Yeah, really good. >> Good evening. I call to order the meeting of the Hamilton Regional School Committee um on Thursday, November 20th, 2025 at 7:01 p.m.
Um first up, um oh uh this meeting is being livereamed and recorded on HWCM. Um, first up on our agenda are citizens
comments. Before I give my spiel about citizens comments, is there anyone in the room who's going to be offering a citizens comment? Doesn't look like it. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Who's >> We do not. >> Okay. Seeing none, I will spare you all
the rules of citizens comments. Um, and we will go ahead and close the citizens comment portion of the meeting. Okay. Um, next up, I forgot to hand this out. Um,
here we go. Who wants to talk? >> Um, would anyone be willing to read a portion of the school committee protocols? >> Sure, I would love to. 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 five, if an individual school committee member receives an email relevant to overall
district policy or operations, they will forward it to the full school committee and the superintendent. Thank you. Um, and now Julia, if you're willing, uh, will read a portion of the mission statement. >> The Hamilton Regional School District
School 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 Wenham Regional School Committee will lead and inspire a district that
inspires all students to realize their fullest potential and feel a powerful sense of individual and collective belonging. >> Thank you. Um here >> yeah thank you. Um and coming correct.
>> Okay. Um so our student representative um is uh unable to be here this evening. So, we will not be getting that report this evening. Um, next up is the consent agenda. Does anyone have any items they'd like to
hold? I have one. I'd like to hold the minutes from November 6th, please. Anybody else? No. Julia. I move that the Hamilton Regional School Committee
approve the consent agenda as presented except for the minutes from November 6. >> Second. >> Second by Amy Kberger. U all those in favor that is unanimous of the six members present and the motion passes.
Um I held the minutes um because uh one of the speakers at the meeting. It is the final speaker um citizen comment speaker Scott Madn's name is spelled incorrectly. Um it's I know I
didn't do the overview of citizens comments but I do always try to ask that citizens um state and then spell their name so that we get it correct in the minutes. Um we really do try to do it right. Um, but anyway, his name is spelled m a d with d as in dog e rn. Um,
>> m a d e. >> M- a d. It's it's in the minutes. It's spelled with t's, but it's actually d's. >> Oh, mad d e r n. >> Um, that's so that was my reason for holding them. >> Okay. >> Do we have to make a motion to change
the minutes? >> Um, yes. I move that we change the November 6th minutes from to correct Scott Madern's name from Maturn to Madern. >> Second. >> Second by Amy Comberger. Are there any
questions or further discussion? >> Um, not a lot, but I actually noticed another inconsistency. >> Okay. Can you talk into the mic? I can't hear you. >> I actually noticed another inconsistency with the minutes. Um, I think we incorrectly
stated that Amy will be the Miles River liaison and that I will be the Cutler liaison, but I think those are flip-flopped, right? >> No, I think that's correct. >> Is that correct? >> Oh, why did I write down that I was Miles River then? >> Oh, >> okay. Then I am incorrect. Okay. >> Um, >> still work for you. >> That works for me.
>> Okay. >> Uh, do we all I mean I'm happy to go back to my own notes and see if we all um >> No, no, I think that's right. if you guys are. >> Yeah, I think that's right. >> Okay. Um, >> good to know. >> You good?
>> Um, I move that we accept the amended consent agenda as presented. >> I think we are I actually think we already had a motion. >> Okay. Yeah. >> And nobody seconded that one. So, >> keep going.
>> Just keep going. Um uh welcome Jen. We are just uh reviewing the minutes which had uh um >> spelling >> spelling correction on the name of one of the people who spoke during them. Um
all right. Uh any further questions? Uh all those in favor? That is uh five in favor. Uh is it a unanimous of the seven members present and the motion passes. Thank you all. Um,
okay. Next up, I think we're ready to hear from Kevin Mers, our uh, treasurer. >> Oh, that is very small. >> Good evening, Kevin Mers, district
treasurer. So, I'm here today uh because we've issued some bonds that need to be approved by the school committee. Uh if you have a few minutes, I could kind of go over what got us to this point in time. Uh so, most you know, uh school
committee and town meeting will authorize uh borrowing for a project. Uh once that's approved at those levels, then I reach out to our bond council to get a requirements letter uh to make sure we've done everything properly on the district and at the town level uh so
we can move forward to today to borrow the funds. Uh so once all that is completed, I get them all the documentation, they approve it, they send me a green light letter which gives us the authority to start spending the money on the projects. Uh so the two projects we have is the Cutler
feasibility study and the athletic field project. Um so then at that point uh we can start spending the money but we still don't have the money. So at that point I would go ahead and and borrow on a short-term basis on a bond
anticipation note something called a ban or a note uh which is short-term one year or less. And normally we would borrow uh on on notes for a year or two uh so we can kind of narrow down the exact cost of what the project's going
to cost us. Uh so like with the feasibility study we were getting money from MSBA so that was reducing uh what we'd need and uh as you know with the athletic project there was lots of grant money and money coming in from the towns. So once we had our final project costs um then we knew what we could
actually go out and bond which is a longer than one year so a long-term borrowing. Uh so then at that point um we then prepare a preliminary official statement which I think you guys got in your packet uh that goes out to our
rating agency uh standard and pores and uh then standard and pores we we set up a rating call with them and so uh month or so ago Vinnie and I uh were on a call rating call with standard and pores and uh I will say Vinnie did a fantastic job
describing the district the finances of the district, uh, how we stood in fiscal 25 finances, the fiscal 26 and 27 moving forward, and all of our financial policies and, uh, and I will say they were very impressed and uh, and they we
ended up getting the highest rating, aa rating on our bonds and they stated uh, Hamilton and Regional School District uh, received the highest rating. uh they stated that the AAA rating reflects the district's forward-looking budgeting
practices leading to consistent positive operating results, maintenance of a robust reserve position, and the member town's affluent tax basis as positive credit factors. So, uh so that that was great news uh because again, uh getting
a AAA rating means more people will most likely bid on our bonds and at a lower interest rate. So, uh, so once we had that, then our preliminary official statement and rating are made public and sent out. Uh, and then there's the the
bid. Um, bids are received. And we actually received on Wednesday, November 12th, uh, 11 bids uh for the district bonds, which I've been doing this for over 20 years, and I've never seen that many bids on a bond issue. Uh, so uh, so
we had a $7.65 65 million bond issue. Uh and on that day, Janie Montgomery Scott LLC was the winning bidder uh with a true interest cost of 2.29% with a premium of just over $64,000.
Uh so a premium uh gets added to the bond by the biders because they want to create a a coupon rate that's marketable in in the market. Uh so again, even though our interest rate is about 2.29%,
the coupon rate that you'll be voting is 5%. Because that's what they're going to sell. They don't sell coupons of 2.29. Uh so so it's 5%. So the differential is the premium they give us. And then we use that premium to pay for any of the
cost of issuance. Uh and then any additional money which was still half million dollars actually goes down to pay down our principal par amount of our bonds. So instead of having uh the what
we requested 7.65 million our actual bond that you guys will be approving is 7,190,000 with the rest being a premium to to cover everything we need for our projects. Um so then once that all gets
done, bond council uh prepares the required votes which was submitted. Um and then we come here for the school committee school committee to approve the borrowing and then I will forward all the documentation on to bond council
and then on December 11th is the delivery date of the bonds and that's when we would get our money uh for this borrowing. Uh so I would just ask if there aren't any other questions that uh you approve for this borrowing with the
motion that was prepared by bond council. >> Thank you for that. Um I know that there's a formal I know that you just said there's a formal motion. I'm wondering if it makes sense to do the mo to do the motion and then and
then once that's on the table we can potentially have questions and if there are any. Do you have the motion? >> I have the motion. I'm gonna read >> generously agree to read. >> Um, just one question. Should I word this as making a motion or use the language voted as
>> It should be a motion. >> Okay. Um, I move that we hereby determine in accordance with general law chapter 70B that the cost of the Cutler Elementary School feeasibility study project authorized by vote of the district school committee passed on
August 18th, 2022 being financed with proceeds of a portion of the bonds defined below together with all other bonds and notes of the district previously issued to pay cost of these projects does not exceed the portion of the total costs of the projects that are not being paid by the school facility.
ilities grant and we hereby approve the issuance of notes and bonds to finance these projects under general law chapter 70B. further moved that the sale of the district's uh $7,190,000 general obligation municipal purpose
loan of 2025 bonds dated December 11th, 2025, the bonds to Janney Montgomery Scott LLC at the price of 7,757,55820 plus acred interest, if any, is hereby approved and confirmed. The bonds shall be payable on December 1st of the years
and in the principal amounts and bear interest at the respective rates as follows. 2026 $1,215 an interest rate of 5%. Year 2027 $1,450,000
at an interest rate of 5%. Year 2028 1,520,000 at an interest rate of 5%. Year 2029,1,465,000 at an interest rate of 5%. Year 2030,1,540,000
at an interest rate of 5%. further moved that in connection with the marketing and sale of the bonds, the preparation and distribution of a notice of sale and preliminary official statement dated November 5th, 2025, and a final official statement dated
November 12th, 2025, each in such form as may be approved by the district treasurer be and hereby are ratified, confirmed, approved, and adopted. further moved that the district treasurer and the chair of the committee be and hereby are authorized to execute
and deliver a continuing disclosure undertaking in compliance with SEC rule 15 chapter 2-12 in such form as may be approved by bond council to the district which undertakings shall be incorporated by reference in the bonds for the benefit of the holders of the bonds from
time to time further moved that we authorize and direct the district's treasurer to establish postisssuance federal federal tax compliance and continuing disclosure procedures in such forms as the district treasurer and bond council deem sufficient or if such procedures are currently in place to
review and update said procedures in order to monitor and maintain the taxexempt status of the bonds and to comply with relevant securities laws. Further moved that any certificates or documents relating to the bonds collectively the documents may be
executed in several counterparts each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which shall constitute one in the same document. Delivery of an executed counterpart of a signature page to a document by electronic mail in a PDF file or by other electronic
transmission shall be as delivery of a manually executed counterpart signature page to such document and electronic signatures on any of the documents shall be deemed original signatures for the purposes of the documents and all matters relating there too having the same legal effect as original
signatures. Further move that each member of the committee, the district secretary, and the district treasurer be and hereby are authorized to take any and all such actions and execute and deliver such certificates, receipts, or other documents as may be determined by
them or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of the foregoing votes. >> Do we have a second? >> Please. >> Second. Second by Den Carr. Thank you, Amy. >> Sure. Record for longest motion.
>> That was the summary version. >> Um, so does anyone have questions first? >> I >> I do. So, go ahead. >> I do if that's okay. So, you said we got approved for an interest rate of basically 2.3%, right? 2.29. >> Correct. Yes.
>> But when you announced the interest rate, you said 5%. Why is there a discrepancy there? >> Yes. That's what I was explaining. We we received a premium of $64,000. They they market it at 5% because that's what sells in the market. And so the
difference between uh the premium they offered uh is that that >> between 2.29 and the 5%. >> Okay. Can >> I just wanted to make sure I understood? Yes. >> I was a bit So the 500,000 is 500,000.
Is that right? >> That we the premium received was was just over 600,000. 600,000 is then basically subtracted from this the number. >> Correct. Yes. So so they reduce the par amount of the bonds. We still get the premium. So we're still going to be
getting uh like over the the 7.65 million which we need uh for our purposes. Okay. >> Yeah, that clarified. >> It's so confusing, I know, but uh that's >> just a lot a fair amount of numbers. >> So am I
>> again? Yeah. Yeah. would you mind? Um, does other people have questions? >> Um, my question was sort of and maybe this is to Eric. What is included? What projects are included? Because it it I
heard you say what projects are included in the bond. >> It's it is the feasibility study, the Cutler feasibility study. So when when that gets authorized >> and nothing else? >> No, it's also the the >> athletic fields. >> Athletic fields. Well, I guess that because I I didn't want to say I thought
that's what you were saying, but I wasn't sure that it said it in here. Did it >> when she just read this? >> No, it doesn't. But it's it's in the official statement and all the Okay. >> like documents >> because it's that was my understanding when I first read this that and asked
what it meant. Um >> that it was cutler feasibility plus >> of the form. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Right. But in when she just read that. >> Okay. >> That's why I was a little bit like I just want >> Yeah. It doesn't need to be bond council. Yeah. Because we could be
borrowing for 50 projects. >> Some towns might. Um so it's not >> No, I just wanted to make sure that I understood and that it was done. >> Nope. We're perfectly fine. >> I think it's good to make that clear to everyone listening as well.
>> Cool. >> Yep. >> I think it's important to note that people are probably saying 7 million. I thought it was 15 million for the project. The the reality was 15 million was the max we could use that was voted. Uh we came in about a million to under
uh we added almost 5 million in offsets from local donations, CPC funds, etc. Um out of our stabilization fund as well. the first year which was uh two last year we we had a million dollars in the
budget that was that was um included in the budget that was paid paid by the towns. This year was another million in this FY26 budget which gives us that balance. So overall, there was slightly over 9 million. >> Mhm. >> Um that was used for the from the from
this the town side, if you will, the taxable side. Um cuz we took out all the the $48 million in offsets. And it's just good for people to know that because people are like, why is it only 7 million? And then the feasibility study is the balance of the feasibility study because
we had $1.25 25 million and we we were uh we received I think $564,000 in reimbursements from the state. So it's the balance, not the whole 1.25. >> Thank you. >> Other people have any questions or
discussion? >> Vinnie, you look like you may Oh, >> I was just going to add the Cutler feasibility study came in 53,000 under under budget >> also. Okay. Thanks. Um, thank you. All right, looks like we're ready to vote.
Um, yes. All right. All those in favor? That is unanimous of the seven members present and the motion passes. Um, and I understand we need to do some paperwork right now. Is that correct?
>> All right. My pen is unfortunately purple, so I'm going to need Thank you. It's um >> is it me? >> So I sort of thought it was you >> the secretary. >> Oh, >> all right. So
>> that's you. >> You're going to sign on. >> Okay. You secretary I keep it together. Thank you. >> Oh, that's for you.
notes. >> Okay. Um, next up, uh, we have, uh, some information regarding the MCCAST, right? I'm going to take this from the a quick
start just to give some people an overview of uh, what happened statewide. There were some interesting anomalies statewide. As you know, MCCAST was recently voted down by state of Massachusett people. for the state of Massachusetts as a graduation requirement. So, no longer has that
cache or that value. Um, so not there there were some interesting anomalies that you'll see that may be representative of of uh the drop of being required as a graduation uh graduation requirement. This is
statewide results 3 through eight uh in math and in ELA. Um really Harvard are all the same 3% up in ELA. math was was unchanged from the previous year. Same high school ELA and math both drops ELA
and in high school across the state was 6 percentage points less than uh 2024 which is one of those anomalies that the state pointed out may be because of the um the loss of MCCAST as a requirement.
