbers coming from because I
think that um is not easy to understand always >> absolutely >> it's very nuanced I think >> and I think we've heard definitely that I know I yeah >> I know I learned a lot about that over this process >> um I just wanted to sort of tap into you
you talked about which I think and I understand I'm making a little bit of a different point but you started to talk at the beginning >> um about I do really feel like in that's what I was talking about like I want to hear people's dreams I did hear more than one
person throughout this process say that in their dream what they would have liked to have had is three fully fleshed out completely built >> options a town meeting, three complet, you know, this is a menu that they could
have voted for. And I want to just say like I completely understand that and I would have loved to have that too. And um and so I think like I want people to say that if that's what they wanted and that creating each one of those options
cost a tremendous amount of money >> and so but like I 100% I I would have loved to be able to say like >> well if that's the information people need to make a decision >> right >> then maybe we have to say okay to get
that information we need an appropriation or a budget line item or whatever the right verbiage is of this amount of money to get those answers. >> Right. Even though like that's a lot of money. >> Could be. It could be a million dollars. I don't even know. >> Well, right. I mean, in other words, it
it was it was it Yes, >> it's a lot of money. >> Right. And so you know that it >> so I just wanted because I I I know that that was a little bit separate from your point, but you started talking about that and I >> Well, I have also like a hundred ideas like binging around in my brain right
now and like questions as I try to figure this out. But >> um >> but yeah. >> All right. I don't know. Does anybody else have I just go ahead little thing to say >> and then I do we do need at some point to move on but I feel like I talked a lot so please go. >> This is kind of selfish of me to take
this time but I I just want to make it clear that my um outbuilding idea. I would not be in support of it happening if we're just doing the outbuilding. I really, really, really think it's important that we also address what is happen, what the
priorities are inside of that building, that we build an out building. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. >> But I I just I and I want to say like I didn't take it as that. I took it as like being creative and throwing I mean literally I threw out you know 12 crazy
ideas to Eric including one I was like well do you have anybody who announced like okay let's just do outdoor school like let's just like you know like I want to hear like I want to hear right exactly like creative ideas like you know and >> of course that was
>> you know tongue and cheek but it's also like okay well where is the opportunity in this >> like like where's the opportunity? There's always some opportunity in the setback, right? That like >> So, in the past when we've kind of been
stuck on next steps for something like this, we've done we've appointed a portion of the committee to work on, you know, first steps. We've authorized Eric to take steps. Like, is that
something we want to do tonight so that we're moving forward? Um, even if it's as simple as like setting up an email address where people can start sending feedback like >> I don't >> I just don't want to not >> Yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, we didn't
>> we didn't I mean, we it's just a discussion, so we didn't commit to But I mean, I don't know the only I mean, I certainly heard I don't know what you take away, but I certainly heard an appetite from this committee for robust listening sessions
regardless of what happens. Um, Eric, what else did you take away? >> Um, the idea of the listening sessions I think came out loud and clear. I think the, um, idea of direction is something we really want to nail down. Like, okay,
if we have these listening sessions, can we time them to a certain point in time? Like, say we want to target by the end of, I'm just going to throw a number out. Please don't hold me to it. December 2026 to have all these listing
sessions done and also have some direction at that point where we have RFPs in process. And Vinnie hates when I say that because he ends up writing them all. Um but but the u the idea would be to just to be
able to move in a direction. Um I don't think you have a year to to do a listening session. I think you know you you we we can we can do it. But I mean we can definitely get out there gather information whether it's you know a few
people from the community and a few people from the committee just all right listen what did you hear put it all together and then you know morning afternoon evening sessions maybe two two of each and then at least start there and say okay what do we have and then
bring that back to the crew the groups and say okay can't is there an agreement point somewhere in here because that's going to be the hardest thing to find what the agreement point is because I I've talked to I had a gentleman in my house I was 80 something years old and he said I'm not agreeing to anything and I was like okay that's fine but thank
you for letting me know you know but but this this you know what I mean like I said there's everybody in between too so finding that inflection point of being able to get the debt exclusion passed is going to be difficult it's going to be
it's not like oh it's going to be a $22 million project that covers this this and this I think people need people will need to see it. I think several people made the point that um we need to get out there with some numbers. A menu is a great idea to be able to say, "Okay,
here are three options for every school. Do we, you know, and you create a menu? Is it one school at a time, two projects at a time, shift totally out of the box and go to the high school and start there, you know, like so I think look at
that opportunity too to give people the option. Um, and that could be what's on town meeting. It might not be a binding. It could be non-binding to say, "Okay, where are we at? Let's get a sense of where the community is at." So, that's Yeah, >> I think we have some good starting points.
