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Welcome to what's today? April 9th um 2026 and the school committee will be called to order. If everybody could stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

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republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. public comment. Not seeing any public comment tonight. Um recognition.

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Okay, moving on. Ella. >> Cool. Cool. So, bear with me because there's a lot and I'm alone today. >> Yeah. >> Um but first, we're going to start off with spring sports, um which have been in full swing for over two weeks, which is exciting. Um, boys lacrosse is 2-1,

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girls is 3-1. Um, boys baseball is 3-2 following a win last night over Medfield, which is exciting. Um, girls softball also had an 8 sweep against Medfield last night and are currently 4. >> Um, boys volleyball, where Ryan is

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today, um, is 51 and going into a game at 5 verse Norton, >> which actually probably was over, so they probably did win. Um, boys tennis is 2 and girls tennis is 3 0. Um, home games tomorrow include girls varsity tennis at 4 at the tennis courts

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and girls JV softball at 4:45 on field 6. So, show up and cheer on the Hillers. Um, okay. Events. Spring is very busy at the high school. Um, but there's um some amazing things students and staff are organizing. First, uh, music production

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club is hosting their garden of sounds open mic night tonight from 7:00 to 9:00 in the auditorium and it's a showcase that offers performances from a variety of students and it sounds like very exciting. Uh, Best Buddies Prom is held tomorrow um and is at 6 p.m. in the

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cafeteria. If students want to attend, it's $5 and a great way to get involved with the club. Um, tomorrow marks a day of silence, a nationwide movement to protest the silencing of LGBTQ plus identities. Additionally, after school, um, students are encouraged to attend

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the second annual break your silence gave game night at the library, public library, um, from 3:00 to 5:00 and all LGBTQ plus teens and allies are welcome to join whether or not they participated in the day of silence. Um, in honor of

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poetry night or month, Hopington Center of the Arts for Teen Advisory Board is hosting a night to share and enjoy poetry. The teenonly event is held on April 11th from 6:00 to 9:00 at the HCA. Um, Hawington's class of 2027 is holding

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a raffle for the chance to win a painted H logo on the end of your driveway to demonstrate your Hiller's pride. Um, five winners will be selected. So, one ticket is $20 and three tickets is 50. But if you want to secure your spot, you can do a $500 donation to the class,

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>> which hostage up there. >> Yeah. Um, and the raffle ends on the 15th. There's more details in the memo. Um, the class of 2027 prom was announced to be May 8th from 6:00 to 10:00 at a hotel in Worcester. Um, auditions for one-act

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plays were held on the 6th where students prepared a 45se secondond to minute long monologue and the one act play festival will take place during the art show on Thursday, May 14th. And then lastly, the class of 29 29 announced

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they're holding a Six Flags field trip for the end of the year, which is exciting for freshmen. The news announcement there is that they're on sale on my school books right now. Um, and lastly for seniors, tomorrow is senior skip day, which is exciting. >> What?

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>> You condone this. >> Not supposed to know about it, but now it's the public. >> And it's a fun way for class of 2026 to celebrate the year wrapping up. And with that, seniors will begin the senior project after April break, making um, which is the 27th, making next week the

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last week of regular classes for the seniors. Oh, >> all very excited. >> Feels like it flew, huh? >> What? >> Does it feel like it flew by? >> Yes. >> Yes, it does. I mean, I'm going to be in school a decent amount after break, but

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it's still crazy. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. >> Awesome. Nice job. Thank you very much. Superintendent >> report. >> All right. Um, can I just grab the Apple TV, please? It's possible. Okie dokie. All right. Well, hello

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everyone. It's nice to see you all. Oh, it's off again. >> It was on. It was off. >> Fly by >> I'll tell you, we did practice Mary. >> This was practiced ahead of time. I promise. >> There we go. Awesome. All right. Well,

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it's good to see you all. This is the superintendent report for April 9th. And as I like to do, we'll just look around the district over the past few weeks since the last time we've met. and we'll start at Marathon School who continues to make learning fun and meaningful ways. Pictured here on the left is Miss Gadson's first grade class where I

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recently observed some students collaborating and experimenting with science on some hands-on work. They were uh getting to know some meal worms together as a group which was interesting. Um next in the middle is an interactive physical education class with pair of professional support that kept kids active and working in teams

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with their classmates which was great to see. uh as well as a visit from the pumpernnickel puppets sponsored by the HBTO. Uh students not only enjoyed the performance of the three Billy Goats Gruff in the lion and the mouse, but they also found out how puppets work, how it's brought to life. Uh and all of

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these experiences highlight the engaging opportunities that we have for our our youngest hillers. Elmwood has also been very busy. They held a recent PBIS assembly uh with Fire Chief Dohy in attendance to congratulate our March Madness reading winners. uh these assemblies, I've gone to a few of

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them this year. There's always such positive energy and school spirit. It's always nice to see. But I think my favorite highlight of this whole report, um I'm going to go back. Um it was seeing the second graders supporting their third grade MCCAST buddies recently. So, as you may know, uh students across the district were taking

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their ELA MCCAST in the last few weeks. Um and at Elmwood, each second grade classroom partners up with a third grade classroom, creating posters, uh notes of encouragement, and just cheering on the third graders for the first time that they take the MCAT. So you see two posters there. One is a haik coup on the far right. Uh and in the middle is um

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one that says just popping by to wish you good luck for Miss Kelly's class. So it's really cute. So small gesture, but I think it goes a long way and a great example of the care and the connection and community that we have at Elwood. At Hopkins, the book fair recently wrapped up and it was a great success. I also had the chance to swing by and and

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and see the excitement firsthand. Uh students eagerly exploring books and sharing recommendations and leaving with some new reads in their hands. It's always great to see the energy um and excitement around reading in the district. So, a big thank you to our parents and staff for organizing as well