Same with math. Math was down only 3 percentage points and then uh science laid flat. It didn't really change much at all. And then from our perspective, I just did the grades uh 3 through 8, 5 through 8. So in 3 through 8, 63%,
that's up one percentage point uh from last year. Uh 3 through eight for math, up five percentage points. We had some good gains in math. We have a new elementary school math program um that has really shown its its metal, if you
will. And then in grades 5 through eight in in science that's also up three percentage points. And what we'll do tonight is school by school they'll present each principal will present uh the data from their schools. We can certainly ask questions wherever you need to. Um each principal will do the
comparative of all students versus students on IEPs and then I will hand it over to the buger principal, Mr. Sheren to take it from here. >> All right. Thank you. Um so big picture stuff. Um we'll start there. We'll talk a little bit about um the the three
individual tests, ELA, math, and science. And then we'll talk about some steps we're thinking about for moving forward. Um so big picture stuff. Um ELA is um back on an upswing. We brought in a new curriculum a few years ago. Um and we expect a little bit of an implementation uh dip anytime you bring
in a new curriculum. Um so we are coming out of that which is great. Um even with our new math curriculum, we did have a subtle upswing there. We didn't have that implementation dip which was fantastic. um that decreasing achievement gap is on the math side. Um so that achievement gap between all students and students with disabilities
um on the math side is decreasing and we continue to have within each test 5 to 7% of our kids are within five points of meeting the standard um which is you know with one or two questions. Um so we got a whole bunch of kids that are right there on that cusp. All right. Um, digging into the ELA
side, um, 7% of our kids are within five points. Uh, 14% of our kids are within 10 points. Um, so really close. Uh, we are pulling away from the state average, which is also which is always nice to see. Um, essays continue to be a place that we are struggling with. Um, what's
interesting is that when you pull things like mechanics or ideas out um, of the essay and do those as isolated questions, we perform really well. um but with their in context in in the actual written piece um it doesn't come together quite so well. Um with students
with disabilities, the gray line in the middle is the state average of everybody. It's not the student with disability average. So I put another line down on the bottom and that's the state average for students with disabilities. Um so in terms of comparing apples to apples, us to the state, it's the green line is us and the
line on the bottom um is the state. One of the things that has been tricky with CKLA has been scheduling. Um, one of the things that CKLA does is integrates all the pieces of literacy together, reading, writing, spelling, all of that. Research supports bringing those things
together. The way that we support kids, the way that we write IEPs is around those individual pieces of literacy. Um, depending on where those students struggle, but those individual pieces are not always taught at the same time within a 90 or 120 minute literacy
block. Um, so one of the things that we are trying to sort out is how do we structure that scheduling piece um so that it meshes more with what we've got going on in tier one. Um, the tier one stuff is working really well. How do we align it better with tier three to
support those kids? On the We get to math. Yeah. On the math side, uh, we got 5% of our kids are within five points, 9% within 10 points. Um, one of our huge celebrations was fractions on uh number lines. Um, every year we sit down, we look at what are the things that we're struggling with
and every year fractions on the number lines is like top of the list. Um, and this year we had across the board some really awesome just fraction scores in general. Um, for that subcategory within math we had the highest fraction scores that we've had in five years. Um, so it was really nice to see that to see that
coming through. Um, we did expect a little bit of that imple implementation dip with the new program. We did not have one which is great. um and seeing that progress for our students with disabilities. Um and that is the lowest achievement gap there that we have had in the past three years. Um and really just teachers are getting
more comfortable with the math um as we come into the second year of this program. On the science side, 6% within five points, 11% within 10 points. Um we just started um meeting with a group of teachers around looking for um a new science curriculum for next year. We're
kind of picking and choosing from a couple of different things right now. Um and trying to sort of do that same curriculum process that we've done for uh literacy and mathematics in the last few years on the science front this year. Um the piece about the students with disabilities. So this is a really
weird graph. It's all over the place. This is just fifth grade and then you filter out the kids with disabilities and the number of kids we're talking about there is really really small. Um I put the numbers on the bottom. These are numbers that are not available on the state website because those cohorts are
so small. Um so it's really hard to pull data from there. Um I mean there obviously there's some huge swings in there. Um I think generally it is I mean there was that one year where it was not successful. Um but generally doing okay and I am excited to um I'm a part of
that group that's looking at science curricula um and trying to bring um something more consistent um to the the three buildings. Um so big picture moving forward um one of our uh professional development initiatives across the district is that
writing piece. Um we've done a lot with the science of reading um the last few years and we are shifting into the science of writing and how how that integrates with the literacy stuff that we are doing. Um on the math side we are bringing in some new math intervention tools um with our new math curriculum.
Um there is there are some intervention stuff that refer to as catalyst um which allow us to target specific skills with kids to support them. Um we talked a I talked a little bit about that special education scheduling um and trying to get that pieces lined up um and then again that um new science curriculum
and that's where we're headed. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Questions? I co-taught a course on science curriculum with our biology science majors. Be real careful for unconscious
bias. Yes. Cuz it is particularly when you get into topics like evolution. >> Yep. >> Got to be real careful. >> I can see that. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Now, the principal of Cutler
School, Jennifer Hunt. >> Hi. Hi, good evening everyone. Okay, I just can't see what slide it is. Um, okay. Some key insights and key highlights for Cutler Elementary School
this year. We were were a um Desi recognized school um school of recognition. Cutler school was one of 55 schools to earn this recognition in the state of Massachusetts. Um, we demonstrated progress toward annual
accountability targets with an emphasis on improved achievement in ELA and math. Um, we exceeded all improvement targets for all students, lowest performing students, high need students, and
students with disabilities with 78% of the Cutler School meeting or exceeding learning targets with an accountability percentile of 70. um we had improvements in both in both growth and achievement in ELA and math.
And one thing to note that is that our attendance rate um was at 97.6% year-to- date absenteeism is down overall. So some attributing factors. Okay, we can go to the next
highlight. So, I wanted to highlight um special education in as in particular and students with disabilities because um when we looked at the growth of our students with disabilities, so low achievement but high growth, we were so blown away by how much growth our
students had made. So, 11 of our students with disabilities who were low achievement um their growth percentage was 63 to 96%. Um that's an ELA math. five of our students with disabilities um low achievement but high growth while also
the range was 63 to 96%. Um and just to note that our science percentage um and student growth performance went up from 32% last year to 49% this year. So clearly we still have some work to do around um that area
but I'm you know we are seeing some growth overall. Cutler ELA all students as you can see um are up 29%. Um students with disabilities again meeting or exceeding um targets are up
30% and not meeting expectations is down 10%. So again highlighting how well our students with disabilities have been doing. In math, um we are up 30% with students meeting or exceeding um expectations.
Students with disabilities up 41% meeting or exceeding um expectations and down 19%. So again, we are making really good progress in those areas at Cutler. And in science, we are up 13% from last
year. Students meeting or exceeding dis meeting or exceeding expectations. Students with disabilities up 11% down 16% with not meeting expectations. Um,
moving forward, like Ben had said, we are in year four of our CKLA implementation with a focus on writing PD. Um, last year we did a lot of looking at the MCCAST scores and the um, item analysis and looking at where we
needed to sort of build up our instruction around a lot of the areas, but writing also was a focus at Cutler last year. Um, Eureka Math Squared, we're in year two and like Ben had said, it's going very well. um the students
are coming in with so many skills and um knowledge um academic language that a lot of the teachers are blown away by how well they're doing um in math this year. Um and we do have a new intervention tool called the math catalyst intervention tool. So that has
been really helpful um in progress monitoring and supporting students maybe in tier 2 um instruction but also students who need an opportunity for enrichment. Um we also have a new progress monitoring assessment system called Star
Math and we've already implemented that and we'll be looking at that data throughout the year. Um and we are doing a science curriculum review. So, we're all hoping that that review will help um sort of inform what we're going to do for next steps in looking at science curriculum. And one really great thing
that we're doing, I know we talked about as part of our school improvement plans is we are um our special education teachers and our general education teachers are working really closely, really collaboratively um with a focus on closing the gap for students with special needs. Um and they do attend our
our PLC meetings as well as our Java alike meetings and our data meetings. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? >> We'll have questions. >> I have a question. Yep. Um the improved absenteeism rate is fantastic. What do you attribute to the change in that?
>> Um I'm what I'm mostly doing is just contacting parents directly. Um I'll send a letter home and then if it gets to a certain number, I call them in for a meeting because a lot of times those kids there might be something going on where it's like almost like a school refusal and they can't get to school.
So, more often than not, families need our support. >> Nice. >> To help them with that. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Thanks, >> John. >> Oh, go ahead. >> Um, so Ben listed the number of students
for Buer in the students with disabilities. Um, are your numbers comparable to his or like just in terms of straight student number or are they lower or higher? And could that be contributing to the differences we're seeing um
between uh students with disabilities at Cutler and students with disabilities at Buer? >> I I would say that they're similar. I don't know if they're that much lower or higher. You know, we we talked about it. Go ahead. >> Guessing a little bit higher because of your program. >> Oh, okay.
>> A little bit higher. You're you're just saying like the sheer numbers, not like the percentages. Oh, I'm sorry. I misunderstood your question. We do have um more students with disabilities at Cutler. We ha house the language based um program which is students who have dyslexia and language processing
disabilities. We have a moderate special education um program also. So yes, we do actually in the town of in the district Hamilton Wenham Cutler has all of those students who have um that dyslexia profile and language- based learning
disabilities >> and congratulations for one year for your first year on the job. >> Yeah, >> this is impressive. >> Thank you so much. I just want to say I attribute all of this to the teachers because they have worked so hard. Um,
making this happen with, you know, really putting the kids front and center. What do the kids need? And setting high expectations for all kids. So, you might hear someone say, "I can't do it. This is too hard for me." And the Cutler teachers say, "Yes, you can. I believe in you. I know you can do it." Setting those expectations really high
um have really helped. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, >> Carolyn Shediak, the winter principal. >> And it's so hard to be the last because we're all doing the same thing. So, I'll uh I'll try to enlighten you with some things that might be a little different.
Um, a couple of things to highlight. You can read all my statistics on this slide. Um, we did see a slight decrease in the n u percentage of students meeting and exceeding in ELA. Um but one a couple of things that I will would
like to highlight is that we had nine students who on this graph that show low achievement but high growth and um and then for students with disabilities that high growth was um and that was all
students with disabilities. um we had 19 students who were then were within five points of meeting which means they might have missed two questions. So that's kind of an important point. And then there were an additional 17 students who
were um within six to 10 points. So we've got a whole bunch of kids who are right on that cusp. And our focus this year is really going to be pumping those kids up to get them up and over the uh the meeting threshold. Um, Ben and Jenny both mentioned it, writing was the area
of weakness at Winthre also. Um, and as Ben mentioned, it really came out in um, you know, we did great in grammar. We did great in sort of all of the um, the easier parts of writing, but when it came to writing essays, that was where
we fell down. So we have recognized that as a district weakness and we are working really hard this year with teachers to do professional development on how we can bump up our writing um and try to infuse more writing and different
writing into our CKLA programs. Um, one thing to notice, um, when we get to the slides is that the gap between grade 4 students with disabilities and all students that were meeting and exceeding actually decreased by 20% over a year,
keeping in mind though, it's a different cohort of kids. So, um, math, uh, as Ben and Jenny both mentioned was a highlight at Winthrop. Uh we had an improvement from 47%
meeting and exceeding last year to 65% meeting and exceeding this year with an average student growth percentile of 70%. So that was great. Um and again 10 students with disabilities were in the low achievement but high growth category. Um a couple of kids with 99%
growth. Um and 14 students within five points. So one or two questions and they would have been over that threshold. So, that's what we're going to work on. Um, and then we also did pretty well in science, and you'll see that when we get to our science great um slides with an increase from 63% to 71% who were
meeting and exceeding. And you'll see when we get to these slides, students with disabilities, not so great, but in science, 40% of our students with disabilities were meeting. So, that was an area of strength for our students with disability. Um the other thing I'd
like to highlight is our accountability progress towards improvement targets this year with the exception of achievement in ELA which was we got two out of the four points. We were three or four points for everything and the um
the achievement and growth in math. We got all four points for all four um um indicators. And then um our chronic indicica our chronic absenteeism. We also got all of our points for that. So um this was really exciting for me to
see this year because last year didn't look quite as good. Um and then you can do you want to skip on to my other slides, Eric? Um so students with disabilities, you can see we have um significant number of students with disabilities who were not meeting. A
couple things to note about Winthre is that we actually have the most students um with disabilities at Winthre and we house the uh academic skills um subsparate program and that program
actually really grew a lot last year. We have one grade level that has six students in it which is 10% of the grade level are in this academic skill. So that's going to really I don't mean to highlight it, but it really does impact our percentages when we're talking about how students with disabilities are
performing and we are trying to get them up over some humps also. And you can see the achievement in math went up significantly. our um students with disabilities are doing a little bit
better in math than they are in ELA, but we still have a lot of work to do. Um and our students with disabilities gap uh in math compared to our all students from the state line, we've got to work on it. Um, but this new math program is
much more concrete and it's um it's I think it's going to support more kids and these kids now, as Jenny mentioned, they're coming in with skills that they had from last year. So hopefully we're going to see even more improvements next year. And then in science, this is where
students with disabilities rocked it because we had 40% who were um meeting and exceeding. So that was a a really happy thing for me to see. And just like Ben and Jenny, moving forward, we're going to be focusing on
writing PD um the math catalyst for intervention. Um Buer and Win and and Cutler both have title one math interventionist. Winthrop does not. So we really are relying on our teachers to do that tier 2 intervention. Um and the
other uh piece of this is that our instructional coach has been working very closely with the special ed teachers at Winthre. so they can use Math Catalyst to support their TR3 math students. And um there's a lot of excitement and we're just launching it now. So we'll see how it all shakes out.
Um we also we had piloted Star Math last year at Winthrop um for two cycles. So this is going to be our first full year of using the program um beginning, middle, and end of the year. And we just did our progress monitoring this week and next week. So, we'll see how um what
kind of improvements we've seen with students already. Um as Ben mentioned, we're hoping this high quality um instructional material science curriculum review goes well and we can find something that everybody is really happy about and start to see our science
um scores improve. And as everybody mentioned, having the special ed teachers tightly aligned with the uh classroom teachers, supporting students, all working together, really looking at data much more deeply this year, I think is going to show us some great
improvements. >> Thank you, Carol. >> Any questions? >> Questions. So this is definitely the biologist and me talking but the large increase you got in science with student with disabilities is that because the science
curriculum tends to be more hands-on like you are actually physically manipulating things and there are definitely students out there who work better and learn better if it's like tacky. It could be um and I think
a couple of things contributed to it is science is really engaging. So kids who are engaged are going to be more excited and are going to try this. We also um had I think we mentioned this uh earlier but this last year's science MCCAST had
a performance task portion to it which was a little bit trickier and we were really worried. So, the teachers did a really good job, I think, of previewing and preparing kids to do those performance tasks. That's about all I can say. I don't really know what the magic was, but I do think it's because
science is fun and engaging for kids. So, >> Oh. Oh, I have a question. Does anybody else have a question before? >> Um, uh, I just I I think you said that Winthre does not have a math interventionist and the other two
schools do. because it's through title one funding and Winthrop no longer qualifies. We used to be the only one that qualified and now we no longer qualify. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I one thing that you actually brought up and um uh and I actually think Jen is usually the
one that brings it up. So I appreciated you bringing it up just about that we are comparing when we're looking at these scores. or you're comparing last year's fourth graders to this year's fourth graders and then you're you're not >> it you know it's not really tracking the growth of the same students. >> That's right.
>> Um I just think that's such an important thing. I'm glad you said it and I normally credit it's usually Jen who says just to be clear >> and I guess to that point too Dana is that I have a couple of grade levels with many more students with disabilities in that grade level and
then other grade levels that have fewer. So that's going to have a big impact on how that cohort com um performs, >> right? And I mean and even where you said you had a new pro additional program >> Yep. >> come in and so that changes the
demographic for that and we're not looking at that class over time. We're looking at So >> that's correct. >> Just important to keep in mind as well. Thank you for >> Thank you. >> Is there any way to look at this? OH, YOU ARE NOT YOU.