>> Yeah. Well, I I mean that was I mean, >> which I put it out I put that out a little bit as the I was like, I'm not going to say that, but Eric just said it. that you know in in part of my research about when I researched what happened
with the middle school in the '9s, one of the things that occurred is they had a non-binding town meeting. Not saying that we should do that. I'm just saying throw it. Yeah. And they >> whatever they horse traded and straw
pulled and argued about and it was a nonbinding they took votes but they were non-binding votes about what it was a very different it was it has a lot of similarities. It also has a lot of differences. >> That's where you're generally getting the most people in one place. >> Exactly. Um so I don't know if there's
an opportunity for some sort of a listening at town meeting. I mean, that's I don't know. >> I mean, if there's I I'm just I don't know anything about that from a legal standpoint or how the town does that, but I just wonder if there's any
opportunity where people are gathering where we could get reliable feedback, >> right? >> It might be of a diverse group of people that have >> keeping discuss keeping talking about that to see like is is that worth doing, >> right? >> You know, >> yeah, I don't know.
Um, all right. I don't I do want to move forward, but do we have any I mean to Amy's point, do we feel like that there's any action step like do we want to task it sounds like do we want to task someone on the committee to work with Eric around setting up listening
sessions? Is that too soon? What are people thinking? Or is there some other action? >> Eric, >> I mean, I don't think it's too soon. >> It's never too soon. >> Have them. >> Yeah. start them. Learn something. >> I don't either. I'm trying to be >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's a It's a little juggling
match. The next two months is always a juggle, but I think you got to get people in the room. You got to get people. It could be five people in the room to start, then 10, then 20, >> right? Smalling sessions could be good >> over at the COA next door with seven people. I don't, you know,
>> do we feel like it's something that we need? Like what do you feel like? What do everybody feel like we need? Like do we want I don't know like do we want a member of the committee working with Eric. Do you want like I don't know
who's running the listening sessions. I don't know like >> I mean I'm happy to help. I I'm not like a trained facilitator or survey provider but I'm happy to be there and listen to people. I mean, or not, you know, just >> I'm gonna be frank and say there might
be some benefit to either Kristen or Megan >> only because we're like you're >> we're newer. >> You're joined after many of the decisions >> were made. >> Yeah. Um, and so what we're striving for
was a forwardlooking like I'm happy to be there just to be clear with the public. I'm completely happy to be at a listening session. Um, I don't know. But I don't know what do what do you think in terms of what you need in terms of
>> um I think I think open the door to to let some public in. So I'm just going to use an example. if if I'm standing in front of all these people in the room from all the sides, it's not beneficial to open the trust
door. So, I think it's an opportunity for us to yeah, have a committee member, have a couple committee members at each one so that you're getting you're kind of hearing what's going on because ultimately it comes back here for that forward vote, but also give um different
people in the community. There are clearly anxious people. We've had several speak tonight. We've had several speak at other meetings that would be involved. And really just immediate like, okay, let's let's go through a process of here's
what we're trying to do. We're we're trying to come to some decision. I mean, we have two lines that describe what we're trying to do. What do you think? And let it go. I mean, it has to be unbound, I think, a little bit, too. And people go people might get upset. They might get angry. That's okay. That's part of the process. It's part of the
community process. But I think ultimately we can get that into some form of action or at least starting to look like action that we can drive forward. So I think invite some people in from
out in the community who are not school people. >> Oh yeah. No, definitely. >> You know what I mean? >> I can send a message out to all the parents, >> right? But are you saying invite people in? Are you saying no? I definitely >> help facilitate. Maybe you have three three or four facilitators.