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as the staff at Hopkins. The middle school uh also continues to demonstrate some strong collaboration and leadership both within and beyond the district. Recently, we had some middle school staff pictured on the left, Miss Ols, Mr. and Mrs. Okonnell, and Mr. Church along with Dr. Go

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partnered with colleagues from Lawrence public school to share how we use Schooly which is one of our learning management systems to support teaching and learning and to also showcase some of the great work that's happening in our classroom. So kudos to that group. Uh we also uh had a proud experience of our students going outside of the

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classroom. Uh we had a recent field trip for a group of our our middle schoolers to the Worcester Equatorium uh chaperon by Mr. Lefave and a few others. Uh I got about 150 text message pictures from Mr. Lefave. So he was very excited. A wonderful time. You can't really see there, but he has a huge smile on his

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face. But it was a great a great day for the students and staff. Uh, and the high school continues to excel both in and out of the classroom. In these photos, you'll see highlights from a recent HOSA conference, which is the Future Health Professionals of America. Uh, it was their national conference. We had 71 students compete, which I believe is the

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most ever that we've had. Uh, and 15 of those placed in the top three in the state in their respective competitions, which is really impressive. Uh we also brought 35 middle school students um which was the most middle school students we've ever brought and three of those students ended up in the uh top three in their respective categories. So

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a strong pipeline to come when it comes to OSA. Uh I know we mentioned this last time we met uh but I didn't have a photo so I wanted to go back to it. We uh were excited to welcome 25 students from the uh Yamagata High School in Japan uh last week. Uh you see the picture here in the

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high school auditorium with some of the students that help the our friends from Japan walk around the school and get to know some of our staff and students. Uh it provides a meaningful opportunity for us to uh exchange a cultural exchange and connection and highlights the opportunities our students have. We've

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been doing this since 2014. So it's a really nice tradition that we continue to do. From the district perspective, I want to congratulate our music department on some real success at the recent Micah Festival. Uh, as you see up here on the screen, uh, for our middle school, the eighth grade orchestra uh, received a

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silver medal, the eighth grade chorus bronze, the honors chorus also a bronze, and the eighth grade band received a silver. And then in the high school, the chorus got a silver, and the orchestra, concert band, and symphonic band all got gold medals, which is pretty impressive. Uh, and the gold medal recipients do get

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entered into a lottery uh, to perform at the Michael Gold Medal Festival. I think it's April 12th um, at the Graten Hill Performing Art. So, I'm excited for that. So, congratulations to Mr. Haye and all of the students and all of the staff. A few school community updates for next week. Uh, with the help of the HPTO, uh,

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both Hopkins and Elmwood School will be hosting a fun run leading up to the marathon, which we're hoping will be a great event that will bring students, families, and staff together while supporting our schools. Uh, and CPAC is also hosting a coffee hour for parents at the library next week on the 14th. Uh, providing an opportunity for

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families to connect, ask questions, and engage in conversation. And then our top of the hill spotlight. Uh this week um we recognized two really important groups. Uh first it was national paraprofessional day on April 1st. Uh and this week is the national

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assistant principles week. So these are often for different reasons the unsung heroes of a lot of the schools that we have building don't really operate effectively without these groups. I know as a principal I you know I wasn't as good as a principal if I didn't have really strong assistant principles. And so I know we have a number of pair of

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professionals across the district. We have a wonderful group of assistant principles. Just want to thank them for their effort and the care that they put into it. Uh and highlight them as the spotlight for for this week. So >> that's great. >> Yeah. And that is the superintendent report for tonight. >> Thank you.

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>> All right. School committee chair report. It's all about the payroll warrants. Uh S26018 S26019 have been approved in warrants 261 S 2611 S 26112S

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26113S 26114S 263 SAMS and 264 SHs have been approved and included unifor who who works very hard in accommodating

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my trip next week by um getting their warrants in early tonight so I don't have to lug two computers on my trip. Very nice leaison reports. So, ESBC, I don't want to step on your toes, but I did want to um John

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Graciano, who's the chair of the elementary school building committee, uh pres presented to the select board on Tuesday night, uh to give an update on the project. And one of the things that he had invited the select board to do would be to take a tour of the um site. And I thought it might be nice if um

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people on the school committee were interested that we could >> do the same thing. >> I would like that. But I think >> I'm not going to steal any more of your thunder. >> Do we know any dates? >> No, but we could coordinate that certainly with John Graziano, potentially coordinate with the select board if that's >> that would be really nice

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>> possibility. >> They are also going to uh touch base about the um how the transition plan might be working for getting into the new building. >> Um and the Oh, >> no. Go ahead. >> Yep. The sustainable green uh committee

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is excitedly moving forward. um collaborating with Mr. Lebr um on the safe routes to school um and I think they're excited about the tray washer in the high school which will cut down

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single use items. Um they're working hard as always behind the scenes. Great. Sounds good. I feel like there should be more to report, but I guess not. All right, we're moving on. We have some guests here with us tonight. Uh uh Ms.

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Batty, Ms. Murray, and Miss Ellen. Going to talk about disproportionality report. Boy, I can't. That's not easy to say. >> All right. Ready? >> You can help Ella with our homework, too. >> Yeah. There you go.