>> IS there any way to look at it from a historical perspective? So, you know, last year's third graders, did they improve now that they're fourth graders? >> They're um we program open architects and there is a chart in there that does
compare cohorts because we bring it up every year. So, thank you Eric for getting that done. And when I did look at it, the numbers are pretty close to how kids are doing with um you know maybe three or four percentage changes from year to year, but it's pretty consistent how that cohort has been
performing. >> Okay. So there isn't a trend up or trend down. It's it's >> within a couple of points. >> Yeah. >> Math we did see some improvements. ELA it's been pretty consistent. >> Okay. >> Now do I have the >> Now you Thank you.
Last distance. >> Hi, good evening everyone. Zach Best, principal at the middle school. Glad to be here tonight. Um, we've got a lot to be proud of uh at the middle school. Want to start by just sharing that our statewide accountability percentile
remains high. We are in the 93rd percentile of all non- high school statewide. That's elementary, middle, any sort of odd configuration between the two. Uh so that's something that we are and remain proud of. We met or
exceeded all improvement targets for all students this year. And our chronic absenteeism target we exceeded for all students and for our lowest performing students for the third year in a row. And that's something that we're really
proud about. We know that there's a correlation between attendance and achievement. and we we can get all of our students, particularly those students that might be struggling into the building and into class. We know that that's going to contribute to their learning. I'll get into some of the
areas uh for growth that that I have highlighted here in the next slides. We can start by looking at ELA. Um you can see that we had a slight gain in the right direction and that we lost that
gain this year. It's important to remember that this graph is all three grades, six, seven, and eight. So, for the purposes of our um data review, I do want to highlight that our eighth grade held steady at 77%
proficient or uh meeting or exceeding expectations. That dip we really realized in the sixth and seventh grades. Um it is important to note that we still significantly outperform the state but we do want to see that graph going back uh in the upward trajectory.
And on the right this is something that uh the schools prior to me uh have been working on and we continue to work on as a school and a district and that is closing that achievement gap with our students with disabilities. In math, we had a growth percentile for
seventh grade of 70.8. That is a significantly high growth percentile for a grade level. So although the dip, which as you can see on the left, is still attributable to sixth and seventh grades. Those seventh grade students are making significant growth. So it's
important that we consider achievement and growth. As you all were just talking about, when we compare cohort to cohort, we know that every cohort has unique attributes um that are different than the one before. Our eighth grade students in math improved from 71 to 75%
of students meeting or exceeding expectations. And even with that high achievement, they also had a high growth percentile of 63.6%. And although our students with disabilities in math continue to have a gap between themselves and the rest of
the students, I would point out that their average growth percentile is also really high. So the students are moving in the right direction at a pretty good trajectory, pretty good rate rather.
And for science, uh for science, we continue to move in the right direction. And you can see that we make steady progress every year. 73% of our students met or exceeded expectations. There's no growth for science because
they only take it once in middle school. And if you look at the graph with students with disabilities, there's a couple of things to note. Number one, our students with disabilities performed on par with all students at state. So that's something that we want to
highlight. Also, it seems rather um wacky of a graph. It goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down. I think Mr. Sheren alluded to this earlier. When we're looking at students with disabilities, that shrinks our number significantly. And then when we look at
students with disabilities in a single grade, you're looking at a difference of, you know, a couple of students can make quite a big jump on the graph. So, you know, I I tell folks, you know, don't worry about that because it's not indicative of a a terrible drop off um
in a in a year. It's usually attributable to uh just a you know, a change or, you know, difference of two or three students. So, as we think about moving forward, oftentimes when I'm speaking here, we talk about our intervention enrichment structure. This
is something that uh we continue to make strides with. We have a structure that gives students access to additional help. all students access to additional help. We've had uh reading and math intervention in place for some time and just this year we have started an IE
class focused on executive functioning. Um and that's something that is designed to be uh where students can move in, move out, they need help, they get the help they need, they can move out, move out of that um and back into a different IE class. And that's true for our ELA,
for our reading, uh math and executive functioning. I will note we are just starting a new reading intervention program for our students in IE. So we're excited to track that data and so see how those students do. We are in year two of our HMH ELA
implementation. We're ex we're increasing the number of units that we're piloting not piloting teaching. And those units bring with them grade level texts and a lot of scaffolds for a lot of different readers.
This is our year where we're going to do a math curriculum review. We have a different curriculum than the elementary and the high school. It's not bad. It's just good practice to review it uh periodically. And some of the things that we are going to consider is whether
there is value or it makes sense to extend the elementary curriculum because it exists in the six through eight form as well or take a look at the high school curriculum and see if it makes sense to sort of start there so that students have a path as they go to high school or perhaps the curriculum we're
using um is fine. Um, one of the areas that our students didn't quite do as well as the state. Typically, we outperform the state in in every category, um, is the expressions and equations category. And so, in common planning times, our teachers are going
to work with our curriculum leader to examine those question types and those skills to make sure that they are prepared for that. We are also working on a science curriculum pilot. We're piloting two different curricula and
these curricula are focused on taskbased learning activities and that is in anticipation of a shift in the middle school MCCAST towards more task based questions. Um used you kind of had to remember when the waxing gibbus moon was and if you couldn't remember it you know
you were out of luck. This is um really about being presented with some information and then acting as a scientist to solve the problem. So, we're excited that these curricula are um leaning in the same direction as well. That's all I've got. Any questions?
I wouldn't expect this at the elementary level, but at the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade level, do you guys ever go through test taking strategies? cuz there are definite strategies to taking multiple choice tests that
don't change like the amount that the student learns >> but they use the strategies to like eliminate answers that they know are incorrect >> and it improves their performance substantially. >> Yeah. So the good news is the science MCCast is moving away from that multiple
choice format into more of a um >> sort of how you attack the problem and really think through that problem. So, I'm excited about that. We don't stop school and say, "Today is test taking strategy day. Everyone, here's what we're going to do." However, teachers do
incorporate some things. And it's more from a perspective of listen, if you've got four choices, and you know, often times it's work the problem, get your answer, and then go back and use some of these strategies to see if your answer makes sense. Right. Um, so yes, there is
some of that. It's not necessarily a priority for day-to-day instruction, but it's incorporated periodically. >> Yeah. No, it doesn't have to be like something that is specifically like taught, but incorporated would be nice. >> I thought you were going to ask me a science question. >> Uh, no, because I'm waiting to see what
the new MCAST looks like. >> Yes. Yes, we are. >> Julie, did you have a question? >> Yeah. I mean, I guess my broader question is just to Eric, um, and to everybody, like, if MCCAST is not a requirement for graduation,
and maybe I'm just a cynic, but what is the incentive for students to perform very highly on it? If it's just like our internal mechanism to monitor them, I mean, for me, I think all of us here are type A, right? But like, we we all want to get straight A's,
>> but extremely relaxed all the time. I'm just thinking I'm just I'm just trying to think bigger picture. Like I think what happens when is MCCAST going to go away? What happens when teachers are like just don't do it
at all or I don't I don't know like standardized testing might go away. So how are we thinking through how are we thinking through accountability in the future? I I guess I know this is the standard measure where we can measure oursel in
Massachusetts and um in our district, but I'm just I'm kind of thinking broader. Like I'm wondering if anyone's seeing a trend in students sort of saying who cares. I don't know, maybe they're not. But >> you know, I can answer this for the middle school level or at least in the
the you know, at Miles River. Um MCCAST has never been a requirement for graduation. So ostensibly or or moving on to to the ninth grade. So, a student could ostensibly come in and go, you know what, I just don't think I'm gonna uh put put any effort whatsoever. I'm just going to sit with my head down and
and they, you know, that's not going to keep them from moving on to the next grade. So, we don't you know, Mr. Miggoni can speak a little bit more to the graduation requirement um piece, but that's never been something for us. And and I think, you know, our students tend to want to do well, whether it's um you
know, a brief quiz one day, a unit test, or you know, something larger like the MCCAST. And for us, it's really not about teaching to the MCCAST. The nice thing about the MCCAST is it measures the state standards that that we all believe that that students should know
and and be able to do. So, yeah, it is a single public-f facing um thing. It is currently how we are, you know, there's an accountability piece um to it as well. So, at least from the middle school, we did not um hear a lot of, you know, push back after that that particular law was was enacted.
>> Can I jump in on that, too? You stole my final question, but it was going to be my final not for Zach, but at the end of all this, it was really the question is why do we continue to focus on MCCAST? So, the the the bigger answer to that is the state
does require accountability. So, we do have to kind of meet their jump through their hoops. Um I think the the better answer for us is we have put together really good systems over the last four years that can uh give us a really strong idea where k where kids are. The
hard part is how does that translate into what the state's doing? As you've heard me say previous meetings that the governor's office and DESIE are in this dynamic push and pull over what the graduation requirement should be, will be could be. Um and they've gone from
extremes of going back to something similar to MCCAST to try to get that moving forward. The other day I heard them talking about um using end of course assessments which would be fascinating because every course is not the same. So you're you know depending
on the school and the level. Uh so that would be an interesting u kind of data collection uh issue to deal with. Um, but I do think and I feel really good about the work that we currently do with our um
all of our data collection. We've honed down um kind of the rough areas and gotten rid of them over the years. How we look at data, how we translate data, um the interventions that are set up really responsive now, not a year later
because MCCAST is a year later. you know, basically you don't get your scores until the fall and kids took their first test back in March. Um, so I think we're much more dynamic and nimble given the direction that we're going. The big problem is we'll be we will be
stuck answering to whatever accountability measures get set up in the future and they're looking at things like um aligning with the portrait of the of the graduate that the state just passed. Um, but we have don't have a lot of guidance from that. So, we're all
kind of waiting. Um, and I think I think Zach hit it hard. Our kids know why they come to school. Our kids do well. So, for us, it's really that digging into all those kind of nooks and crannies of where we can help and support them to get even uh better and gain in in growth and achievement. So,
>> and I do want to say it's really helpful for us. I mean, because we're not on the ground every day. So, I do it's for us a very helpful accountability measure. But I'm I was just thinking, yeah, like in the future, what else is going to be thrown at us and thrown at you guys and
um but it it is really helpful to sit here and talk through all of these things and to look at the amazing progress. So, I didn't mean to denigrate any of the work that you've done, but I'm just asking like that sort of devil's advocate question, you know? >> Well, and the fact that they're not that cynical cuz I could totally see some of
my college students being like, "What? this doesn't count to my grade A all on the way down and leave to go study something else. >> And that was part of what I was worried about with MCCASD no longer being required is that particularly students that are taking high intensity courses
like the APs and the honors are going to be like, well, this doesn't count for anything, so why am I spending my time on it? >> Yeah. And focus on the AP exam. I just think the the the speed and the dynamic ability we have to respond now with the systems that we have in place far away
the value of an MCAST presentation, but I think it's important for the public to see kind of where we're at. >> The hard part with this presentation is, hey, MCCAST doesn't count for anything anymore. So, go ahead and do it again, kids. And it was clear that some kids are like, no thanks, it doesn't count.
So, >> thank you, Zach. Um after that very sophisticated high level conversation I have one just recommendation that's not nearly is that the um elementary principles on the students with disabilities graph they
put in the statewide students with disabilities line >> and I think for the public that line is probably helpful for them to see that. Um, so it's just a recommendation or a thought that next time I think that little line, do you know what I'm talking about? >> I do.
>> Yeah. I just think that was helpful for the public who may not be looking >> super closely that I thought that line was helpful. So that was again not on the same high level that we were all talking about, but >> it's important. It's important. >> Um, robust.
>> Anybody have anything else? >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Best. And now principal of high school, Brian Managoni. Well, >> oh, >> Mr. Shen is back. >> Jen, we definitely do test taking strategies at the elementary level around MCCAST. It's a different kind of
test. Um, so we we don't teach to the test, but there is some pretty explicit instruction around how the test is set up, how to navigate, what the different tools are around answer masking and all that stuff. So, we definitely do that at our level. >> Yeah. I just like I wouldn't try and teach it at the elementary level as test
taking strategies specifically but it sounds like you're incorporating them which is great. >> MCCAST strategies. >> Yes. M >> that test is that assessment looks different than the other kinds of assessments we have. We want kids to know how to use that tool and navigate it the best they can so they can show what they know.
>> Yeah. All right. Good evening everyone. I'm here to talk about uh MCCAST the high school last year. So, a couple of things that we're really proud of at the high school is that we continue to perform well compared to our partner schools and I can show you that a little bit later. Um
and I think that's reflected in our um accountability percentile. Um actually bumped up a little bit this year. Um couple of statistics below would speak to that. Uh we did note improved performance for all students in science and I think that has to do with the fact
that we were in our second year of a new curriculum. Uh so you saw a dip in year one and then a recovery in year two. So that's the improvement. Um we met exceeded targets for growth uh for all students and some of our lowest performing students in ELA and math. And
that'll come up in a little bit here as we look through some of the graphs. Uh but our attendance remains strong. I know we don't uh count attendance uh for MCCAST but it is one of our accountability measures. Um along with graduation rate that improved um the one
thing I want to say about that and it'll also come up later is you know the size of our school uh from year to year. Um if we have everybody graduate that's awesome. You may have a year where one kid doesn't graduate and all of a sudden you see a dip in that graduation rate
and it does impact your accountability rating. Um, so the small size of our classes, you know, does play a little bit of a role in some of the ups and downs that you might see here. Um, but things that we want to continue to look at, um, the gap that appears to be
widening at times between all students and students with IEPs, uh, we want to take a close look at that. Uh, but also our lowest performing students and high need students. um you know there's a lot of crossover between uh those two groups and students on IEPs, but we all we saw
decline in performance um and ELA um and math as well. So these are things that we want to pay close attention to. Now I think I may have heard a couple of minutes ago that um MCCAST no longer counts. Um so you could look at it a couple of different ways. Yes, students do not need to achieve a minimum score
on MCCAST in order to receive a high school diploma. There are other things that they will need to do. However, um I think it's an important signal for us um as to the experience that our kids are getting in the classroom. Um I know it's a one or two day test that they're taking. Uh but still, especially when
you're looking at ELA and math, you're looking at uh skills and knowledge acquired over time. Um and so it does let us know what's going on a little bit and can uncover some gaps that may that we may want to attend to. So up here you're seeing ELA, uh which traditionally we've done very well in.
Um, and there's kind of the squiggly line, uh, the green line on the left, that's all students, and that's regular ups and downs over the course of years that you're going to see naturally. Um, and on the right hand side, you see, uh, students, uh, with disabilities. Um, and the the gray line is what, um, Dana
alluded to there. That's all students across the state, um, as a comparison. Uh but what I would want you to look at though is you know how high up all students the green line versus students on IEPs. Okay, that's the gap that we're talking about that persistent gap. But
what I do want to point out here um is the student growth percentiles. In other words, how kids or cohorts of kids are getting better I guess over time. uh if you look at all students the student growth percentile uh was a 56.1 and our
students with disabilities was actually very high at 66. So you might wonder well how could their performance go down if they grew better and um student growth percentile is kind of a crazy statistic. Um it's looking at
groups of kids who scored similarly similar across the entire state. Um so it's I think they're they're two different statistics to look at growth percentile and um percent meets exceeds. Um clearly we want more of our students
on IEPs um hitting that meets and exceeds mark but I think we can also point to the fact that they are growing um with respect to these standards. How can we actually accelerate that? What's the next step for us to take? So that's ELA.