>> I volunteer. >> I didn't hear anything. >> No, I mean I think that could be an interesting I mean it's everything is fraught, right? because it's like if you like you select the facilitator then
you know but I think it's like I there's never going to be the perfect thing but I think that's a good starting point is to try to do that >> and I think maybe have a try to be balanced and have and I think >> we have a volunteer in the room I think that's great
>> no I think that's great >> so I so new still do we h can Eric like form a like do you form a committee with >> he doesn't have I mean in other words that's the beauty of that is he wouldn't have to be forming a committee Eric could just do that we could form we
could vote to task Eric with doing that but >> um and then you know in a listening session I mean there's like logistics around committee members could be there but if you've got a quorum there then you have to post it as meeting whatever so we >> and that and then you end up with this
kind of an awkward conversation instead of um >> I don't I if If I went to something like that, I wouldn't anticipate speaking, >> right? We could all just observe. I mean, those are different. We can deal with all of that later. Like, in other words, I because I wouldn't want it to be run like a school committee meeting. It would just be us because where the
point is we're listening. >> Um, so, >> so generally just task me with putting together a plan for developing >> at least process process >> process for listening sessions. Yeah. >> Okay. I move that we task Superintendent
Eric Tracy to develop a process to establish listening sessions to move forward potential options with the elementary school facilities. >> Second. >> All right. I heard second by Amy Kberger. Does anybody have any
questions? Right. Looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor? And that is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes um from Megan's lovely uh motion there
which I didn't restate so I didn't write it down but it was good listening sessions. >> They're not brief my motions or it's okay. >> Okay. Thank you all. All right.
Next up, Vinnie with the year- end forecast. >> Everybody's favorite part of the night. >> Woohoo! Uh thank you guys for letting me present to you tonight. I am here to discuss uh the FY26 year-end forecast uh as of
quarter 1 ending September 30th, 2025. Doesn't want to work. Okay. Um so, as you probably uh know, quarter 1 means that 25% of our fiscal year has passed. Uh but we are a school district and the majority of our expenditures
happen within those 180 days of school. Uh so if you look at it just from that September 30th point of view, we've only had 21 school days pass or roughly 12% uh of the school year. Uh for that reason, we have not done an entire line
by line analysis of all 450 uh of our account lines. Uh instead we our quarter 1 forecast is based on all staff changes that we know of as of September 30th. Uh plus an out of
district forecast that was provided by Stacy Buick our director of student services and then uh in addition a health insurance analysis. Uh so you might ask why it doesn't work. Sorry. So you might ask why do we look at just these three items? Well it's because
they're our largest uh three budget categories. So if you look at our FY26 operating budget, it is approximately 46.6 million. Uh you look at salaries, this is our number one budget category. It
represents 27 uh.6 million of our $46.6 million operating budget or roughly 59%. Uh you then add in our out of district tuitions that has a budget of just under 4.6 6 million uh you're analyzing
another 10% of our operating budget. Then you throw in our health insurance premiums uh which our budget is approximately 4.1 million uh you've just added 9%. So amongst these three budget categories uh we've covered $36.3
million or roughly 78% of our budget. So although we don't go through an entire line by line analysis, we do cover more than the majority of our budget uh during our quarter of one review. So I'm going to briefly go over kind of the
major changes in these three categories. Uh with staffing, I'm heavily involved uh in staffing changes in payroll. Uh every payroll that we post, I'm reconciling it uh to the dollar for everyone's gross pay uh back to the
budget. uh back to wherever the major changes are. So from September 30th, I can accurately predict if the year were to end right now and we didn't have any other changes that we would end with this residual balance. I'm obviously not going to go over every line item here.
I'm kind of just going to go over the top uh everything kind of plus and minus $10,000, but obviously if you have any questions uh please don't hesitate to ask. Without a doubt, the biggest thing we see year-over-year with our staffing changes usually is our staff turnover.