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Right now. All right, we want to thank you for having us. Um, and it is a mouthful, so we often just shorten it to dispro, so you'll hear us saying that quite a bit throughout this. Thank you. >> Um, but we did want to just give you an update as far as where we're at. Um,

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from Desi's Dispro Findings of the District, um, what that exactly entails and then the work we've done all year. Um, I asked Nicole and Sarah to join me. They've been an intricate part of helping me dive into the work, but we also have a pretty um wonderful committee that that helped in addition

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to them, but they had to come to Desi Trainings with me. So, they're in for the nighttime event here tonight. So, um I just wanted to start by for those of you that don't know, um or for those of you at home watching, um this is really important to dive into this work and

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really um Desessie gives districts the, you know, the importance of these findings is not to necessarily um point out flaws, but really making sure that we're doing equitable work here for students and making sure that we're not unfairly funneling students

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into special education, into more restrictive environments into more harshly um assigned discipline. And so there's a variety of ways in which districts can be found disproportionate. Um and we'll dive into what we we are tonight. If you want to go back one

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slide, please bishop. Um I just want to give a big thank you. This is the committee. Um so Jeff Labard, our assistant superintendent, Sarah Nicole were part of this. Um Beth Callahan, who's now the um team chair, um she started off coming to these meetings as she worked in the director role. um but

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continued her work in the committee despite shifting um her role into team chair. We had Jess Burton, a school psychologist on here, Tanya Lamo um the Hopkins assistant principal and Jen Heides the Elmwood assistant principal. So I just want to thank them publicly because it was a lot of work and it did

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pull them out of important jobs they need to do on a day-to-day to help us really dive in and and really determine what our next steps are to move us out of these findings. So, so with that, um, when we talk about disproportionality, um, we also presented this to our full

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admin team as well because it's really important that we're in this work together. This is not a one person, a one committee. Um, it's really the district as a whole working on this. Um, and DESI is really working to ensure that students from subgroups are not over identified really. So, we're

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looking at um these areas and really the the job of the district once they're found to have disproportionate findings is really to examine their policies, their practices, and their procedures and and make sure that we're making corrections to that if need be to make sure that we're really providing um

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equity for all students and making sure we're identifying them appropriately. And it doesn't mean that we're not going to, you know, determine eligibility or we're not going to discipline students where they need to be, but really are we doing it appropriately and we're not focusing on one subgroup over another.

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So that's the important part of this. Um, go ahead. Sorry, I made a clicker. Um, when Desi is looking at this work, it's really over time. So it's not meant to be a snapshot of six months of a school year. um they look at year-based

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data, but they're also reporting it the year after. So when we get to our findings, it's a, you know, it's reflective of over time because what they don't want is just a one snapshot. They want to see that it's in fact a systemic problem and not just by chance

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a group that comes through or you know a certain factor that would skew that data. So when they are looking at it, they're really looking at these key indicators that we've outlined here. So the identification of disability category and placement. So where are we at so far is where we categorize student

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disabilities. Where are students educationally placed? In years past, we've had certain subgroups where we've fell in dispro because they were there were too many in a subsparate setting, right? Um so they're looking at that how much are is inclusion versus subsparate.

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Um and what is that based on? What are those determining factors based on? They're also looking at disciplinary action. So making sure um what are the incidents, how often are we suspending, what does it look like, are we doing other methods of disciplining so far as you know restorative practice and things

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like that. Um and really looking at academic outcomes overall. So looking at that in reflection of all peers across um the entire grade level or building. Go ahead. So where we have landed over the past

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few years and I wanted to not highlight that but highlight that in the sense that this is a really challenging disproportionate category to come out of and when we as a team went to um DESIE held through um they hired a contracted service provider sped strategies who

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works with districts to create action plans and then they work with DESIE to ensure that all these districts are doing what they need to. Um what we found, our disproportionate finding is um that we are overidentifying white students with specific learning disabilities or SLDs. You might hear

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that acronym used on IEPs. So that is where our overidentification is. When we chatted with other buildings, other districts, sorry, they strategically did this is kind of place you with similar districts in size um or makeup and are

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you in the similar dispro categories? And we found that we were. This is a this is a really hard category um to sort of get out of and that's why we made note of. We've been targeted in this area since the 22 23 school year. Um it came to our attention by Desessie

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the following school year. Um so we've been working hard on this and I know Abby last year presented this too as a similar category um of findings and what we are going to do. And so we looked at over time with the committee is what did we say we were going to work on as a

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district? what what of that can we still maintain and then what do we need to add to that, right? Because clearly um we're not moving the needle as quick or as fast as we want to um which which may not happen, right? But we want to make sure that we're hitting all the markers

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to move us out of that category um if at all possible. So looking at how it's calculated, I don't want to put up a bunch of math here for you. Um they do have a formula that they use. Um and really what they are looking at are those key indicators

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that we talked about before. Um and and dividing that by um overall the peers in that grade in that building across the district. That's how they're looking at these findings. So they're for us looking at what they captured is a high

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rate of students that are marked or categorized for special education under SLD. So then they look at specific learning disability. how many of our kids across the district are categorized as that under their IEP and then is there any um specific subgroups that are

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constantly being marked as that? And what they found is we are disproportionate with our white students being categorized as the primary disability in an I for an IEP under SLD. Um we have been marked as this over the past couple years. And then the next

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slide if you want to shift over I'll show you where we fell. Um so per DESIE you need to to show improvement over three-year periods of time. What they are looking for um is either a 3.0 or a

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4.0 is where you're going to get flagged. Right? So we are since 2023 um 4.71 then we dipped and we went down um to 4.13 and then we kind of bounced back up again to the 4.21 um last year. So really um

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what they are looking at dependent upon where you fall in dispro they look at either 3.0 is your like flag or 4.0 because we are under in this an indicator 9 and 10 which means really that indicator 9 is looking at

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identification based on race so white students and then ident identifier indicator 10 is based on um learning disabilities. are we flagged in an area that is spec specifically to learning disabilities? Um, and so that's

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where we've landed. Um, and it's our work to to get us below the 4.0. That's really our work. Once we get there, which we did in our last disproinding of students that were subspar um is then you're just kind of remain on watch and they watch that category for the next

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three years to show, okay, let's hope that they're going down, right? Or remaining the same. Um, so that's our work. um 4.21 to get under four is not not too challenging, right? We want to show some dips. But one of the things we talked about and before I hand it over