Uh when you look at math, uh you can see pretty consistent performance year-over-year uh for all students and it does look like a big dip um for the past couple of years in math. But again, I'll point you to that student growth percentile. Um
it's at 68, which is really high. Uh and even for all students, uh growth percentile percentile of 60.8 is considered relatively high growth. Um the thing I can say about this particular year, I believe there are only maybe 12 students who would fit
into the students with disabilities category. So it's pretty easy to see ups and downs. um uh we need to keep that in mind, but at the same time, we also need to make sure we're continually paying attention, uh to our learners, um who
are in that category to make sure that they're gaining the um really important knowledge and skills that they're going to need beyond high school. And then in science, uh that's the place uh where we saw um an improvement this year for all students. And I think that has to do
again with the second year of using a new curriculum in 9th grade biology because that's the class that's actually tested. Um, but you did see, you know, a dip for our students with disabilities and they don't calculate a student growth percentile for high school science because all of a sudden you're
taking an MCCAST test for just a specific subject that lasts one year and it's something that you can't really follow over time like you can ELA and math. So you just really get um an idea of performance and not growth over time with science.
So I think it can also be helpful especially when we're talking about you know MCCAST doesn't count anymore. you know what did we see um at our partner schools name uh namely uh Capean league schools and generally there was a downward trend in
ELA although there were a couple of schools that improved um and if you want to jump ahead to math as well um we saw somewhat of a general downward trend in math performance this year um and it was
also similar in science as well um you know and the kids were aware that MCCAST no longer was a graduation requirement because they asked me does it count and I just didn't answer them.
Okay. Um, and like Dr. Best spoke to this, when you put something called a test in front of our kids, they generally go after it pretty good. Um, were there some kids this past year that kind of looked at it and said, "Nah, I think I got something better to do." Yeah, that I would say
that probably happened. Um, you know, but we didn't I don't think really controlled the story at the time this uh you know the tests were given because you know had just come out that now it's no longer a grad graduation requirement. I think now we're going to be able to be
in the position to say, "Hey, look, you know, you should always be doing your best. That's a habitu for life, you know, anytime that uh something is put in front of you, it should be your best work, you know, and so you have to sit there for a couple of hours and take MCCAST and give it your best shot because it's going to give you an
indicator of where you're at. It gives us an indicator of where you're at, you know, and I find that our students, you know, generally understand that and will work to improve. Um, so that's sort I just but I wanted to give you that that high school level context because you know every single high school had to go
through the same thing. Um, does that mean that every single kid in our school or other school said you know I just don't care? No, I don't think that's the case at all. Um, you know, but it probably did have a bit of an impact, but it it wasn't devastating or anything like that. And you may look at some of
those schools up there and you you could see like a huge dip from year to year, but there's also some very small schools up there where it's very easy for things to change year-over-year. So, what do we want to do um moving forward? Um there are some long-term
things and some short-term things that we would like to do. um long-term thing or two things that I could point to the first two bullet points up there um in terms of improving uh cooperation uh with general education special education
namely co-eing I think that's a really powerful instructional strategy to use uh but it takes a long time to build those partnerships uh you have to build in some common planning time for teachers they have to really kind of get to understand their roles uh what their strengths are in the classroom so that
way together they're providing a really coher experience for students. Uh but again that takes a long time um as does sharing other resources and data to put these systems in place. So I think that we just need to make that you know our school level goal for a number of years.
Um and I think a couple of short-term things we could do would for example be monitoring student growth percentile for specific students um because that's pretty easy to do. We have MCCAST data. We also use um STAR testing at the high
school in ELA and math for grades 9 and 10. Um so we can keep an eye on kids throughout the year. Even we're not having to wait until early fall to get last year's data. Um we can say, "Oh, wow. This kid really here is struggling a little bit, not showing the growth um
that we would hope for and align some resources with students like that." I think it's also really important short term to do a cohort analysis of students in a particular grade level. Um because those these year-over-year comparisons that you saw up here aren't comparing
the same kids. And you've already talked about that tonight. Um but but we're able to look back, for example, the 10th graders this year. Um we can look back at their ELA and math tests when they were in eighth grade and see are there things here that they really struggled with and start to focus the instruction
a little bit more on that. Uh but also maybe a longer term thing to do is just look at trends over time. Are there standards that we're hitting really well and things that maybe were missing a little bit and you know make sure all students um get some attention paid to that. Um another long-term
project for us is to really build out our tier one program at the high school. Um you know it starts with instructional strategies that are in place every single day. um you know trying to infuse our inclusive practices across all of our classrooms um at all grade levels. I
think common planning time you know we've really focused on that this year. Um how can we turn common planning time u not just to like you know what we're going to do but also how we're going to do it with our students you know to make common planning time or actually students the focus of that. How are are
we going to think about the kid first? Um instead of necessarily the content first and the things that we're going to cover and the the instructional materials that we have as well. Uh for example, in math and also in science which we've recently adopted, you know, how can we continue to build those to
make sure uh they support the instruction that we want to see. Um we have ELA and math support blocks um going right now in the high school. So that way um we can we use those support blocks um to give extra math an extra
ELA to students who we've identified through STAR testing or MCCAST testing um a little bit of a bump in terms of their English and math skills but also you know maybe for next year could we do the same for science uh because it's one grade level um and how could we help
prepare uh some of those students to be successful um in their on their biology MCCAST test. Um, but I think it's also important to give kids a little bit of a reminder uh about the platform that they're actually going to take MCCAST
on. Um, it sounds kind of ridiculous, but in ELA and math, they took the test in 8th grade and then they're not taking it again till 10th grade. So, I think it's nice to give them a chance to practice some math MCCast type questions
and some ELA MCCAST type questions on the actual tool that they're going to be using because it is a little bit different. It's just that it's an entirely different environment. Um, you know, and there are some, I think, really academically valid things that the MCCAST asks you to do. you know, for
example, in ELA, it'll ask you to read two or three different passages, pull that information together, and make some sort of logical conclusion. And doing that in a testing situation, I think if you get a little bit of practice for it, a little bit of a feel for it, and some feedback on it, uh that can help you um
when the actual test comes up. So, it's kind of a long list of things to do there, but I would put it into two buckets. Some longer term projects um that are just going to take a few years to really get things where we want them to be. uh but also some short-term things that we can do now to um sort of
target some interventions uh for our students. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yep. >> This is more of an overall question. Um are you seeing gender specific differences at any level? Differences in
between boys performance and girls performance. I would say generally on MCCASTs, the girls outperform the boys generally. Moving beyond MCCAST, generally if you
look at SAT scores, the boys might outperform the girls. So, they're two very different kinds of tests. Um, you know, the MCCAST is very tied to the curriculum. And when you look at girls performance gradewise, they just they do better than the boys do. So it's I guess
not surprising that you would see them do a little bit better on MCCASTs. >> So is that something that's happening at in the seventh, sixth, seventh, and eighth or at the elementary level at all? Like I'm wondering when this difference is starting to appear.
>> So I one of the things I keep an eye on is the first time the student has an opportunity to take a leveled course >> in Hamilton is in middle school and that's seventh grade math. So I I keep an eye on are we noticing an imbalance
of students that are filtered into or you know invited to take that accelerated math and generally we don't um see an imbalance. So that's a good um would be a red flag for me if we started to see an imbalance there.
>> Um elementary scores are pretty similar across the genders. >> Okay. I I have a question. Um Brian, the um and I don't know whether you know the answer to this.
>> David, can you talk into the microphone? >> Yes, sorry. >> There appears to be a much bigger gap between Essex Tech performance on maths and Hamilton Winnham. >> Do you do you have any insight into why they'd be
>> in which uh subject you talking about? in math. >> In math okay, >> and there's not nearly as big a gap in science. >> So Essex Tech and Hamilton Wenham um I mean it's there are 1,800 kids there. Um
they're in a very different it's just a very different context. I think by the time um the kids at Essex Tech have taken or yeah they take their math MC gas in 10th grade you know they've had two years of something is very different than what we have you know ours is very
academic focused whereas Essex Tech you know they're half the time they're doing their academics and half the time they're in their program so it's I think it's a it's a really interesting question to ask um you know I at at their level they may break it out by programs that they're in and be more
concerned about that. We just we don't have that information. We just can see sort of overall how kids at Essex Tech are doing. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Anybody else? >> Well, Essex Tech's also a combined
school, right? So, it would be more a more fair comparison to compare the Hamilton Wenham students that went are going to SX Tech for our current Hamilton Watenham students. But right now you have students from Lynn
>> and River Gloucester and you're mixing them all together. >> Um and as I mean we can see just by looking at the scores that a lot of those schools that feed into Essex Tech are not doing as well as
Hamilton. >> Thanks. >> All right. Anybody have anything else? Thank you all so much. >> You >> Thank you all very much. >> Thanks so much. >> Very much appreciated. >> Too late.
>> Okay. Uh oh. >> Yeah. Oh, I thought he was getting up. Okay. Um so uh at our last meeting we had um noted
that we needed um an uh an additional school committee member to join the policy subcommittee. Um >> um >> but uh we decided to move it to this. Um, so
currently on policy we have Amy and Jen. Um, so and they need a third. And currently, um, the only school committee member that we have who is currently serving on two committees is Jen. Um, so Jen,
you're out. >> You can't be on policy twice. >> Does that mean I get two votes if I run as Um, so, um, just to review our I wrote it down just for myself. Make sure
everybody make sure I got it straight. Pardon me. Um, Dana, David, and Kristen. Capital is Megan, Jen, and Julia. I got that correct? Um, so
I'm gonna sit back and say, anybody have any thoughts on who would like to be on the policy subcommittee? or who would you like to be on the policy subcommittee jump in and nominate someone? >> I'm already on there. >> I guess yeah, you're off on this one,
too. >> Is it worthwhile for our two new members to talk about what we actually do on the policy subcommittee? >> Sure, we could. We did talk about it a little bit last time, but >> Oh, yeah. Can you talk into the mic? >> Yeah, sorry.
Uh, we did talk a little bit about last time, but we could Do you want to review? >> Um, so we are the ones that probably have the most
influence over what happens at the actual school level. because even though we're not setting curriculum like we are setting broad policies that are going to apply to all of our schools um it's not a heavy lift usually.
>> Usually >> usually >> depending on what's going on. Yes. >> Um but we I mean we have some interesting talks conversations which is nice and you really get to get in on more of the nitty-gritty stuff. >> When do you usually meet? Uh, we've been
meeting Monday afternoons at 2:30, like once a month. >> Do you meet on Zoom or you meet on Zoom? >> Meet on Zoom. >> I could do that. >> You would like to? >> Yeah, >> I can do it. >> Okay. Okay. >> Heard one person enthusiastically jumping.
>> Hopefully this next year I'll be more free >> unless and unless another member would want to be on it. >> Can you Can you repeat the meeting time? >> Um, sorry. We've been meeting on Mondays once a month on Zoom at 2:30. >> Okay.
>> But that can shift a little bit. >> I have a standing Monday afternoon meeting at 3. >> Mhm. >> So we could adjust if you have interest. >> Yeah. >> Oh, >> I think because you guys teach at night, both of you.
>> Um I don't, but >> it's because Monday we don't have any classes. >> We don't have classes on Monday. >> It sounds safe. >> The Mondays are more flexible. Our schedules are more flexible and I do teach Wednesday and the occasional Thursday night. >> Well, if you wanted to do it, Kristen,
I'm sure they'd be flexible to move it if you something you're interested in. >> Yeah, we can definitely I mean I'm willing I'm willing to but I just be policy. >> Okay. Um well then
choose I don't want to put you on the spot. Do you want to do it? >> It's fine with me. like I'm willing to do it, but I feel similarly if you really want to do that. >> I've been on it and then I had to get off of it because I was doing, you know, cuz I had my health problems. Um I'd be willing to do something like if you
wanted to do it and it was too it was too much like be honest and then I could assume it again if you if you just wanted to like experiment with it for a few months and see if it worked. >> Sure. I mean that's >> because it's so hard to know when you haven't done it. >> Yeah.
>> Okay then. That's a nice offer. I just personally think you would have more to offer than me just with your law background. That's all I'm saying. >> Let's hope. >> Okay. Then I nominate Kristen Noon for the third member of the policy
subcommittee. >> Second. >> Second. >> Second. >> Um I heard a second. I don't know who seconded it. >> David. >> David. All right. >> Um >> Kristen, would you accept that nomination? >> Yes. Okay. just with the caveat that we'll just have to talk about the
meeting time a we bit. >> So yes, and that and I mean that actually goes for all of the subcommittees that sometimes scheduling needs to be re adjusted. Um okay. Um so we had a nomination and a second. Um
and does anyone have anything else? Looks like we're ready to vote. >> Oh, I would say it's not every Monday, right? >> No, it's not every week. It's um usually once a month. Unless we've got a special project. >> That was my only addition. >> Good idea.
>> All right. Ready? All those in favor? That is unanimous of the member of the >> seven members present and uh thank you very much Kristen um for willing to join two um subcommittees. Um
>> thanks for your offer Julia. >> Yeah. And just you know that just out of fairness, the whole committee should know like it isn't expected that Kristen and Jen would have to serve on two committees forever. That at some point >> yes, >> we all need to take turns doing the
extra >> um work. Um All right. >> And and you're the chair of policy. Yeah. So you'll >> send out emails with Yep. >> Okay.
Oh god, I didn't prepare secretary report. I first forgot I didn't prepare secretary report. >> All right, next up, >> the initial budget presentation. >> I spoke too soon, Eric. >> I know.