Uh for those of you who have been on the committee for a long time, uh we budget somebody at a certain salary rate, but for whatever reason, if they're not here uh a year later when the budget actually uh comes and turns into actuals, uh they could have resigned, they could have
retired late um or we could have just asked them not to come back. We generally try to bring in a staff member who is uh lower on the salary scale whether it's uh lower uh educational degree or lower step uh less experience
they come in making uh less money. So we have salary savings because because of that staff turnover. That is our biggest line item where is seeing about a $250,000 uh balance. We also have retirement savings. So when we go to set the
budget, if we get notification before December 1st that somebody's re retiring, we recognize those savings within our budget and lower uh the salary amount that we're budgeting for that individual. If they don't give us that notification notification by
December 1st, they're not included, but we still had some retirements that we received notification after. when we rehired for those positions, uh we realized savings of another $93,000. Uh there is uh savings from our STEM
hires. So when we are in FY26, uh we had two new STEM positions at the elementary level. Those were brand new positions. So we didn't have anyone uh in those seats at the time because this this was a specialty position. We didn't
budget what we normally budget for a position. We normally budget around a master's step five. But because this was a more unique position, uh we budgeted around a master's 30 step. When we hired those two individuals, it was mixed. We
hired someone on the high end and we hired someone on the low end. When you net the two together and compare it to the budget, we had savings of $24,000. I'm pretty honest with my budgeting. I did have a budget error while uh creating the budget last year. I
accidentally graded somebody at a step 12 when they were really a step 10. If you look at look at our old uh salary schedule, the bachelor's column only had nine steps. But when we signed the new contract, that turned into 12. When I
set the budget, I immediately put that person at a step 12 when all reality they should have gone to a step 9. It ultimately resulted in savings of about $12,000. Uh, last but not least, there's a second part of the STEM positions. When we
originally went to set the budget, we knew there was going to be a 2.0 FTE spread across three schools. If you divide two uh by three, it gives you 6666. We knew there wasn't going to be a 666 person at every school. It was
either going to be a 7 or a 6. So during the budget process, we simply just put a 7 at each of the three schools. Add that together, it's a 2.1. So there's a 0.1 FTE savings. That 0.1 represents $10,241.
Okay, so those are everything. Uh savings over 10,000. Now to go backwards, uh some of our deficits, things that cost us money so far this year. Uh we definitely needed some more summer technology help uh over the past summer. Um, usually we have kind of one
student helper uh come in and help deploy all of the new iPads and all of the new laptops, but this summer uh it was a little more unique in that at the end of FY25, we purchased a larger amount of technology. On top of that, uh
we switched over our information uh student information management system this summer. We went from Aspen to Powers School and I will speak on behalf of the entire IT department. It was an absolute nightmare for them and they did have to call in additional help during
the summer to help make that transition. Uh in addition, we do we did have a few employees who received a little bit above the budgeted cola and in addition some of their work year was extended which did cost us roughly about $13,000
more. Uh there was there was a need at the Winthrop Elementary School for two additional ESPs. Uh combined it did cost us over $56,000 to fill those positions. That is going to be something uh the school committee did approve back in
September and will be something that carries through to the um first uh rendition of the 27 budget request that you will see next week. Uh, last but not least, we have late retirements. That so that's a little bit
different than my retirements up above. I'm going to explain it the best I can. We could receive a retirement notification that says they're going to retire on September 30th. Um, so that's, you know, roughly 15 days into the school year. We find it very difficult
for let's just say a first grade student to meet their teacher on day one and have them leave 20 days later uh and meet a new teacher. So we hire their replacement day one. That means for those 15 days we have technically two
staff members. So in certain instances, if we receive notification that they're not retiring on June 30th, we might not lower their salary in the budget process because we know there's going to be two individuals there. So this did happen with three instances this year where we
had late retirements going somewhere between October and November and we had um more individuals there than we would have anticipated. that roughly cost uh $67,000. So you roll all these things together
within our salaries. Uh I am at this moment um estimating to have $270,000 remaining at year end. Do you have any questions there? Okay. Moving on to the second biggest budget
category, our out of district tuitions. I did receive uh a year-end projection from our student services director. I it is broken down by student uh by the art of district placement. I really just summarized it here for you to give you just the numbers on one slide. Um this
is before any offsets and any prepaides. Our FY26 approved budget for our out of district tuitions was approximately 4.6 million. The year-end projections uh is coming in at 4.4. 4 million which leaves
a balance of roughly 98,000. However, there is one very likely placement at the moment that are that is in our buildings today, but we've re but I've been told that it is highly likely they're going to be outplaced before the
end of the year. If the year were to end right now, we would end with $98,000. However, we are anticipating that that student is going to be outplaced before the year is over costing roughly $50,000. If that occurs, we would have a year-end balance at the moment, again,
before any offsets and prepaids of roughly $47,000. Uh because during the budget process, I always uh go on the side of caution, I'm going with the 47 just so we account obviously for that potential uh placement.