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to Nicole who's going to talk about the work this year is I don't want our staff to feel like they cannot >> find students eligible for SLD. That's really important. It's really important work that we're doing. Um and it's important to stay true to where our

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students are, right? And so this was one of the conversations we had with Desi at our training was okay, but I'm not going to just say to staff, don't identify them, right? If that's where they fall. So we're we looked at other factors of why is it that white students over any

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other student group is being found eligible for SLD? Um, and are we categorizing them appropriately? Right? We often see students on IEPs from multiple different disability categories. go is it truly their primary and what we're writing their IEP for or

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were we not aware and we were kind of miscatategorizing that disability. So not that they don't have it but is that their primary disability? Um so that's kind of in a nutshell what DISPRO is. So everybody here and at home knows. I'm going to hand it over to Nicole. >> Yeah. So I get the more exciting slides

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of like what have we been doing this year. So I'll give you a little bit of an overview. Um, as Jess said, at the start of the school year, we created um a district committee. Um, as you saw in what Jess shared, that committee provided us a lot of different perspectives from across the district.

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So, you know, I appreciate everybody's help that was on that committee. Um, just bringing their experience throughout the district so that we can all come together to say like what do we need to do? Um and then that subcommittee of uh Jess, myself, Sarah

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and Beth uh Callahan went to the Desi trainings led by sped strategies. Um really the the um objective of going to those trainings is really to understand what they wanted us to do for the action plan. So we did a lot of case studies

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practicing kind of going through how do we have these conversations with our group. Um what I found and just kind of alluded to this a little bit, what was really helpful is to speak with other districts who are similar to us. What are their experiences? Where are they found um being found disproportionate?

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Um and then that helped us understand what's going really well for them, what are some things we can reflect on. So that was really helpful along with obviously the training that that we received and then the process. Um we also were assigned a liazison from sped strategies. So, um, she was incredibly

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helpful in the direct work on our, uh, Hopington specific action plan. So, she met with the three of us, um, a couple of times, gave us feedback on our action plan, um, and then we would revise as necessary and then when we did our final submission to Desi, uh, we met with her

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one final time and she gave us some pretty positive feedback that, um, we're hopeful we will also receive from Desi. So, um, we're kind of waiting for, um, their response on that. Um, as Jess kind of said before, their goal for us as a district um is to show um improved data

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over kind of an extended period of time, three years really. Um, and that's not to say we need the significant drop, but each year we need to show that we're we're making improvements. Um, so you can go to the next slide for me. Um, so I'll talk a little bit about um kind of

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that like nitty-gritty of the work. So the first thing we really did as a committee was create a success gap statement. This is really driven by what Desi is expecting of us. So not terribly creative um but is is um what we need to

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do. The part that is great for us to really dig into here and and for the community to know is what what are we going to do about it? Um, and so when we were talking, one of the kind of non-negotiables for the committee was that we were not approaching this

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through a well, we will not qualify just so we can get out of dispro. That is that was like a non-negotiable. That's not what we're doing. Um, but we wanted to look at are there are things we can do within the district that's going to help strengthen um really what's up there is a multi-tered system of

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support. So MTSS and you know, you've heard that of course throughout the year. Um it's something that the district had already been working on and diving into. Um healthy school districts have really great MTSS and and and Hopington is doing a great job in kind of developing um what it looks like for

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us. Um so that's one place that we're really looking to dig deep into and and and Sarah will get into in a little bit. What does that look like? How do we all kind of intersect within this work? Um just said it's not working in silos. um this is not just a special education uh

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dis yes it's special education dispro finding but we all know that um special education students are all of our students so it's important for us all to engage in that work so when I say MTSS we're really looking at our tier one um really specifically ELA because that's

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where our specific learning disabilities tend to lie as we look through our data it's within our reading and our writing um so consistent implementation of tier one making sure we're um assessing our students. Um when we are strong there in the assessment of how our students are

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doing, it helps us to identify tier 2 and tier three supports. So those really targeted interventions. When you do that, our special education referrals become more targeted, right? And so the other root cause that we want to really look at um is the special

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education eligibility process that is taking us from our referral. So when we receive a um a a request for an evaluation um we know what the referral question is. We have a really um we know where the student is. We have some

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really good baseline information on a student and then that allows us to do targeted comprehensive evaluations. Um and then when we get to the meeting and we talk about eligibility, we're going through that flowchart. Everybody has a shared understanding of the educational

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disability categories. And in this case, right, that's looking at specific learning, knowing what a specific learning disability is, what it is not, um what are some exclusionary factors that the team has to consider um in order to be eligible. So really making

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sure that we provide enough PD uh for everybody in the district to really understand what that means. Um and so all those two things together we really feel like can just strengthen our work as a special education department, but also just as a as a community. Um, and

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I'll hand it over to you Sarah to talk about what that looks like. >> Okay. >> Next slide. >> Yep. >> Yes, please. >> So, when we now moving forward, we talked about where the work we've done this year intersects with all of this, but also what we need to do moving forward. So, thinking about what we need

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to set for goals and there's been a lot of really good work going on this year with different committees. So we've mentioned the dispro committee that exists already that has been working toward this but we've the these district committees have been launched that have been working this whole year in these various areas. So the elementary

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literacy task force was launched this year and they've done really important work. It's made up of people from K through five um CTLs teachers um our literacy director Jeff Lero. So they've done really really good work looking at

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our literacy but also defining what we want it to be in Hopkin. So really creating a mission statement of what is elementary literacy and um in a visionary way. So maybe what it is now but also what we want it to be moving forward. So they've they've worked really hard um and have explored a lot

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of different what are we doing, what do we need to do, where might we want to where are areas for growth. Um so they've done a lot of work in that. So as we move forward with this goal, I think they will be really important looking at how that connects. What are we doing with literacy, especially as we