>> Oh, here. Yeah. Yes. >> So cute. >> Just happened. >> Any on the floor? >> He's going to do it from the floor. >> Someone taped this. I don't want to. It's I got a clicker. It'll work. It'll
work. Yeah, it works. >> Vinnie, do you want us to hold questions to the end or ask as we go? >> Ask as you go. >> Okay. >> I have a problem breathing. It lets me breathe. Uh so, thank you guys for joining us
again tonight. I know uh most of you were here last night. >> A lot of these slides are very similar to last night. So rather than make you guys kind of suffer through the same piece of information, the slides that are pretty much identical to last night, I'm going to try to go through a little
quicker, but of course if you have a question or I'm going too fast, uh don't hesitate to stop me. Before I go through the presentation, I'd just like to explain some of the exhibits you have linked on your agenda so you know how they all work. Uh the first exhibit is
obviously this presentation. Uh if you jump down to your third exhibit, uh that's the one that has the cover sheet that has the nice sign on it. This is our full account detail of all 402 of our active accounts. Uh this is broken
out by each of our schools and departments and shows you literally every single line item, how much we budgeted for, how many FTEEs are in it, and what that changes year-over-year as well as budget to actual data. I believe going back uh three fiscal years. If you
jump forward to the second exhibit, uh it's kind of looks similar to this, but it has the detail by school and desi category. This breaks out all five of our schools and seven departments into the 12
different desi categories. There is over 40 uh I'm sorry, there are over 66 different DESIE categories broken out in this in that presentation. Um it breaks out the entire $3.2 million increase
year-over-year um literally down to the dollar within those 66 different categories. If anyone is uh wants to know what makes up that 3.2 2 million. Exhibit number two is probably the most detailed and can hopefully answer that question for you. If you then go to your
fourth exhibit, it's the summary of all changes that takes um exhibit number two and summarizes it onto one sheet. So if there are multiple categories across 12 of our schools or 12 of the desi categories, it adds them all up into one
line and summarizes it for you. So I try to make it uh a few different ways of viewing it cuz I understand everyone interprets things difference and learns different. So it's a few different ways um in case anyone has a unique way of looking at it. And then finally the
fifth exhibit is all of the um staffing transfers across the district. Now on exhibit number five, I did try to indicate on each of these um changes whether it was a transfer, whether it was level service or whether it was a
new um ask. Overall, we are going up uh we are recommending going up 1.3 FTEES. Every single item on here is a transfer between schools except two of them. And I'm just going to point them out to you. It's the um
special education teacher trade for the psychologists. Although it is an even trade FTE wise, it does cost us about $9,000. Uh as I had hopefully mentioned last night, um our new psychologist position we anticipate is going to cost
a little bit more than the special education position. So even though it is an even trade, it does cost uh additional $9,000. And the other position is under the special ed DAC. the 0.44 um halftime administrator. So everything
else listed on there is an even tradeoff both FTE and dollar-wise. It's just us moving positions from one school to another. So I just wanted to explain all of the exhibits to help you guys uh understand why there's so many of them. So to get started, um again, I'm going
to kind of try to briefly hit a lot of them that I did last night. Um, everyone knows kind of what we look at when we go to look our bug build our budget. Sorry. The biggest thing is our collective bargaining agreements. This is really what drives uh our increase year-over-year with our expenditures and
um the other items you see on here. Our difficulties this year, just to highlight the big two, is obviously FY26's decision to use excess and deficiency funds uh to in to avoid an operational override at the 2025 annual
town meeting. And then second is how do we adequately fund our maintenance department uh in light of the recent results of the school building uh votes. So one of the first things we look at is our enrollment shift. Uh Hamilton has
gone up a total of 19 students and um hopefully it was 19 I couldn't see. Yes, 19 sorry. And Winnham has gone up a total of 18 students. So in total our resident enrollment has increased by 37 students. Uh when you factor that new weighted
enrollment into our three-year average, we're coming out with a new split between the two towns. 65.51% Hamilton and 34 34.4 49% wenham. Uh that means if we rolled our FY26 budget into
2017 uh into 2027 and didn't change any expenditures whatsoever or any revenue estimates, it would mean that Wenom would still have an increase to their tax assessment by approximately 1.2% or roughly 152,000 and the town of
Hamilton would see a reduction of the same dollar amount, but for them it would be a reduction of 0.62%. 62%. Again, I went over some of this stuff last night. Our revenues are growing uh at a good rate, excluding anything to do
with our excess and deficiency. Uh we're seeing growth of $550,000 or roughly 7% year-over-year. Uh for our expenditure summary, what I have displayed here is what I would consider almost our normal year-over-year turnover from FY26 to
FY27. So, this would exclude our additional request for maintenance. So, if you take that out, which is an additional ask for FY27, our normal year-over-year turnover would be $2.6 million or roughly 5.67%.
So, I wanted to try to show you what that would have been like if everything else was held normal. Uh, so we factor in our enrollment shift and our um estimate for revenues excluding END. And then you factor in that $2.6 million which would have been our normal
turnover. We're left with an increase to the net town assessment of just under $2.1 million or a 5.64% increase. This would have been Yes, of course. Yep. >> You have entire
going to operating budget, correct? And isn't that what you told us very forcefully yesterday that we shouldn't be doing? Can you ask that again? I didn't quite understand. >> So on this you have E and D from the
87353 >> uh going towards the operating budget. >> I'm talking about this number. >> Yeah, >> that is WHM's assessment. That's >> okay. >> Nothing to do with END on this slide right here. >> Um I'll wait till you get to it then.
>> Yep. So if you exclude the E and D situation and you kind of took it out of the equation, our normal turnover would have resulted in these numbers here, >> right? >> An overall 5.64% which would have translated into an additional 873,000
just to Wenham which they would have saw just under a 7% increase. Hamilton would have saw just about under a 5%. Again, that's if we didn't have the END situation and if we didn't ask for the additional maintenance requests. Just want to make sure that's that's clear so
you understand where these numbers are coming from. I wanted to display to you what the year would have been if we didn't have these two unique scenarios. Does that make sense? Okay. Um, so I went over this last night. Our major two changes year-over-year is
around our staffing. Our biggest item on here obviously is our colas. Uh most of our bargaining units are at a three and a half% cola for FY27. That translated into about a million dollar increase to our overall uh payroll. Ultimately for
FY27, uh we're recommending a payroll budget of just under $29 million, which is up 4.2% when you compare it to FY26. Our health insurance uh is going up just under $600,000. The main two drivers of this are obviously our premium rate
increase. uh that's adding roughly 477,000. Uh and then our move from the 63% district match to a 65% adds another 122,000. Uh when you roll this up and compare it to our FY26 budget, it's the
increase of roughly $600,000. Um some other major notable things that I did not go over yesterday or at least didn't uh touch upon in on a slide is our overall transportation. Uh I'm estimating this is going to go up about
$166,000. Uh as you know, we recently signed a 10-year agreement to electrify our fleet. In that 10-year agreement there, it obviously lays out what our increase is every year for FY27. Uh we have a rate lock with a 5.25%
increase. Uh this breaks down to a $62,000 increase for our special education transportation, another $62,000 increase for our uh general transportation. Uh we unfortunately did have to add an additional late bus this year. So now there is one late bus for
Hamilton and one late bus for Winnham. That did cost an additional $35,000. Uh and then we do have a small increase related to a few field trips that the district does uh fund the transportation for and a few line items in the
athletics budget that we directly pay transportation for as well. This does not include uh the transportation for the athletic department that is split between um the district and the participants. So that user fee match uh
that goes towards transportation as well, but that is not included in this number. The only number in here is transportation that the district pays 100% for. Um the next item is our Essex County retirement contribution. Um now how this
is calculated is Essex County takes all of its members, all of the surrounding communities, and adds up all of our payroll and then divides it out percentage-wise. Uh the Essex County Retirement System last year collected $54 million
uh from all of their entities. Of that 54 million, Hamilton Wenham owns roughly $2.5% of that. So our assessment comes out to roughly $1.4 million. Uh last year for the FY26 budget, the Essex County Retirement System increased our
appropriation by just under 11%. We will not receive our final number until mid December. Right now, I just have a hold in there and I set it equal to that same exact 11%. Uh just assuming that they're going to hit us with the same percentage
increase as they did last year. Just to note that was high last year. I'm hoping it is not that high and it's lower. Uh but nonetheless, that number will be updated hopefully by the tenative if not definitely by the final budget. Uh but right now that is just a current
estimate. We have included a um payment into our capital stabilization fund for $100,000 to start planning and putting funds away for any future projects that might happen. Um next is our utilities. Just
like everyone seeing at home, our utilities are increasing. Right now, I have a modest increase of around $50,000 and that will cover us across the district. Uh last is our OPED contribution. uh in FY21, I believe, we
started our OPED trust fund and in that document, we had unofficially planned to increase that $50,000 every year since inception. We have we have been able to do that since we started. Uh we're adding we're recommending to add another
$50,000 this year and stay on that path for FY27. That'll mean a total contribution into our OPED of 350,000. Uh, Vinnie, I have a question. I have a question, too. Um, yep, of course. Go ahead. >> Oh, no. Sorry. My question is just the
how did you estimate the 50,000? Is that like trends year-over-year that you're seeing percentage increase? >> Yep. So, a few years ago, we met with our >> I'm sorry, I didn't utilities. Okay. >> Sorry, I thought you meant OPED. Sorry. >> I guess I could probably ask the same
question for OPED, but util I' just focused on utilities because I just know they're increasing so much across the board. is that that's based on like what we did last year and then >> it's based on like a three-year rolling average on our usage and then I
multiplied that out by what our rate lock was from last year. >> Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. >> You know, it it's not an exact science, but at least over the past three years, hopefully we had a cold year and a not so cold year. >> Cold year, not so cold year. >> Yeah.
>> Um I just want to ask about capital stabilization. Of course >> last year did we? >> Yep. >> We didn't last year meaning like this >> FY26 >> six there is there is no contribution. >> So this 100 Yep. So okay thank you.
>> Right now we are zero. >> That's what I want. >> There is funds in there but we >> right. There's existing funds but we didn't contribute in FY26 or aren't contributing in FY26. Okay. >> Correct. Um the only thing is OPEB in
FY26 for approximately 300,000 but uh nothing for capital stabilization. >> Yep. >> Coming back to utilities, I was looking at the breakdown. It looks like utilities at the high school you
budgeted a little over $11,000. >> The increase, >> right? >> Yep. >> Why? What about the fact that we now have massively better energy efficient boilers?
>> Uh yes. >> Do you still think we'll get that much of an increase? >> Um again, it is very unpredictable. Uh I do anticipate it. A little problem with the high school and middle school is we have one year of bad data. Uh for FY25,
we did not use gas to heat our building. We trucked in oil because the boilers were down. So for all of FY20 uh five when we saw those massive increases in utilities, it's bad data at the high school. So I did layer in kind of a
unforeseen at the high school middle school. >> Okay. >> With with respect to the the boilers, I'm just looking at the additional maintenance requests, there's no mention of that. Did that come out of the previous year? >> The >> the replacement of the boilers.
replacement of the boilers. So at the end of FY25, you authorize us to prepay out of district tuitions and that was to use those funds to replace the boilers. So we're using current year operating funds to replace the boilers.
>> And what what did that end up costing all together? >> Just over a million dollars. The project is not complete. I just got another change order today for $8,000. If I had to put a number on it, it'll probably be $1,20,000. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good so far. >> Okay, so um I was off lost my train of thought here. So just from those seven items, our salary increases, our health insurance, the transportation, Essex County,
capital stabilization, the utilities increase, and OPED, we just accounted for $2.3 million of the $2.6 million increase. So there is only about $300,000 remaining that I didn't discuss just by hitting those seven items.
That's where the majority of our expenditures increase year-over-year. Um, those seven items cover 86% of the baseline uh increase that we're asking for year-over-year. But that's not where we ended because we
all know we have an END issue. So in the slide before I showed you that on a a normal turnover, Hamilton would have had roughly a 5% increase when would have had uh roughly 7% and the district would have been at 5 1.5%. However, because of
the decision last year um to use roughly $2.1 million in excess and deficiency to balance FY26's budget, the way 25 ended, we were only able to add back in approximately $850,000 of that 2.1
million, which leaves us shy roughly $1.3 million. That automatically reduces our revenue and increases the assessment if everything else stays the same. Just to note, this number um is not certified by the state. It is a low number. I
believe it will increase by roughly anywhere from 100 to $150,000. Uh nonetheless, we will still be short just about $1.1 million in our END fund. Uh yep. Okay. >> Yep.
>> All right. So, LA, uh FY 26 current year, we used the $2 million I'm looking at under total top line there. >> Uh the top line would have been our assessment without the END issue.
>> Okay. So, okay. Well, maybe keep going and then I'll ask a question in a bit. Okay. >> I can >> I'll just keep going. >> Well, so I >> keep going. Let me shy in E and D. Say it again.
>> So the top line is where we would have seen. >> So you're 1.2 that makes more sense to me. So you're because I was going to say the END that you're proposing for this year I think is 830ish, right? >> Correct. >> So you're saying it's 1.2 sh I Right. I was looking for the 830 number to be
there, but really >> it is $1.2 million lower than what we put in last year. >> Okay, that makes sense. >> So you have to add back in that 1.2 million, which takes what would have been our 6% operating budget turnover
and makes it 9%. So just that END issue from last year added 3 percentage points to the town assessment for FY27. >> Um >> and I think was your question why is our
END contribution this year not zero? Is that your question? >> No, my question is last night you said that we shouldn't use END to pay operating Correct. >> Because we run into the situation that we just did.
>> But doesn't our current budget use that $873,000? >> It does >> to do the operating >> that was requested. >> It does. And if >> should we use it instead specifically to pay the capital projects
>> if that would be the committee's wish? Of course. However, you will turn that 9% number into 11 or 12%. >> And this is before our additional maintenance request because if you now remove that $800,000, you just removed
$800,000 of revenue that is given back to the community and taken off our assessment. So if you now remove that revenue source and put it towards a capital item, you've just increased what we're asking them for today.
>> Well, we have those giant capital items already, right? The security improvements. There was like half a million dollars worth of capital improvements. >> Uh the you talking about the security vestibules? >> Yeah, the security vestibules, the sprinklers. Yep.
>> All of those. If we put our excess and efficiency towards those large capital projects instead of towards our general operating budget, won't there be less sticker shock percentage-wise next year?
>> Exact same amount, >> but next year FY28, you mean for the next, not for this year's budget, but for the year after that. Because even though we might get less END, we aren't making up. So yes, it would
hit us harder this year, but like >> but the capital projects are already in the budget, >> right? >> Yes. >> So the 830 So it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. >> Well, it's it's not because the capital projects are not going to be in the
budget next year. >> But they're in the budget this year. So >> Right. But our capital projects don't cover that entire amount. >> Yeah. >> So my question is is do we save the difference. >> So um the additional maintenance request
I you guys can change it if you like but the theory behind that is not a one-time thing. >> We need to permanently enhance our maintenance department and get funding for it. you know, in perpetuity. >> Okay.
>> The way you designed it, it we would be removing the 500 uh whatever amount you're suggesting forever. >> It would just be one. >> That's not what you're what's going to happen. The following >> the way we're presenting it here is it's an attempt to lock to lock in five
roughly $550,000 not only for 27 >> but for all future budget cycles to come. I mean, if I may, of course, I just >> we've gotten feedback over the years from the community that
certainly not, but in general that they want us to focus on maintenance so that we're taking excellent care of our schools and that often times the first thing that goes when you is to
say, "Well, do we really need to do that project?" And I so I guess I'm just just sort of saying I understand why it need like I want a maintenance line in there because >> right we need it and we need it to be
consistent because I think that's potentially been a problem in years past which is why >> I 100% agree. I just you had said yesterday not to use END for operating. Can I jump in because I think we're I I
was asking world I was but I was asking I was you and I were asking I think a similar but subtly different like I asked Eric this a similar question. So, we understood last year when we were doing this, we went we understood when we put that 2 million in, we understood
that it would um result in exactly this that you, you know, prevent um you know, you're not asking for the that much money in that one year. And so, it prevents asking for an override or or potentially just asking for a
higher percentage from the towns, but that then the following year, you still have that in the budget. And so, it causes this kind of thing. And I I think and this isn't on this slide, but my question had been we have since since I think 2020, we've had that I
think it's 770 annually. >> Yeah. >> Um in END that's been going year after year. And so my question to Eric had been slightly different than yours, but my question was why are we changing that? Like I understand why we're
keeping the 770 because that's would add an additional pain point that like we've carried that year after year and reducing that down would just make this worse. But I do wondered I wondered why
the 8 is it 8:30 or 870? >> Um >> 8:30 >> 8 I think it's 8 >> 870 >> I think it it's it's I know where >> 8:30. So I was just curious about like I assume that that 830 is what's available
to us Indian and D. >> That's correct. >> So I wondered about >> like given that that 770 is an amount of money that we've been number that we've been sort of just coping with for several years now. Like I just was
curious about >> why it's not >> why didn't just stick with that number and that and and go I understand you're saying well this is the maximum we can contribute and it's $1.2 million short of what we were able to contribute last year but I don't know that makes sense.