Next is our health insurance. So, I know this is a uh convoluted chart, but I tried to explain to you in here how we come up with our health insurance budget. So, when we go to build the budget, we pick the most up-to-date invoices, which is usually the ones we
receive right before I start building the budget. Uh I had my uh pointer. If you look at the top, it's based on our October 2024 invoices. That's what we set our 2026
budget off of. If you go and look at those invoices, there is a little less than 392 um bodies on our health insurance. The reason it's a little less, if you recall from our budget cycle, whenever there is
a vacant position, I always budget the full cost of a family HMO for that individual because again, I always try to cover our potential liability. So, when that person does come to hire, we at least have the funds there to cover
um a family plan for them if they choose. So if you go and look at that bill again, it comes out to a little less, but for now we'll say it's 392 people. So the next column is the full cost of the FY25 plan. So for a HMO family plan,
it costs roughly $36,000 a year for that one plan. You times that by your 68, you get your total premium cost for the year. But that's after that's at the FY25 rate. Everyone knows your health insurance goes up every year. We
predicted an 8% increase on our health insurance premiums. Uh that was the exact amount of our actual increase. So we were exactly where we needed to be. So you multiply uh your full premium rate times your 8%. Uh but then that's
the full cost. It's split between obviously the employee and the district. For FY26, the district covers 63% of the overall premium. You then charge that by 63 million. Get you your 1.6 million.
Just talking about the HMO family plan. Do that for every single plan we have. It gets you exactly to where we set the budget of the 4 uh 142 million. So that's our budget. Uh sorry, clicker doesn't work. So then you look at our
actuals. So then the next the last bill we we received exactly one year later October 2025 we only have 375 actual participants in our health insurance about 17 less than what we budgeted obviously if you look the biggest
variance is within our HMO family and again that's because where we put all of our vacant positions so most likely that's where you're going to find the biggest variance again very honest and open this is where we budget for um a
lot of kind of residual funds at the end of the year. It's within our health insurance because there is so much movement during the year. Um we could get the premium rate wrong. We could have somebody walk in tomorrow that says, you know, my spouse lost their health insurance. I now have to go on
the district and as you saw on the slide before, it's $36,000 every time that happens. That's why we always try to build in a little bit more within our health insurance because it it is so volatile during the year. Nonetheless, you have 17 less bodies. You simply
multiply that by the number we had on the last slide. Uh you come down with a balance of roughly $247,000. We did have an additional roughly $5,000 in expenses. And that's just because in September we did have more people on the
bill. They weren't enrolled in October. So there is people coming and going. So, the math just doesn't exactly work out at the end of the year. Uh, nonetheless, I at this moment I'm predicting a balance of $243,000 uh in our health insurance accounts.