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look at that tier one and then what do we need to do with tier two and tier three? So how is that MTSS going to work in reality once we kind of discover what it is that we're all doing in tandem? Another task force, the PLC task force was also launched this year and that

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again has been comprised of members from the whole district really talking about what are we doing in our professional learning communities. Um, which is where we can do a lot of discussion about data and thinking of how do we get better outcomes for kids? What can we do to affect student learning? Looking at kind

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of how our teachers are talking to each other and collaborating with each other. So we've all come together to talk about what do we want this to look like in our district and in reality. So I think some people have mentioned it becomes really difficult because of barriers like schedule because of demands on people's

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time. So what can we do to make it easier for people to collaborate and have really good conversations about how to best meet the needs of kids? So that's what this committee's done. A lot of work again kind of think exploring what we're currently doing but looking at what we need to do moving forward. Um

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the LST task force is also another one that is looking at our LST process in the district and trying to make it more consistent. So thinking about are we doing the same exploration in each school and how are we going to shore that up to just know that our data is

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consistent moving forward. So does the process look the same in every building? Are the teachers operating in the same way with how we might refer someone or what the data tells us? Um and again that I think all of this will just lead to more consistency. So as we noted in

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the root cause we observed that there seems to be some inconsistency in places and I think Evans entry plan mentioned that that sometimes it's that alignment where we need to just bring more clarity. What are we doing with PLC's? What are we doing with elementary literacy? What are what is the LST

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process? So all of it kind of falls under that same can we be more consistent and define it as a K through2 process. And then our best practices playbook task force is really putting it all together. What does it look like to have really good tier one instruction?

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What does it look like to have really good tier 2? And that is differentiated. So there isn't one answer to that one. So that one becomes a lot more complicated. But your tier one has to drive that. So you have to talk about what does good solid tier one instruction look like? What do those assessments look like that allow you to

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ask am I instructing what I need to instruct? So that was a long wordy of what these task force are doing. >> What does LST stand for? >> The learning support team. So it there is a process and every building does look very differentish of how they

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operate. So that's really just kind of defining what do we do as a district and is it consistent? Is it giving us consistent data all the way up? >> And then the trainings I can't see very well. um to thanks. Thanks. I need the bigger ones. Yeah, I should have brought

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my glasses. Um so, the trainings that we will need to be doing with the with our educators, with our staff. Um as far as the eligibility process, that one that we've defined as an area that we need to work on. We need more training for our staff. So, what does that eligibility

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process look like? When you do an eval, is it consistent, too? So, do they look the same? and they will look a little different because of the age of the kid obviously and what we're doing, but does it is it clearly defined? Do the people who are doing this process know what it should look like? So all of those

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questions again back to that idea of just making sure everything is consistent and um there's clarity around what these are. The MTSS trainings we have been engaging in. So those will be ongoing and they will absolutely connect to kind of what is already over on the

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left. this idea of what are those task forces going to tell us as far as where we need to move and then what trainings do we need for people. So MTSS is so complicated because all the tiers are very much driven by data and what we see with the human

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beings in front of us. So that training will look like uh what it needs to look like based on what all of this reveals to us which seems kind of murky but it's just that it's all so intertwined in this idea of where we need to do this work and it's really important work but hard work as well. So asking these

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questions is kind of our entry point and then the training for the LST process. So once we define what it really should look like, we need to ensure that the people doing it know what that is so that they are aware of what the process needs to look like, feel confident as they do it because I think some of that

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too is if people aren't sure what it should look like and then it it feels like am I doing this right? Am I doing the process with fidelity that's going to make sure kids are getting what they need? And then professional development. I mean it is kind of a buzzword of we need to be developing people professionally but that will also be

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driven by what these task forces tell us. So what is it we need more specialized PD in? Is it is there something with elementary literacy? Is it the PLC's that need a little more support? So I think all of these task forces will tell us where we need to go

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with education and support. Mhm. >> So with that, um that is our work thus far with DISPRO. Um you'll hear more about it next year. Um certainly the committee will kind of remain as such and and help move the work um throughout

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the district, but didn't know if you had any questions. Um and if not, that's okay. I do have a question. First, it's fabulous presentation made it you brought it to a level that makes it >> for those of us who are not educators to really understand what you're doing. and I it looks like great work. >> Great.

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>> Uh well, we're looking at the disproportionality and looking at the overidentification potentially of of white students. Is it possible that the reverse is true that we're underidentifying other um groups? >> Yeah. And so that's what we really we've talked about this and and molded over

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numerous times is how do you part of our um professional development but really parent development too, right? is working with families and ensuring that they understand the referral process, they understand the evaluation process. What do evaluations mean? Um when their

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student is struggling, what should they do? Right? And I do think that there are some families for sure that we miss. Um and so we're looking at that. I mean, there's no concrete data that yes, we've missed a whole, you know, but the assumptions can be made, right? um and looking at other driving factors of um

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families that can go out and get an independent evaluation where others do not have the means to do that and does that skew our data so far as those kids coming to us um for the eligibility process. So, it really is talking through and and educating um families on

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that and staff on that too. Yep. >> Yep. Great question. Is the calculation strictly mathematical like how we're over identifying white students with SLS? >> Yeah. >> So we're saying we got 100 white kids,

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>> 10 of them are on SLDs and we got 10 of another group >> or 100 of another group and only two are. Yes. And why isn't there 10? >> Right. Right. >> Which Yeah. Which complicates it, right? because you don't want to say, well, we're not going to qualify those students, you know, or those white

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students, but you also are we missing >> to your point, are we are we missing some in other subgroups? And how do we capture that? >> My question is too, if we look at the data on kids with disabilities, do we have a greater percentage of kids with SLDs than other districts?