>> I mean the main thought process that was we could have made it the 7073 it's a $60,000 difference. >> Yeah. I just like I was just so used to seeing that it's like why are we >> Yep. I think the hard part with END for people to understand is the dramatic
swings that can occur. >> So for instance, if you go back in Vinnie's budget, our revenues without that END in there were I think seven and some change 7.5%. And then when you add that 1.2 back in,
it swings the other way. Revenues drop by almost the same amount. So 15 percentage points difference between putting it in and taking it out um is a big deflection point within within the budget. And I always tell people using
Indie is like jacking up your credit cards and trying to pay it off with the minimum every month. You just can't do it. The hard part getting out from underneath $2 million is it's hard to do all at once. Even if you level funded and just said we are level funding and
that's it. we still have to figure out how to deal with any of the other increases that just occur like cola and things like that. The the the problem you run into is is do you dump it all down at once which would jack us up to uh I think 3 percentage points more if I
if I remember correctly by just saying let's just do put no money in as revenue that will increase um the request by a little over I think it's a hair over 3%. Um, and then you're fine next year. The
other way to do it to take the pain point down a little bit, as Dana said, is put some of it in there next year. Drop it down a little bit more so you can ease into it. You just have to commit to that. It's it's hard when you get into a situation where, oh no, we
have this huge expense that we can't cover. What do we do? So, it's it's yeah, like last year last year was just one of those like what do we do? Do we do you want to, you know, do you want to start doing some cuts or not? So END is tough for people to understand as it comes in and out of the budget.
>> I guess my concern is that right now we're looking at a double-digit increase for Wenom and almost a double-digit increase for from Ham for Hamilton. Does it help us more to have a larger increase this year
so we avoid a double-digit increase next year? I would say that is for you guys to decide. >> Yeah, I think that's a decision you have to make. How much do you want to cut >> because the two towns have clearly stated they can't afford well they they
can't afford in re their current revenue situation they can't afford to cover the expense of the school committee without an override. So that's been clear from both you know some of the numbers last night they were short 1.4 4 million in Hamilton and 1.1 million in Wenham
already. And we're we're looking at 3.2 million increase. So if we increase it to to the the the add the 830,000 into that again, then you're you're looking at uh 12.2%ish
roughly. Um >> might be something to ask. >> Cut some of that and try to go forward with some of it, you know, and we these are conversations we have to have over the next 3 months. How how how do you want to approach this? Do you want to just you could just say, you know what, we're going forward with everything and request an override for it all. You
could cut some, make adjustments, uh some numbers will change along the way over the next 3 months because we'll get more solid numbers from the state or from uh Medicare u for for retirements and things like that, but it's not going to be a big impact that that we're looking for. So, there's there's a
number of routes to go. I think that's just part of all the discussions we'll have from now through February 12th when we vote a final budget. >> Yeah, I was just and that's what I was kind of getting at. Do we take a big override this year so that we don't have one next year or
do we take two smaller overrides over the course of or smaller overrides over the course of the next three or four years depending on how we choose to like spread that pain out. >> Yep.
So that is definitely something we will be looking upon you guys to uh give us your opinion on which way you would like to go. Uh the assumption here I made and maybe I should not have was that this was already such a large increase. We
didn't want to take it from 9% to 12. Um so that is why I put in the 830 as just a revenue offset. But >> I just don't know which palatable. Do we do you know 12% now and then next year,
>> you know, we only have to do 6% or 5%. >> Right. You have to have that discussion within the realm of everything we'll be looking for in at the ATM the town meeting. >> Yeah. >> Because the the roof project's $10 million. That's that is we're targeting that to also be in there. So that's a
debt exclusion. Do you want to do an override in a debt exclusion? >> That's a conversation. So there's there's a lot of things open wide open right now. The windows are open and we need to shut some. So how we do that is just really part of the conversations we'll have from for the next 3 months. >> Like I said the the only reason I asked
about it is cuz you said yesterday not just been END on. >> I don't disagree and I would love to taper it down. In my opinion this was just the wrong year to do it with numbers this large. >> Um it was trying to make them as small
as possible. But if everyone thinks that we would be better off uh taking it all in one year, uh we can certainly change it. It's why it's a preliminary budget. >> Just something to think about. >> Yeah. Things to think about. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think that's just >> definitely >> things to think about. >> Yep. >> Okay. I have a question. So Dana, at the next meeting, we would come back maybe with our recommendations. Maybe are you specific recommendations?
Cuz like tonight, I feel like it's an opportunity to ask questions and >> we're not voting on anything and >> No, correct. No, we're not voting on anything. or just um I that's a good question about I mean >> that's what I was going to say at the end of the presentation to kind of you
you have the information let it soak in for the next two weeks and our hope would be uh the next meeting we would receive some sort of guidance on what direction the committee wants us to go with because if we don't get it at the
next school committee meeting that guidance there's only one more meeting before the tenative vote So, if possible, it would be great to know by the next meeting. Um, but I understand it's big numbers >> to wait till the week before that
tenative vote and tell you to completely rave the budget. >> Yeah. I mean, >> I of course will if that's what happens. But >> if I could avoid it. >> Yeah. Well, that's that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, everyone knows where we are now. We had our normal uh operating
turnover of the 5%. We had to add in our END shortfall. We are now at a 9% increase to the assessment combined. However, as I stated last night, we are asking for an additional $550,000
for these maintenance items that I went over last night. Um, do you want me to go through them or everyone's comfortable? Okay, I'm just going to fly by it then. Dave, I want to make sure you don't have a question because I know you didn't see this yesterday. Do Do you want to ask me
anything about it? Feel free to ask me whenever you want though. Just I was just offering. >> Well, thank you. >> This is more This is more of a clarification question. So, the new vestibules are not going to incorporate bulletproof glass. Is that what you said
last time? >> Correct. Not at that price. >> Okay. >> Correct. >> That was my question. Just wanted to make sure I understood that from >> Do we know roughly what it would cost to get bulletproof? >> Probably 10 times that amount fully. I mean, if you're talking about fully,
there's different levels of security glass. So, you can So, so when we were talking about the new building, the glass, I can never remember the name of it. It came out of Sandy Hook. >> I think it was called school glass. >> Yeah, school glass maybe something. But
it's not bulletproof. It's just a little more resistant than a regular pane of glass. So there's different levels. So it really would have would depend on it. But if you put fully bulletproof in there, that's an expense. It's a it's a big expense. >> Mhm. >> I remember the cost many years ago doing
Wilmington High School. We were looking at it just for the two front doors and it was like $11,000 a door. It was, you know, it's it's expensive. >> Well, and I mean, I guess it doesn't matter cuz it's just a vestibial, but I was going to say then there's other factors because if there's a fire, you can't break it.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, you know, so >> it's about it's it's really until we get a this direction on what we're going to what we're going to do with these buildings. It's a it's a short-term containment solution. >> Somebody with a gun wants to get in your building, they are getting in. There are very many all kinds of ways to get in
the building. Um, with firepower, you know, even without, you can break the glass and go in a side window in every single school. So, this is really a day-to-day containment of people coming into the building. So, they're not just walsing right in and and going. We're able to stop people, identify them,
figure out why they're there, and then um have have a a conversation with them. >> But based on the statistical probability of any of our schools having a mass casualty shooting event, is this
really where we want to spend our money? I honestly think it's a good solution for now for the safety of our staff and kids. Um, >> it's not really going to make it that >> it's just a matter of kid getting kids getting some containment so that people
aren't just walking into a cafeteria full of kids. I I'm sorry, but I don't I I think it's also not I mean just because of the world we live in, it's like that's the only thing that you could just think about, but there are lots of other reasons where you would
want to contain people >> in there. There are custody issues like parents coming in for custody issues. >> There are people that might want to come in and don't have a weapon, but there's still >> not someone you want roaming around the
school. So, so this is it is a security that can protect kids. >> It's not only there for a firearms incident. >> Yeah. >> And it's not my number one choice. If I
had a choice, I would do several other things. But as we saw in the other the other design of the consolidated building, lockdowns and you know location safer locations is there's a lot more tools on the market, but this is really how do we secure these places right away so that people aren't just
walking in. >> Okay, >> advance. >> Okay. Um, so after our normal 6% turnover, after we factor our END, we're at the 9%. Then when you layer in our
additional request for maintenance for the 550,000, it brings our final preliminary FY27 operating budget recommendation at an increase of $3.9 million or roughly 10.5%
uh, year-over-year. That's where we are sitting right now for our operating budget. just to lightly hit on our debt. Um we had three of our seven projects roll off in FY26. Uh ultimately the only two we have the only four we have left the the
only four we have left is the Cutler roof in summer 2013, our Buer and Winter boilers, our new Cutler feasibility and new athletic turf bond that uh Kevin came in this uh earlier and presented on.
So when you uh wrap together our operating budget and our debt, our total um assessment to Hamilton right now is an increase of 2.4 million or roughly 9.6%. Uh for Wenham it's 1.5 million or
roughly 11.6 and as the district as a total uh it's an assessment increase of $4 million or roughly 10.32%. So that wraps up my original presentation. I did add one minor slide just to show you guys a little bit more
uh about the budget. Um so when you look at our FY27 operating budget right now as it stands, what we just presented, our total salaries districtwide, all departments comes out to $28.7 million. Just salaries alone represent 58% of our
total operating budget for 27. Factor in our health insurance, it's another 4.8 8 million and another 10% of our total budget. If you then add in all of our other benefits that we offer, our 403b plans, our other insuranceances,
our Essex County appropriation, it's another 5%. So just in personnel alone, we've already hit 72% of our total operating budget. Um, this is obviously the biggest bucket in our in the total operating budget. I just went a little
bit further and tried to break down a couple of our bigger items. Add in out of district tuitions, you're at another 10%. So, right now we're sitting at 82% and we've only talked about two things really, our staff and our out of district tuitions.
>> Um, one more step is our required transportation. Because we're a regional school district, our total is 2.5 million. You're at another 5%. Uh we are quickly approaching 90% once you factor in our custodian and contracted services
another 3% our utilities another 2%. Um right now in my opinion there's really nothing much left in the budget. All of these numbers you have presented here are not to say final but the salaries all those colas are agreed upon. Those
numbers are final. You're really not changing the adjustment year of year. our health insurance. That's really told to us by Harvard Pilgrim. Yes, there's a little bit of negotiation, but there's really not a lot of room for negotiation. It's really what they tell
us. Um, and that goes with all of our other benefits, too. Our Maya um property and liability insurance, they're really just telling us what they're charging us year-over-year. Um, our tuitions, yes, we could adjust that a little bit, but that would take a lot
more investment. we would have to invest in more staffing. We'd have to invest in our facilities in order to keep those kids inhouse and bring that down. So although we might be able to bring tuitions down, it's probably not going to happen in one year and you're
probably going to bring up your salaries in order to do that. Um so that's kind of locked. Um our transportation is pretty much locked. We know what our rate is. It's not going to change much. Um, yes, we can adjust our custodian
supplies. We did ask for $550,000 additional dollars. That is included in the number. Um, so yes, maybe you could adjust some there. Your utilities, there's no adjusting there. Um, so what we have left is really just one percentage of a few things. Athletics
takes up another 1%. Our technology, devices, and our software take up another 1%. uh capital oped and stabilization is another one. Right now the only thing left is a lot of little buckets that account for 4% of your budget. So when I
go and look at our budget, if we're really trying to lower things and we're avoiding staff, the only way to go is that 4% which only leaves basically $2 million to adjust. And that $2 million is your paper, your supplies, uh some of
it's your SRO, some of it's your Aspen software, the financial system for our office, budget sense. >> A lot of those items you're not taking away either. Um >> so I just made this to try to um show
you how our budget breaks down. And >> do you have any more questions? >> Thank you. >> Nice visual. It's not nice. But >> it's very helpful. It's helpful to see what's non >> negotiable. Like what's fixed? >> Well, it's fixed unless we fire,
>> right? >> Of course. >> Like everything's fixed unless we >> Well, right. I mean, that's >> I actually have a question on the detailed budget. >> Yes. Um, under all the professional development categories at every school,
there's an increase in COLA, uh, FY27 COLA base. >> Yep. >> But there's also an increase under teachers. So, why are the what's different about those two that we're having an increase for professional
development? >> Yep. >> That's not like is that separate from the COLA increases for the teachers? No. So when you have your teachers contract, um I'm using round numbers. There's 190 teachers under that contract. Some of
them are nurses, some of them are instructional coaches. Your nurse doesn't fall under your Desi teachers category. Uh for DESIE, the teachers category is more your grade school teachers, you know, your one through five and your subject matter teachers at
the secondary level, your math, science. uh once you get into instructional coaches or nurses that moves out into other DESIE categories. So under professional development uh the only staff members that fall under there are our three
uh elementary instructional coaches. Is it two or three? Two. >> Three. >> Three. Sorry, I had it right. I knew I had it right. Sorry. Our three instructional coaches. Uh and then at the administrative level, uh it's Jen Clifford, part of our um professional development coordinator. Those are the only staff members who actually fall
under the professional development desi category. Did that answer your question? >> That does. My other question was I'm sorry. Is operation
and maintenance >> at any in particular school? uh at the regional high school. It looks like the change from high school custodian to athletic complex subflater maintenance floater base is
listed twice. >> So you have two different things happening here. Um so how I break this down is really over the 11 13 years of people asking me what the difference is. I've always try to categorize them different. So you have your base with
somebody and you have your stipens. Uh so the theory here is is we're taking a day person and moving them into a different facility which now moves them on the collective bargaining agreement into a different area. So that increases their base because their hourly rate
changes. But then in addition to that, we're thinking they're going to be second shift which then adds a stipen to them for their shift differential. I separated in two different ways so people can see, you know, if you apply a cola to a base, it might be one number,
but if you apply it to your stipens, it it can be a completely different dollar amount cuz I separate the two. That's that's why it's really listed two different ways. >> Thank you. >> I certainly could have just added them together and said that's our difference, but >> I just like I said, it looked to me that
maybe it was listed twice and I wasn't sure. >> Yeah. So the 11,000 is because of their uh base change in hourly rate because now we're categorizing them different and then the bottom number is their shift differential. Okay. Do I ask? >> And I think that
my last question was on special education because we have a 20 other underteening services. Uh we have $24,825 for contracted services, but we just hired a psychologist. Will that
psychologist take over that those duties? >> Um can you just tell me again where you're looking? under special education. >> Yep. >> Under other teaching services. >> Oh, the therapeutical practice >> because we just hired a psychologist and
so we saw that increase in another category. >> Um so >> will the psychologist be taking over those duties? >> Uh so unfortunately our psychologists are not um trained in the younger age and we have to contract out services for
our younger children. Uh we are working on getting them trained at the moment but >> but right now they're not. >> Right now they are not. >> Okay. >> Um I have a question for Eric. Um a few months ago the committee assigned um the task of working out what the cost
would be to um implement two ashray 241 at at all the schools. and it was meant to be ready in in time for budget for budget consideration. And I'm just wondering where that is.