So, just summarizing based on these three biggest categories, uh, if the year were to if nothing were to change between now and the end of the year, we would end with approximately $561,000. But I just have a big asterric here that number the quarter number one is the the
least accurate quarter and a lot will change between now and the end of the year. I do anticipate um that in quarter 2 if not by quarter 3. We will be asking for a transfer within our maintenance
department. Uh right now we are coming very close already to our budget. They are not currently over, but I anticipate um by the turn of the calendar year uh there will be something we need to analyze with them. So I do anticipate
that a good portion of this money will be converted to maintenance before the year is over. So at this time I'm not recommending that we do anything with these funds at the moment for those two reasons because there's a lot more of the year left to go and because we will
probably need it for upkeep. Um, do we have any questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, all right. Uh,
thank you very much for that, Vinnie. >> Yeah. >> Um, next up, committee reports. Um, capital Finance. It was cancelled. >> Okay. And when is the next Monday meeting?
>> Monday. >> Okay. Um All right. Um I wish that you have a productive meeting on Monday because I know you have tons of work to do. >> Yes, we are reviewing the first pass of
the 27 budget. So I hope um we come together. >> Great. um policy. >> Uh we are bringing back the second reading and for a vote the compet
competency determination policy for graduation. Um which is linked I don't know Eric do you have anything to add? This is >> and we made the changes that were requested for the column headers and actually simplified one of the notes.
Last time there was confusion about the difference between the two columns. Yep. We wrote the headings. >> Um, do people have questions about this? Um, just I don't know if you want to give a
little context for question our new member a little. >> Um, so uh last year the voters voted to remove the MCCAST requirement for graduation. So every district in the state is charged with um determining new competencies for
graduation which is a little complicated. Um so this document comes from the state. We didn't write this >> the template. Yeah, >> it's a template. Um but we've added our own um requirements on top of the
state competencies. So this is something that the policy subcommittee worked on and then just so you know typically we bring something for a first read to the committee and get feedback bring it back to the policy subcommittee and then we bring it back again for like a second read and a vote
>> and that's what this step is. >> Okay. >> Um so you're looking for a vote this evening correct? Um, so maybe we can start with a motion and then if we have discussion. >> I move that the Hamilton regional school
school committee school school district school committee approve the competency determination policy as written. >> Second. >> Second by Amy Kberger. Um, does anybody
have any questions on the policy or the changes that you see here? Um, so I Well, I have a question not really about this, but I it's I think I asked it before. When do we anticip We anticipate very We're still waiting to hear. Where do we stand with the state?
They're going to they're going to give us more >> changes. >> Correct. >> Do we know when that's happening? It's soon. >> Soon. Supposed to be in sometime next week >> is one of the first releases of some of the information. And then I think you'll
see more in December. There's some of a bit of a tug-of-war going on between the state uh the governor's office and department of education. So, I'm not sure how that's going to pan out, but I'm assuming we'll have to bring this back at some point with changes. So I
guess my only like I I think you guys obviously did what we discussed and you know um >> but again like this is being required by the state. Correct. >> Even though it's possible that in just a
matter of days the state's going to tell us that we have to do something different. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> I do think it's important though for students and >> of course >> to like have some sort of >> Yeah. We need something for the current >> class, graduating class. There are kids that will be impacted by this.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Um Okay. Uh anybody else? >> Okay. >> Um we had a motion and a second. So, um all those in favor that is unanimous of the four members present and the motion passes. Thank you
to the policy subcommittee. And our next meeting is December 1st. >> Excellent. Um so negotiations um we have not met
recently but we um now have a new member um and so I will be sending out um I'll chat with Eric and I'll send out to the subcommittee and we'll and to the union and we'll see maybe we might need to meet first and then
>> yeah we'll have a session first and um >> strategy session and then then meet with the >> Y >> ESP group first. >> All right. So, look for me in your inbox. All right. Um All right. Uh we do not have a secretary report because we
don't have the secretary >> here. Um unless you just want to wing one. >> Get your minutes in the report. >> That's all you have to say. Get your minutes in. >> Get your minutes in. Um, all right. Uh,
Amy, do you have anything for in our inboxes? >> Our inboxes were pretty quiet this time around since our last meeting. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, to you, Eric. Superintendent report.