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>> Yes. >> Nicole did a lot of digging on this, her spreadsheet is like amazing. >> It's beautiful, actually. I mean I I would say I'm not um within our district SLD is definitely um a category

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>> one of the primary we have more kids >> um we have a lot of we have a lot >> more than other similar districts. >> I would have to pull the specific data from other districts to give you like a 100% answer on that and I don't I don't want to to to do that right now. Um but

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I will say as we're looking at just Hopington um SLD is is um a high percentage of our uh uh eligibility called >> um and also that does make sense right so um SLD specific learn disability has

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a number of kind of subcategories underneath it so it talks about basic reading it it um encoding decoding reading fluency reading comprehension written lang language, oral expression, you know, math calculation, math problem solving. So, there's so many areas that

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fall under uh a specific learning disability. So, it makes sense. Um, >> but at the same time, we're not it's not that we're overidentifying an SLD. It's specifically for white students um with SLD. So, it gets a little bit

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complicated. >> You mentioned you mentioned parents. >> So, to identify I mean there has so it's not just testing in school or a teacher picking up on something is missing with this child.

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>> It may be mom or dad saying hey I think my kid's behind or having trouble with x y or z. >> Absolutely. >> So it's largely parent driven or >> what's the calculus with the school the

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district identifying verse mom or dad? Yeah, I would say when I looked at and I should have brought the numbers. When I looked at this when I first entered the district, the referrals made by parents actually out outnumbered the referrals made by school staff, right? And so then it then we need to dive deeper into

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okay, how many of the those referrals did the student then qualify, right? And our parents, you know, are they accurately seeing how their student is doing or is their student struggling and we just need to support them through tier one measure, right? Um, why I say we need more parent education is I do

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worry that there are certain subgroups where parents aren't advocating as much for their students. Um, and do they know to contact student services, a team chair, their own teacher to say, >> I'm worried about my kid or are those

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parents relying on thinking the teacher knows my kid best and so they're going to tell me if they're struggling and even though I might think they're struggling, the teacher hasn't said so yet. So, we're just going to wait. And and that's where I want to educate parents on advocating. If they see a

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concern, say it, right? It might mean that they're just struggling. >> Might not mean they have a disability, but it's it's better to have that whole team approach um than for one, you know, the school to be waiting for the parent or the, you know, or for the parent to be waiting on the school. Um I think

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there's some parent that we could do out there. But if there is a struggle or a gap, I think that's where the MTSS comes in is asking good questions about is there a different instructional approach we should be taking with this student or is there a gap we can shore up earlier? If it is into coding, is there something

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we can do in grade one that we can close that faster and then we can actually close it. So then there isn't a foundational skills gap that then grows into a comprehension skills gap gap that is wide and a lot harder to close once they're older. And

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>> it's just the unconstrained skills are so much harder to identify and not that they the other ones are easy but so much harder to remediate and there's so many parts to it. So it just becomes very complicated. is so if we can just close them earlier that's where MTSS is huge

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that if tier 2 can jump in or if they need three then it's that we can close it before it becomes you know an ocean like this is a puddle at first maybe >> and is this where um your task forces may be looking at like just the overall

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trajectory of literacy programming to see if there's a model that may better help identify >> all the students who need the support yeah because you'd have if there were so I'm Not saying that that's what they're going to say. I don't know. But >> or maybe if they had better instruction,

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you know, that fit everyone's needs early on. They wouldn't need to be identified because they would never fall behind. >> Or even just an assessment that, you know, in second grade, it's that program gives you something that gives you really good data that's tier one that's common to every student. So then that every student's getting it in October

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and you have data that's more classroom based data as opposed to standardized. And it will just give you better information faster. So then you can intervene in October saying, "I'm going to try something for six weeks and see if this makes a difference for this kid." And it might look different. You might get something that someone else

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doesn't, but that would give you that information that STAR, the CBM give it to you, but the other kind of STAR really doesn't. It doesn't give you progress monitoring data in the same way as CBM would. Not to get into the weeds about that, but >> yeah. Yeah. And it does seem like the

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earlier any of these students who need extra support are caught, the more effective any intervention will be because of neuroplasticity reasons. And >> and then if the educators are comfortable with the different teaching approaches, it also supports all the kids better. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And I would say, you know, when we

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say catch early, that doesn't necessarily just mean like a K1. Sometimes that challenge becomes apparent in grade six, right? Or grade seven. and we want to make sure we're intervening right away. Um because that's where the challenge starts,

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right? So I I I know you know that >> I just need to imply that there's anyone that's missing second graders or fourth graders or fifth graders like whenever it presents. >> Yeah. And that's why that whole districtwide of what does that MTS look like? Let's make sure our LSTs are consistent. Um and then when we do have

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a referral for special education, what do our evaluations look like? And so we've done um we've um um purchased a number of assessments that we have now in our repertoire that we didn't before um specifically for reading and writing. So um really getting into some of the

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executive functioning parts of those uh areas which we know is um an area of challenge for some students. Um and then we have next year coming um an updated version of of one of our major assessments um that is reormed um which will provide us a really fantastic um

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evaluation tool for for our students. So we're excited to bring that bring that to the district. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> One one more question. >> Sure. >> Go ahead. Uh so and I think it's something Jess that you said towards the beginning about um kids that with

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multiple disabilities that kind of coding as a support for one versus another. Is that >> would that be like for example student with autism that also has a specific learning disability? >> Yeah. >> More often being selected as one or the

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other when you're checking the box of what they're receiving. >> It's not that you're not categorizing them with both. what what does that IEP really need to wrap around the most, right? And you're embedding both within >> um but what Desi's really talked to us about, right? And we see this a lot with um actually SLD paired with health, so

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ADHD, you'll see a lot of that pairing. And so what is really what for that student in particular when you're sitting down and determining eligibility is a driving force on the need for for the IEP. very well could be SLD, but it very well could be attention first and and that kind of skews your data in a

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sense. So, you're not not identifying SLD because that's not what we feel is appropriate, but you're also identifying what the driving category is for that child. >> Does that make sense? >> Yes. Thank you. Look at my own child experience, >> which is being mentioned.