>> As far as I know, the in talking to Curtis, he wasn't able to do that because he wasn't able to get consistent pricing. So, he couldn't say this is the exact price for this, this was the exact price for that. Um, but I can circle back to him and see where where he he went with that. The last document that
we had was I think the one you had with there were very high level estimates of what it would cost roughly um for the B to um the what was the study the uh it was it B2B study the one that uh you
had requested. >> Oh yeah the the one that the um B2B >> Yep. uh consultants put together, >> right? That was that was the last thing we had which ran between five and $7 million per school.
>> I think when we looked at that depending on which which direction you went. >> Yeah. That that wasn't specific to Ashray 241. That was more optimization of energy used and so forth. Yep. >> Yeah. It would be handy to to get get
more detail on what he found. >> Sure. I I'll circle back to him. >> Thank you. only because you brought up some of that testing that additional maintenance request does include uh funds for water testing enhancement across all five schools. >> Oh, good. Great. Thank you.
>> Does it also include replacing the lead pipes in the schools that we had things that tested positive for lead? >> Um I am not aware that we have lead pipes. There might be >> we had a couple of water fountains that
test positive for lead. Uh it does include replacement of the ones that are were triggered. >> Okay. >> To have that that was my question. >> But we're trying to replace those right now. Um >> Okay. >> Yeah. That's in process.
>> It's not necessarily lead pipes. >> Correct. It's it's not necessarily lead pipes. It it could be >> the solder. >> Solder. Yeah. >> You know, we've asked what what we what we did. We did the testing. We'll replace the fixtures, which is part of
our process, if you will, and then do the testing again. And if it comes up again, then we have to go deeper to figure out where the what the source is. But >> we feel like we'll we'll be able to cover our bases with the changing of the the actual units themselves, which he's
almost done. He's trying to get get one of them to fit correctly, but he's almost done. Um, I had a question about um the revenues slide. It's number 10. >> Um,
just a couple things out of curiosity. I know we've all been talking about Eric's recent memo about the chapter 70 baseased aid and the challenges with reusable transportation cuz I'm looking at this and it looks like our revenue is going up 7.4 which is great but the
expenses are going up 10.3. So, I'm wondering if the chapter 70 and the transportation aid were funded at the levels that we would better like to see them at, how far would that go to closing some of this gap between revenue
and expenses if we I mean I know I know we don't know the nuts and bolts of those formulas, but I'm just sort of curious. It's hard to say because the when I spoke about the kind of the the regional penalty if you will uh especially for two
communities that are perceived to be wealthy the um the first figures that come out are what's your equalized housing value in in Winnham I think the average uh the equalized housing value in Wenham is slightly over a million dollars and in
in Hamilton is 846,000 so we're high there and then they go in and say, "Okay, what is your average salary in each of the communities?" So, they do a salary study, they add that in. Those two figures alone can throw us off. And then, because we're so small, uh we
don't see a lot of L's, you know, we see between six and 15 students who uh uh who whose English is not second language. Um we our our low-inccome kids are again limited in in scope across the
district. So you don't see a a big uh jump from there. So those those factors alone out of the other I don't know this 20 something components I think um really keep it keep it down which is one of the reasons we're trying to push it to be you know even if you get a million
dollars or $2 million more it makes a huge difference >> right >> um we were fortunate to gain a little bit of extra at the end of the year the uh state house divvied up what they called the millionaires tax if you
remember that was in May and June they wrestled with that from April through June. And we got a little bit of an increase at the end of the year, which is which is what we're seeing here. Um cuz generally we don't see $250,000 increase in our our chapter 70. It's
it's generally 100,000 150,000 160,000. It doesn't um jump up like we're seeing here. Is is there any other like realistic opportunity for revenue growth of the categories on this slide or is this
pretty much this is pretty much it? Just for my own curiosity like cuz I you know >> I mean we are relooking at our special ed tuition in um but that's you know be around $40,000. >> Yeah. when you you can you can look at
something that's a good example special ed tuition in you could say okay we're going to have we have four seats available on our castle program and reach out to local schools and say okay we have four seats available for these grade levels in contract with schools to say okay we'll
take on your child who might be one or two kids in a program with now they'll come and be six seven or eight in a program and that that might be a way to gain some revenues but you also inherently expenses as well. We we've had an issue in the past where
>> we've taken a student and fortunately in the contract we we wrote that anything more that the student needs the school's responsible for. So um that's generally how you how you deal with it. >> Mhm. There are other things like the the circuit breaker offset that that is
dependent on special ed students exceeding 45,000 47,000. It doesn't kick in until we pay that much money on on kids. And um so because we're small, we're we're limited. That's that's a a real difficulty. People say,
"Oh, why don't you increase the rates of preschool?" >> Right? If I increase the rates of preschool to $200 a day, I still can't cover the expenses of just preschool in the district. So, right, >> it's a it's a it's a it's a interesting um kind of catch 22, if you will, where
because of our size, we're limited in a lot of ways. We we've looked at um rentals. We're we're'll be bringing forward in in a couple of meetings changes to our rental fee structure to try and gain some some revenue there, which is >> nominal. Maybe an opportunity, but it's not it's not a million dollars. So,
>> right. >> Yeah, it's it's um it's a it's a difficult situation and um you know, not not having having the cost of everything in the community on the backs of the
residents and not you know shared across corporate side as well is is difficult. >> So, it's it's um it's tough. We we've thought we we think every year like how can we get a little bit more revenue? what could we do to get a little bit
more revenue? Um, it's hard. Medicaid reimbursements go up and down. It really depends on the needs of your kids and the things that you can apply to be get reimbursement for. So, and all that costs money. Like Medicaid, we probably spend more >> administratively.
>> Administratively, and paperwork-wise to get to $65,000, we're probably spending $180,000 to get $65,000 back. It's it's um it's one of the problems we run into with the state and the paperwork, the expectations for paperwork and things.
>> Also, even if chapter 78 increases, we actually won't know that until after we have to pass the budget at town meeting, right? >> That's correct. >> Correct. Yeah. >> That chapter 70 number is pretty much final. >> Yeah. We think that's right where it's
going to be given the boost they gave in June >> and we didn't have there was no opportunity to spend it. They basically said to school districts on June 27th, here's a little bit extra you can spend. Well, the school year's over in 2 days. What do we do? So, they extended the
opportunity to use that money. But, you know, it's again, it's not a lot. It's not a lot of money when you're looking at millions. Three $3.8 million 3.9 million. >> I know. Oh, I was just wondering because I know you had that graph from like our
budget and the chapter 78 and it's >> a structural problem and we can't fix the structure ourselves of that >> problem. So, I was just wondering if that those columns were a little higher on your graph, we would >> Yeah. If we were getting $2 million
more, just $2 million, not just, but $2 million more in chapter 78, you now are are really starting to make a dent >> on some things. It's It's just I I don't
It would be extremely expensive for the state to make any dramatic change to chapter 70 that would meaningfully impact small districts of 2500 or less. Um, it's just really designed now,
including with the Student Opportunity Act add edition, it's designed now to really funnel money into, I think, 68 school districts who have higher levels of low income, higher levels of L's, which is where the state wants to to focus those funds. So it's it's um I it
would be even even adjusting the for inflation the the the the formula is capped at 4 1.5% inflation. You've know we've seen in the past um you you'll never you'll never gain you know you're losing before you even start. And you
know the same thing with some of the special ed costs. We were surprised by a over a 14% increase two years ago out of nowhere to all the out of district placements. The state gave them permission to basically raise their rates by 14 and some change percent.
It's usually between I think the average was 2.8% you on a usual year-to-year basis and all of a sudden 14% hits and we we were saying to the state, you know, that's a huge hit on us. Nothing else changes. our special ed costs won't see that increase for another year.
They're always a year behind. Um, and it sticks. Once you own it, you own it. The you're not that 14% is not going down the next year. In fact, it went up to 3.42 again again this year, I think. So, it is a neverending battle of of,
you know, where the state priorities. state is very clear about funneling their money, even their excess money to places that are um focused on like the student opportunity act is focused on gaps, gaps with special ed, gaps for uh
low-income students, L's and any of those combined categories. So, you'll see a lot more money heading in those directions. So Boston, Worcester, Lawrence, LOL, Springfield see higher amounts of chapter 78. >> So I know it's probably just semantics,
but I heard I heard somebody say, I forget who, that our revenue is growing at 7 and 1/2, but our expenses are growing at 10 and a half. Our expenses are not growing at 10 and a half. >> Our expenses are 6%. The assessment is 10% because of the END issue. Got it.
Um, I know as a taxpayer I wouldn't care because it's it's 10%. Uh, it doesn't matter where it's coming from, but made me feel better to correct. >> Thank you. Yeah. No, that's more accurate. That's more accurate. Yeah. >> Do you guys have any other questions? And revenue-wise, I think we're up two
and a half% from last year, right? >> Yeah. >> I think it's like two two and a half 2.6% from last year. So, that's moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, everything else is running faster, you know. So, >> um, so from here, I'm kind of looking at
you guys and what direction we want to go. Um, there's two more meetings before the tenative vote. Um, we're hoping that next meeting we get some sort of guidance on what direction we want to go so we can work on it and then maybe at least present it to you uh one time
before you have to take a vote on it. Um but if not there is still you know 3 months in the budget season to go. But >> um >> my concern is that
11% or it's actually lower than what you first presented to me which was close to 11%. But even so, it's still a 10 a double-digit increase in the assessment to the town
or yeah will not pass town meeting. >> What was that last year? >> Like yeah last year it was like four I want to say because of all the E and D. >> I think Wenom was in the fives >> right but it didn't it it didn't require
an override. So >> it did not require an override. >> Yeah. And we've already I mean I don't know what you how you guys interpret it, but it seemed like Hamilton's like, "Well, the school is going to have to ask for an override. We're not asking
for an override." >> Well, that was one voice, >> right? And I mean, >> but then I heard another voice saying, "Shouldn't we be asking for more for for maintenance for the school?" So, right. >> Hamilton tells us every year we need to cut half of our budget. they just tell
us every year cuz I mean it makes sense cuz >> they're in a budget crunch as well. >> So yeah, I mean >> yeah I mean I >> I mean I I felt like that meeting everyone was really saying like
everybody's in a difficult situation here. I mean I really didn't >> remarkably cordial but >> yeah. No, I mean I really felt like everyone was sort of saying like okay this is tough all around. I'm just saying the last time we had increases
like this, we were the school and I wasn't on the school committee back then, but it was close. >> Well, when is the last time we had a budget override when >> Oh, not an override. Sorry. >> An override? It's been a long time.
>> I think 2018, I think it was when Cuz we weren't sure because of co >> No, no. >> How much state? >> No, that was not an override. It was It was >> Oh, I promise you it was >> 2020. >> No, >> 2018. >> But that's not CO. >> That wasn't co
>> 2018. It could have been 2018. >> It was the one year where the state wasn't sure how much chapter 78 >> that was that was >> that was 2020. You're >> we were in the tent. >> You're mixing them together. >> 2020 was
>> that's why we got the 770 that we're separating >> the committee, right? It was the it was 1.2 2 million which everybody was saying that the state was going to >> short the town. So I remember that night cuz I got a Julie Cookenberger was was not at the meeting,
>> but she called me and said, "Hey, they just voted the budget and they took that 1.2 out because they're not sure if it was going to be there." >> So that's where that came from. And then we tried making that up over the next 3 years, right? We really >> We're still >> Yeah, we're still behind. That's the 770
that were that's floating right there. >> But I mean I think that's the last year we had an override and that barely passed >> like it was >> but that was I mean this is it's that wasn't an override that >> we did have a exclusion that same year.
I don't know. >> Yeah. 958,000 >> for maintenance that same year, right? It was the same next year. >> It was the same year. 951,000. >> Yeah. 950 >> annual town meeting of 20. >> That was a separate capital >> budget from the bud from the budget itself. >> I'm sure there wasn't an operational
override that year, but >> yeah, I don't I haven't seen one since I've been here. I think it was 2009 or 10. >> Um, but I will say I don't know what year it was, but early on in the like I'm going with like
0405 something. We had several in a row. I wish >> Yeah. you know, several in a row. Uh, help me with what year that might have been. I don't know. But >> long time, >> a long long time. 20 years ago. Um, >> historian.
>> Yeah. When Marinel McGrath was superintendent. >> Yeah. >> 20 years. >> And And one of them didn't pass. >> Yeah. >> And that's my concern is that it won't pass and then we're in heap deep trouble.
>> Yeah. I lived it once, but I was not. I was just a parent. I was not a >> I mean, I think that's always a concern. A >> concern. It's real. >> We have to really figure out like what can we cut then, >> you know? >> And I agree. But I think we have to cut
something. >> But what >> I mean, maybe we have to cut staff. >> But I guess like the question So I think I'd love to ask the question of Eric and Vinnie. I know the answer because I sit in capital fines, but I would love the rest of the committee to hear. If we
were to in right entertain cutting staff to meet this number, what would that look like roughly? What would that look like? >> People need to know that. >> I mean, based on their numbers last night, uh you're talking over $2 million. >> Okay. And so that is a significant
amount. two million more than 30 >> and that is >> I don't even want to say the amount of staff members I I >> it'd be it'd be it'd be a lot it would be we couldn't sustain the district in that pre with that pressure because
remember when you're making cuts you're you're taking because of the way the the the union agreements are structured you're taking the lowest paid person generally you're taking the low it could be a singleton position But in in the case of where there's a lot of
teachers in a particular area, you cut your All right, we're going to cut I'm just going to use the number. Don't anybody get nervous on me. We're going to cut a high school teacher >> um in the you know in the math department that's >> the lowest person in that department, you know. So you're looking at salary
differences of of uh 60,000 to 118,000. So when you're cutting that low 60 divid just do the math just for positions 30 you know 2 million >> divided by just use 60,000 don't even include the benefits it gets ugly fast
>> and so and so I am not I'm not I'm just trying to get a sense of scale here because I I >> I struggle with like how would we last year most of the school committee members
present here except for Kristen and I, we were not members. The school committee voted right for the for the teachers contract for salary increases, which I think is great, right? And and we needed to at that moment, we needed
to sign for those the those um COLA adjustments to negotiate and get us into that situation. And I think it's really challenging then the following year to then say,"Well, we wanted we
wanted you. We thought you deserved these raises, but now we have to turn around and we can't afford this as a town." I just think that's really difficult. I have a hard time with that as a new member. >> Um, I don't think the school committee is saying that. I think that the towns are saying that.
>> Yeah. But so and that's why I think we we as a school committee have to have to stand up for this decision and >> I can't not unless we meet somewhere in the middle. We've got to show that we're willing to give on something.
>> Yeah. I am not willing to give on that. So this is yeah that's where I am. >> But this is this is why we have these budget discussions. You know it's it's um a budget is a statement of your values. like where you put your money is what you value. Um, and that's what I've
seen a year, every year, every year, every year. That's what I keep coming to because you know we can nickel and dime every like I even asked the $50,000 about utilities and then I thought that's so stupid to ask that it doesn't even mean anything >> because it's more philosophical like you're saying. What do we do?
>> And I'm not telling anyone what to believe in, but what do we believe in? What do we stand for? What are we willing to fight for? That is so much of what we do here. And I think that the budget is one of the biggest things that we do. So to me, I don't think we're going to answer this necessarily
tonight. But that's something that I want to think about and maybe debate about next meeting where we where we want to go and where we want to direct. And if we don't agree, then maybe we have to come to a consensus or I mean this happens every budget season.