>> First start off with congratulations to both boys and girls soccer who won their tournament games yesterday and will advance in the tournaments. Um I don't know exactly where they're going from here, but both played back toback yesterday up at the high school and both
took home the win. So um it's fun to have teams deep into the tournament and um you know the possibility of one of them making it all the way is always a high level of possibility with the with our soccer teams. They've always done fairly well, so we'll be looking forward
to that. The other thing in uh the exhibit here is I wanted the committee to be aware that I submitted this position paper um to the state. The state is having their own listening sessions oddly uh
about chapter 70. Chapter 70 uh funding is what uh the state calls the funding that they give to uh each school district or communities actually uh or school districts if they're regional uh to offset the budgets. And one of the
things that you're seeing with chapter 70 funding across the state is it is not meeting the needs or the expectations of what it was designed to do. Even more so for districts that are regionalized. uh we all kind of fall into this minimum
aid district. We don't get very much um and because of the way the calculation is designed, inflation is capped within the calculation. So anything above 4.5% inflation doesn't get figured in to the numbers that they
they give to the communities. Um so this is strictly my position on the position paper based on my experience here. Um, and I I understand the principles of of Chapter 70. I outline some of the the
burdens that are um on taxpayers. I think this chart that I have up front is an important piece of the puzzle. And I'm going to just take a walk up there for a second. These red lines here. We'll do it with this. Right. These red
lines here are our chapter 70 funding all the way back to FY 93. Hasn't changed much. Uh which is one of the problems with some of these smaller districts, regional districts. Generally, districts under 2500 students
are impacted negatively. Um this line here is our budget. This is what we spend. It's called net school spending. actual net school spending. Um, and it's dipped a little bit here and there, but it is now so divergent
from state aid that we are in a very problematic situation along with several of the regional school districts around us. So, I just want I wanted people to be aware of this. This is an important aspect of the work that I'm doing as the superintendent, but also with my fellow
superintendents around the entire state. Uh I went to Masanomit uh last Thursday, two Thursdays ago and went to the listening session and there were people there from school committees, from um city councils, mayors and really all
talking about the same problem. Um which which we've experienced for a number of years now where the the gap widens further and further and further and will continue to widen um under the same uh expectations from the state.
here >> should use Vinnie's fancy pointer. >> Exactly. The laser pointer. >> So anyway, there there are a number of things that the listening sessions are trying to dig into like okay give us give us some real change. What are some
things that you could do? I mean realistically the the the formula right now is was designed in '92. It is so complex that he's tried to figure it out and kind of gotten close. I've tried to figure it out and kind of gotten close, but you can never nail down the actual
numbers based on what you get. Couple that with not meeting the expectations in the law for transportation reimbursements. I think last year we got 57% of our transportation reimbursement. That should have been 100%. Um, no, 70
75% last year. and and circuit breaker doesn't kick in until you exceed over $40,000 uh for reimbursements for special ed. So you're eating of $40,000 the first $45,000 and then circuit breaker kicks in. So
each of these three things are really doing some damage in the in the realm of school in general. You're seeing override votes in Georgetown that needed to pass to keep their school system afloat. Override vote in Amesberry. um fourth year of cutting uh over a
million dollars out of their school budget. It's it's because the state aid's really fallen off the shelf for a lot of these smaller communities. So, this is just this was my position paper that I sent um to the state and um I'll
continue to do that work with the superintendent's group. We're all involved in all uh really pushing as hard as we can to get this formula changed so that it it it uh takes a better account for some of the things like establishing the factor that supplemental state aid to regional
districts um in minimal aid status. Like you need a factor that is takes in account the the differences in in regional school districts versus um something like the city of the city of Beverly. Um revisiting the minimum
aid provision, the per pe per pupil AC uh increase accurately reflects the actual inflationdriven cost growth. There's a cap in the formula built in four no higher than 4.5% inflation. So if you go back a year when inflation was
really high, you lost money. Even though you got your four $4 million, which is about what we get, it doesn't translate into $4 million when you start taking into account of uh inflation. And then um examining the impact of local
contributions. You know, when you all hear it, education takes up 60% of the budget. Um, and I don't think they're understanding the impact on smaller communities for things like trash, like water, like all the expenses that the towns have that we we were talking about
earlier. So, um, that's part of my one of my solutions. And then, uh, the what I just talked about with transportation, special ed costs are really not being funded at full levels. So, we have a kind of a a perfect storm, if you will,
forming where um the budget will continue to grow and state aid will continue to remain flat and uh you know, we you see it in our in our budget offsets and our budget revenues. They don't change very much. Um so, we're all just making the push. So, if you do get
an opportunity to go to a listening session, there's some fodder for you for um regional school districts anyway. and we are different from from cities uh individual cities. So, uh just I just wanted you to be aware that this was out there and I think it's an important conversation piece for the community to
understand um that we're really being penalized re the regional penalty I call it because of um the failure of chapter 70 to meet the the needs of small districts like ours. >> Thank you.