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>> We're part of the problem. So, all I care about, I'm sure everyone cares about is that if a student needs services that they get it regardless of identity. >> And you mentioned that we want to make sure we don't identify a white student

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just so we lower the percentage, >> right? Just so we get underneath that 4%. We don't want to qualify. Yes. We don't want to not just want to get Okay. other than a directive from you, >> are there guard rails in place for that?

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>> That's what we're that's why we talked about the eligibility training piece, right? Because we do really want to ensure that this information is out there. This information is public on where we land dispro. I never want a staff person or special educator to feel like, uhoh, I've got to get the data down. How am I going to do that? Right?

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And we did hear you know at our training multiple aside from Desessie aside from us just not categorizing what do you want us to do right and so it is it is in everyone's mind um so that's where we work on listen yes this matters but it

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also matters that we are servicing a student appropriately so if it's not going to bump us down in the first year the second year so be it. That's why we're being totally transparent in our data is we feel like we're doing right by students, but we also know there's work at looking at our practices and our

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policies to to to get better at it and make sure we're accurately identifying. And if if we're going over in the data, then why is that? And what can we do to kind of help support? >> So, is another way to look at it that it may not be that we're and I think Nancy you brought up that we're not over

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identifying white students. It's just because it it sounds to me like we're identifying a group and saying, "Hey, we have too many in this group getting services." That's how it feels to me. >> So that's what can be tricky, right? We don't we you don't necessarily know that

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for sure, right? So what we need to do is make sure we're accurately identifying. We're accurately coaching and training our staff and we're also getting to our families too so that they right we're a team. So I think to your point like I think I hear what you're saying is like is it just other

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subgroups we should be identifying more in so that data kind of equals out. >> Yeah. And is it >> could be >> cultural that yeah some groups don't want help and >> they're not going to identify >> and that that could very well be the case, right? >> Raise their hand more and say, "Hey, I

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want my kid to have help." Okay. >> Yeah. That that could be the case. And that's why we want to make sure we're doing as much training and movement as we can. >> Okay. And a lot of like the nitty-gritty of the whole process is we had those conversations, right? Like >> that's how we kind of developed and

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thought well you know there are things that are within our control or locus of control and there are things that are outside of what what can we >> what can we control and and >> Yeah. I mean there are there are cultural reasons for not >> sure. >> Yeah. Okay. Got it.

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>> Yeah. Do we help parents understand where their son or daughter should be so that they are that they themselves are saying oh wait a minute there is a problem as opposed to not being quite

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aware of it. I think we well one of the um moves we have made this year was to send star reading reports home K through five and I think that has been helpful in kind of giving information more data to parents about where their child is that's standardized data or more you

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know this is where they are um do we provide so sometimes you know you get I'm I hate numbers and you know if somebody sends me a bunch of numbers I start I also have no executive function and I

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>> they won't gel for me. >> The report is geared towards families. So, it reads to tell explain to you what this means. So, it's not just a number. So, it says what this might mean. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It's helpful to see just where this and that, you know, teacher

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communication if there's something that the teacher sees that is concerning um at grade levels that there are places where there seems to be something that is the gap is getting wider or it isn't just developmentally appropriate. You know, there because there is a spectrum of when kids learn to read and how easy

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it comes to them and some kids need a lot more explicit instruction. It doesn't mean they have a disability, but it might mean they have a disability and then they might need something like OG or Wilson. If that's true, they need to get it. So, we're not going to ever say no. >> Yeah. And helping parents identify that

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>> my kid has something's not quite right here. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And it's hard as a parent when you don't know what where they're supposed to be in grade one or two or what it's supposed to sound like. So, it can be really tricky to say, is there something going on or is this typical? This is a

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typical reading behavior or is it atypical and I should be pushing harder, asking more questions. I think >> that's really hard. >> Has there been any thought of sharing the star data scores with the 6 to 12 parents?

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>> I my daughter Mr. >> We have so um great question. Um I think well first I'll say I think we've it's been a really nice move that we've been sharing it with the elementary this year has not been a past practice. I think we've talked a lot about it and I think it shows transparency, right? Um, I do

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think that the middle school are having conversations about what that would look like. At the high school, it's not happening to the same, and I'll let Missell talk about it as well. It's not happening to the same degree across all classrooms. The STAR assessment, sometimes it's focused on certain classrooms and certain grades. So, it wouldn't be sent out to everybody

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because not everybody always is taking that, you know. >> So, it does, it's not given, just so I understand clearly, all kids don't have it in English. And math. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you want to talk a little bit about how we set it up? >> We used it um historically in grades 9 and 10 and

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>> at the high school it works better as a screener more so for really our MTSS to say is there a place that we think we need to offer more tier 2 to students who are struggling in ELA or math. Um that's typically where we do it. So if

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we need we do have a math um coach or tutor at the high school that we can sign kids up for. We have directed study. We have different tier 2 supports that we try to use with kids more so in 9 and 10 and the MCCAST drove it for a while just kind of you know what that test tells us a lot of good data about

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kids. So even looking at the grade eight scores combined with STAR where do we need to kind of support kids so that was what we usually used it for um more so than anything else because by the time they're that old is better as a screener than anything else. I don't know that it really tells you that much because of

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what reading at a seventh grade level means compared to eighth. When you're talking about a reader, it's not that valuable to tell you much about them because sometimes it's the difference of a few questions where it's like, oh, now you're now you're reading at 10 level. >> I understood. I I guess I was thinking

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about for in specific kids who maybe didn't do as well on the MCCAST in eighth grade and the parents are thinking >> is there a problem here that that needs to be addressed as they're moving forward? >> The star data is another point to be able to >> Yeah. And that's what we use it for at

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the high school. So it's really our we use three data points to talk about should we do more tier 2 with students or should there be something that we're exploring. And I've met with a lot of families after grade 8 scores because when they the 10th grade were the ones they had to pass. Families would get that letter in grade 8 saying your

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student failed or you were in the part saying you need to consider this because 10th is going to count. We that letter looks different now. So I think parents are less um anxious about MCCAST but they definitely used to be. So there'll be a lot of questions of what are we

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going to do to ensure they pass. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, we that we did a lot to to kind of answer that question, too. And they they're gonna pass. >> We're gonna get them there. >> Thank you.