>> This is this is an important conversation. I mean I I will say you know cuz I >> I mean it was a good question that you asked earlier like what do we what are the expectations for next meeting? >> I think that's a really good question. I I you know I'm jotting down ideas about
like how do we structure the conversation for next meeting? M >> it I'm thinking it I mean Eric and I can discuss but also like I'm thinking it might be helpful to Vinnie you might have some specific questions for us at that meeting in
addition to our feedback. I'm not sure but you often say well here are some things. Um, I'm not sure that that's where you're going, but it's a question I have is like I think it's great that we should provide feedback and it might be helpful for you guys to
have some sort of structure around like I mean like that was a good you already had an answer there like okay if we're looking at staff what kind of thing would that look like? >> I mean that's just I don't know >> and it's a scenario development too. Sorry. Go ahead Dave. I know Dave's unaw. >> Oh I'm sorry. Yeah, I was just going to
say the the feedback I've had is that that there's good support for paying competitive salaries for for teachers to make sure you're not having a talent drain um by by by doing where we were. >> I I think I think you're absolutely
right. There's absolutely like >> values based support for that and >> it fun >> when you actually see the number customer >> it gets tough like I I think you're
right. I don't think we don't have >> we want people to and I think it's real that it's it's difficult when people see the actual number of how much this is going to really cost and what it means on their
tax bill. And let's be honest, trust in the school committee is it probably at one of its lowest points than it's been at least since I've been a member. Like are people really going to trust that an
11% increase in their you know taxes to pay for the school district is really like a like we're really making the best decision. But I think if they say they support teachers >> and they say they they want maintenance,
what what are we doing with the schools? How are we maintaining the schools? You know, >> so I I guess I like I'm and I and I'm not I hope like I think maybe we do need to kind of wrap up and go to next time. But I guess >> questions do we need >> these are good questions. I this is my philosophically I hope that when we come
next time that yeah we like I think all those things are important thinking about messaging and all of that and trust and concerns around that are all really important and
you know we really have to think about just the actual numbers of like what is it that we want yes >> in this budget and what is it that the people that we're talking to in the community want in this budget >> and what's >> and it's a separate conversation about like
how is that going to get presented and how is that going to get perceived. I think those are all really important, but the first thing we have to do is to get really clear like I think we obviously have to have a really clear conversation about the END and like what do we want to do about that?
>> And that's a re you know but then so and obviously there's a lot of other things. Um so we >> I don't want to cut people off >> make a suggestion. I think the >> the difficulty is this is the massive
amount of data you have in front of you. Um but the these categories make it a little bit easier to digest. So when you start to look at some of the categories um not sorry not these categories the desi categories you can you can start to
dig into those particular areas and say okay let's look at maintenance can we can we instead of 500 and some change can it be 400 and some change for now what's what's a you know how do we prioritize that list I think no matter what we do in the next 3 months we're
going to need some levels of prioritization and some different strategies because if you're Right? If you go to town meeting and it doesn't pass, >> you need a backup plan and you need to under you, you know, you need to know, okay, I'm wouldn't put a number out there, but if it whatever went forward
didn't pass, you're back to the drawing board and then back to another town meeting um that to to kind of sell your case again. The um the climate has been difficult for a lot of these small districts. Um Amesberry just lost an
override again. Um, and part of the reasoning for the superintendent to leave was I can't keep cutting a million dollars a year and run a school district. So, those are important pieces of the puzzle. The um Georgetown passed one by the skin of their teeth
and they were at the point of possibly having to be divided up into other school districts. So, there's a lot of um there's a lot of activity out there in school budget, school budgeting. Um, you're seeing those conversations everywhere. Some communities started before us. They started last year,
Andover, North Andover. I mean, some of the teachers that we were fortunate to hire really good teachers this year because they were laid off in another district. So, it's um it was it was helpful for us to be able to kind of do that for the first time in many many years. If you remember, we had so many
unfilled positions over the time. So, we we we've had a really good opportunity in the last two years to solidify people that we have in place and you're seeing some positive outcomes for it. So, it's a values conversation, but I would also encourage you if you're new or even if you're not, if you're looking at
something, you don't understand it, please reach out to Vinnie and I during the week and ask the question. Um, so that you can come to the meeting and say, "Okay, these are the things I'm thinking about, these are things I'm thinking about cuz I think we got to just throw them all on the kind of on the table and figure out what will make
sense as as maybe in different different levels of depth. The other thing to remember is we're asking for the roof money, too. >> Yeah. You got a debt exclusion on top of a possible override. >> Yeah. And that's the reason we used END
last year was so that we would not have a debt exclusion and an override in the same year. >> That is correct. >> Break some ice. >> Okay. >> And you, you know, think go future. What happens with our buildings? Mhm.
>> Do we incur suddenly incur $30 million debt for a renovation 3 years from now? Those are all things that Vinnie and I think about like looking out 3 to 5 years. Where can we what does this just roll over to? And then what's the comfortable spot? What what makes sense
for running your your school district? Go back to your class size reports is the reason we give them to you before beforehand. Take a look at those. See, you know, there is there room in there to make adjustments. We'll do the same thing at the leadership team level. We'll look at every efficiency we can
with our teams and people in the buildings to figure out, okay, can we be efficient here, efficient there? Maybe not just in staff, everything like can we do something differently with maintenance? Can we do something different with our our um utilities? You know, the the possibility of saving
money with electricity if we can get this um solar canopy up and online in a year and a half or so, that makes a big difference in the budget. So there there there are lots of piece little pieces to this that we have to kind of keep in mind. So
>> and this almost 10. >> Yeah. Well, no. >> Um are we okay? Moving on. >> Mhm. >> Okay. And that's we'll be ready for a good discussion at our next meeting. >> Um thank you so much, Finny. >> No problem,
>> Vinnie. Thank you for standing up there for so long. Um, all right. Uh, let's run through committee reports. Uh, capital finance. >> Um, budget, budget, and more budget. >> Yeah. >> Our next meeting is December 10. >> Our next meeting is I
>> think December 10. >> December 8th. >> Oh, >> 8th. >> Eth. Okay. I must remember. >> Monday the 8th from noon to 1. >> Um, policy. >> Um, we haven't met since the last school committee meeting, but
>> But you have a new member. >> Have a new member. Hooray. And our meeting is December 1st at 2:30. Uh, but I can send out an email again and see if we can find a better time. >> Yep. You've got >> even two even 2 o'clock will be fine. I
mean, assuming we meet for an hour. I don't know. >> It's not even usually that long, but I usually block an hour, but we have to talk about agenda, too. >> Let me know. >> Great. Um, negotiations. Uh we are meeting on >> Monday.
>> Monday. >> Yep. >> Um at 1 to begin uh strategy discussions um as we get ready to negotiate with the um
ESP union. Um and secretary report. Uh, we still have quite a few missing minutes. I don't know how to Should I just send out a reminder? But some of them are from like 2017. So,
>> so I would say this is just me and other people can chime in. I would say if something is, let's focus on the last year. >> Last year. Yeah. >> And that if something is, you know, an FY25 or FY26
>> Yeah. and it's missing. We have some people here who were around during those times because 2017 doesn't have anybody here that was around in 2017. So um and yeah, if you could um
just send a reminder to those people and say so like I would this is my thought but you can do it how you want but I would say like >> you know Amy's the chair of policy. you have policies missing minutes, send it to Amy and say this is what you're missing. Um, >> and you're chair of negotiations.
>> Uh, we have to decide that on Monday, but okay. >> It was David. >> Okay. So, Amy is chair of policy and you're chair of capital finance. >> Capital finance. >> I know we're missing two. >> Yes, >> we are missing two. >> Um, from the latest I think the latest two. >> And you're welcome to send it to me if
you're doing it before Monday and then >> Okay. Then >> thank you. We will determine what we're doing. >> Um Okay. Um I was going to die. >> Thank you for that. >> Sure.
>> Um and we're doing okay and we always are on up to it date and our the whole is always up to date. >> Yep. Janelle said the whole committee is up to date and we're missing one executive session and that's me. So I'm going to do that. >> Fantastic. That's great. Um thank you.
Um Amy, do you have any in our inbox update? >> No in our inbox updates. No emails. >> I haven't received really anything. >> Yeah, since our last meeting. >> Okay. Um All right. Thank you. Uh Eric,
>> uh real quickly, I just wanted to touch on staff attendance. It came out in the news lately that the state has released publicly teacher attendance. actually all staff attendance for schools um claiming that it's not something that they're going to use in their
accountability. I a little worry about that because that's I've heard that before. Uh anyway, when you look at it from the perspective of our staff, um 96.5% staff attendance >> uh actually mirrors roughly what the
overall attendance for kids is as well. Um I have do not have a lot of confidence in the way they collected the data and I used myself as an example today and you know it shows that I was out 6 11 days
and I was not over the time period they're collecting. So I still have to kind of work with the state where superintendent's trying to figure out what makes sense and what doesn't. So the state claimed they're not going to use it for anything but they thought the public should know. Um, but I think from the perspective of our district, we're
fine there. You know, anytime we have an issue with the tenants, we deal with it with our unions and and the people on the ground. And it's not something we talk about very often in our district. So, check off that one for um we we're going to dig into that a little bit more. As you know, there have been a
number of changes in the United States Department of Education. Uh we are still trying to figure them out. Some of the things that have been moved to the Department of Labor are things like our um our grants for title one, title two,
title three, title four. Uh those entitlement grants have been moved to the Department of Labor, which is fascinating for us. We're not sure how that shifts for us because we're using a state level system to upload our information. So, we're not sure if that we'll still use that or change to a new
one. So, those things are still kind of more to come, if you will. Um, so we're just we're really waiting to see what moves where in the final destination document that they have, but I I guess they haven't continued they haven't finished moving things around.
Um, one one thing that's important is IDEIDA, special ed and and civil rights will remain at the US Department of Education. So that's helpful because I think that's one of the bigger areas that uh schools wrestle with the most. So it's it's nice that that's not moving. And then we're we're kind of
doing the same thing everybody else is doing is waiting to see what the other changes will be and how they'll impact us either in reporting or gaining funds, losing funds, etc. So, um, more to come there. And then, um, next week we have
the 50th Thanksgiving game between Ipsswitch and Hamilton Wenham on Thanksgiving. That's an exciting time of the year for everybody. Our alumni come back. We have a new event this year where um we're
having an alumni alumni breakfast for the first time and we have a whole bunch of people in our community that have come together to try to pull off an alumni breakfast and really bring some spirit of community to the event. Um, and then, uh, that game will kick off at
10:00 and that will actually close out the winter se uh, excuse me, the fall season. And the winter season will will start, believe it or not, the following Monday. They jump right back into it. Uh, and then I just want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all of you and all the people in our general's family. I hope
everybody has safe travels and a great time with family. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You, too. You, too. cooking. >> Um, all right. Anybody have questions for Eric? Um,
uh, all right. I'm mindful of the time. Um, okay. So, um, I just want to update everyone. We do have a regional agreement meeting on December 3rd. So, I'll let you know what occurs when we get that done. Um,
uh, two quick things. Eric and I had a brief conversation about um and about the potential of having some kind of a school committee workshop. It's just a thought. Um I I think it was
well it's got several people mentioned it but I think Megan mentioned about you know doing sort of a postmortem a debrief regarding the vote sort of thought that a workshop environment short workshop like
not a day long workshop like a couple of hours maybe. Um might be a good environment to have a a conversation around that. Um just letting you know that I might sort of throw that out there in terms of
scheduling. Um it's scheduling is challenging. One of the things Eric and I talked about is potentially thinking about that kind of vacation time at the end of the year. I don't know if people travel or >> I will be out of state. >> Okay, good for you.
>> In upstate New York where it's cold. >> Um, so but anyway, I I might like I'm open to feedback if people are like not wanting to do that at all. We don't have to take a vote tonight. We can talk about it at some time, but >> I think it's a good idea. >> You know, >> I think it's a good idea, too.
>> All right. So, I might throw out some potential times for that. Um, >> okay. Um, and then I just wanted to in the like 12 seconds we have left, um, I wanted to just highlight that Eric mentioned the chapter 70 memo that he
had sent out or had presented at our previous meeting and then he mentioned it last evening and then he resent it to us and all the other elected officials um, in town. Um, and I know that there are some other um I know that Amy
mentioned to me that the MASC did send something out similar with some information. Um, and you had some other resources. I guess the MTA has resources about um, so I don't know if you wanted to add
anything to that. Yeah, I was just gonna pull it up, but um I was impressed with the MTA's page on not just the chapter 70 opportunities, you know, to advocate uh if you want to write letters to representatives, um but
also rural transportation and special ed funding as well. So, um if anyone's interested, I can forward that. It just has really good like onepagers that help explain how all the funding works and like who to contact and what to say if you are interested.
>> I actually have a question because I think it's something we need to keep in mind. If we ask for an operational override, is that a major simple majority or is it a two-thirds? >> Uh so at town meeting it's 2/3 at the ballot it's simple. >> Right.
>> Okay. And I have another actual question. And the budget has to pass twothirds of the school. >> I could pull that up. >> Is the budget twothirds of the school committee has to pass? >> Oh, at the at the school committee level. >> No, no, no. At school committee level. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I don't remember. I mean, it's not
like I >> No, that's why we have that sheet that Amy made the policy made. >> Okay. >> I was just clarifying. >> Yes. >> No, that's great. That's We could look it right up.
Um okay. Um motion to >> 10 o'clock. Does anyone have topics for future meetings? >> Yeah. The the avail the possible availability of Penguin Hall. >> I'm sorry. Of what?
>> The possible availability of Penguin Hall is going to be auctioned off >> like to purchase it. >> I'm sorry. The availability of it of >> Yeah. Apparently, it's a bankruptcy. So, >> yeah, correct. Yes.
>> And uh it may be an interesting um option. May not be too, >> but wouldn't we have had to start that process like last year? >> We're just looking for topics for future meetings right now. So, um so Penguin
Hall auction discussion, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> Budget. >> Budget. Budget. Oh yes, that's a given. It's written all over here. Budget, budget, budget, budget. >> What are the results of the survey on
the change? >> Oh yeah. >> Uh in school times. Do you have those yet? >> I do. And the committee is just going to study them at their next meeting. We had our first kickoff meeting. >> Awesome. >> Uh so they are working on it. They're working towards some data collection
right now. So they um we have our next meeting on the 7th, I believe it is. >> Yeah. I was just thinking of it as a topic for a future meeting just to stay in the loop on that. Perfect. >> Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you want to wait for the committee to do all the data, the study and make this make the
presentation. That's what how we outlined it in the goal. If you want to see the data, we can put it out there. It's >> it's not a secret, but it's just the committee is going to have it their next meeting to filter through and use to make some determinations. So, >> okay.
>> It's up to you whatever if you want. >> I don't need a big presentation. Just just what you just told me is >> just a status report is good for me. >> Yep. Committee has kicked off. They are uh they have been given some assignments. We did a brainstorming session the other night. They have some
assignments to do before our next meeting which I believe is on the 10th. >> What's what's the composition of of of that committee? Sorry. >> No, I'm just it's on the on the next meeting. >> I'm a stickler about this. We took a lot of votes that like at 10:00. So,
somebody either needs to make a motion to continue the meeting or we need to make a motion to adjurnn. >> I move to adjourn at >> topics >> 10:03 p.m. second. >> All right. I heard a second. I'm giving it to Jen. All those in favor?
>> And it's unanimous and we are adjourned. So, >> who had the second? Everybody's ready for it. And then there was I wasn't there. What are you doing? Pick up.