>> Yeah, thank you. Anybody have questions? >> No, thank you for writing this. This is really >> Yeah, I Yeah. No, I was going to say that for me that the chart was >> Yeah. >> very helpful to have it in there. Um
that was I enjoy a good chart. That was a good one. It was clear. >> He loves a good visual, right? >> Exactly. um as those DECA students when they showed their paper with all the I mean that was
>> that was a pretty good executive summary. >> There you go. >> It was four pages long. >> Um anything else? Anybody have anything? >> That is all. >> All right. >> Just wanted to make sure that was out there publicly. I think it's important for the public to know and the public to
get involved. I mean, there's nothing that says that anybody in the community can't go to these can go can't go to these listening sessions. They're open to the public and I think just helping people to be aware. I've talked to the towns have given them a copy of this like this is something they need to chime in on as well at the state level.
So, um we need to just use all the tools available to us right now to ring the bell at the state house to say this is this is not it's it's not going to serve us for the next five years. It's just going to get wider and wider and wider. No, and I appreciate you not just doing
the work, but also bringing it. I mean, that's sort of one of the things that you talked about doing this year is bringing that advocacy work and showing it here and highlighting it here. >> Um, I think it's good for everyone to see it. It's helpful. Thank you.
>> Um, okay. Um, I don't think I have very much on the chair's report. Um, I did want to just let everyone know that um, the most recent meeting for the regional agreement discussion was supposed to be
last last week. >> Yes. >> Yesterday. >> Yesterday. No, day before. Two. Two days ago. >> Um, not last week, but couple days ago. Um, >> yesterday Wednesday. >> Yes. Was it was yesterday? Yesterday. It was a strange week. Um
uh anyway um the towns were not ready um to have that meeting and so we've postponed it. I think it's the second time we've postponed. Um, so they are doing their work and they're
hopefully going to be um our next we do have another meeting scheduled. So hopefully I'll have something to report um when that happens. Um and then I already did share with you um that we are going to um
begin the process of bargaining with the ESP union. I don't think I have anything else. Okay. Okay. >> Um topics for future meetings. Does anyone have anything >> policy? Subcommittee member >> FY27.
>> Uh yes. Okay. Wait, hold on. Um yes, I did have that. Um, and then I I sort of just jotted down and Amy maybe you can let me know if this is I when we were having that conversation I j um regarding the next
steps I sort of jotted down like a formation of some sort of a committee as maybe a discussion. I didn't know if you were trying to add that but sounded like you were. So >> um so I don't know when that would come back but but >> let's keep it in our >> it could be on the list of things that
could be on a future agenda. >> Yep. Um, Vinnie, did you have something? >> Just the 27 budget for next >> next meeting. Next week. >> Yep. >> Um, >> might be a long one.
>> Great. >> Just, you know, if you're on the agenda >> longer than tonight. >> Okay. >> Depends what else is on there. >> Um, all right. Does anybody have anything else? >> Nope.
>> No. Anyone? >> I move to adjourn >> at >> at 9:51. 9:51 p.m. >> Second. Go ahead. >> Second by Kristen. All those in favor? That's unanimous. And we are adjourned at 9:51.
>> We need to sign the lease. So, don't run away. >> Yeah. Don't run away. >> Oh, yeah. >> All right. Good work, everybody. Um, >> my foot's asleep. >> Chairs are okay, I think.