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>> Anything else? >> No. Thank you so much. >> Yeah. Thank you. Thanks everyone. >> Have a great night. >> Yeah. >> And I'll just say as as they're they're leaving, you can tell we have a really passionate group that's that's part of this team. And I want to thank the whole team, but particularly these three. They've worked tremendously hard around

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this and uh we're fortunate to have them. So looking forward to the work ahead. >> We always love guests. >> Get lonely. All right. Middle school furniture. Mrs. Roth. >> Thank you. Um so the town meeting in May, there is a capital article for

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classroom equipment for the middle school. And this is articles for desks, chairs, uh storage units. And we obtained pricing using the collaborative um Massachusetts Higher Education

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Consortium MHECK um which is just a another collaborative contract where we can get our pricing. Um the middle school looked at samples and we were able to choose a configuration um that

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was they made them happy. Red Thread is the distributor that will use the MEC pricing. The total uh well the Dustin chairs will cover actually 21 classrooms. Uh 19 classrooms at 25 each

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and then two smaller classrooms at 12 and 13 each. So total of 21 classrooms we'll be able to do. And the storage units are for the 10 classrooms where we're doing the floor. um where we had to pull out the

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cabinetry. So >> the total pricing for this came in at 222,000. Uh the warrant article is 217,000. So the proposal is to charge the overage

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to the building use revolving. And just as a reminder, um oh not this one, never mind. Um so I'm looking forward to the approval for this. It is 2017 or 2027

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money, but we need to order it now for it to come in in the summer. >> And ordering it now could be cancelled if town meeting for some reason did not approve it. >> If town meeting does not approve it,

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then yes, it would be cancelled. >> So, we're short a lot of money on insurance. >> Do we need >> operational though? Mhm. >> I got it. >> Yeah. >> Is even though it's in a different bucket, it where are we at with middle school

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desks? How bad do we need them? >> Uh well, so this article will come out of free cash. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, this is a standalone. >> Standalone. >> Yeah. >> Correct. >> Just curious. I assume the desks work at the middle school.

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>> They do work. Oh, were you here when we looked at the pictures of the way the desks all look like a garage sale? >> Yeah, it looks like a garage. Yeah. >> And that some students don't fit into them, >> right? Because they're so teeny. >> Okay. >> Like a hodge class sometimes.

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>> Mhm. >> I get it. Might not look great. I'm just saying that's some financial issues. >> Functionality, I guess. >> We'll get to that. We'll get to some of those. >> Yeah. Yeah. But keep in mind um the town

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policy tries not to spend free cash to balance operational >> I guess. Yeah. >> I got there's some silo differences. >> Yeah. >> All right. >> Um so I move to proceed with the middle

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school furniture procurement contingent upon approval at the annual town meeting. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Great. >> Assistant nutrition director.

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So, this is a new position that we are proposing um when uh free lunches were introduced a few years ago, the number of meals uh that we are serving in all

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the schools has grown exponentially. Um so this position would be to really get back to creating that touch point with the students. Um so it would be the development of a student wellness

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committee really getting them involved in the school lunch and the menus. Um, also expanding our farm-to-school uh, partnerships and moving to really be in charge of the maintenance and repair of the food

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service equipment, making sure those vendors are coming in and coordinating um, all all of that with them. And also the marketing and communication strategies, really promoting the nutritional benefits of meals and why

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you're choosing what you're choosing. um and as well as you know testing menus uh recipes um things like that. So really getting back more to the touch point to the students uh in this uh position would be 100% funded through

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the food service revolving >> who don't do we have a director of food now >> we have a director this would be an assistance In the food service revolving is the money that we're receiving back for the meals that in part the meals that are we

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received the money from the state. >> Correct. >> As well as the money that they collect for the fruit snacks, the extra drinks and things that are not included in the free. >> Correct. >> It's a fully self operating um component. >> Right. But this

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the h 100,000 comes out of our budget. >> No, >> comes out of whose budget? >> The food service revolver >> that we get from the state. >> So the state pays for it. >> Correct. >> Correct. >> And that so this position is fully funded by the state

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>> by reimbursement for the free lunch program that we're running. >> So we raise our hand and say we're going to offer free lunches. >> There are state Okay. Okay. The state mandates, we offer free lunches. >> Mhm. >> And then we have to do it. So, but then

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they'll also fund a an assistant position that doesn't cost the district a nickel. So, every student that gets lunch, we submit that count to the state and the state reimbures us for the

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lunch. So, they're not mandating or looking at staffing levels at all. So this is using the money that comes from the state reimbursement for lunches to run the program. >> Okay.

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Who's paying for? So the state's paying for the lunches, >> correct? And we're saying we serve 2,000 lunches and they cost a dollar each and we get we build the state $2,000.

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>> We just give them the counts and they give us the reimbursement rate. >> Okay, >> that so the these reimbursements pay for everything. They pay for the food. They pay for the equipment replacement. They pay for all the staffing. The director,

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all the staffing that's in every kitchen. >> It like I said, it's a >> number of students. >> I thought we re we re we we had to redo their um contract the um the >> the cafeteria

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>> cafeteria staff and they're outside of that. >> Nope. All comes from the same fund. And for clarity, so all of the expenses that we're using for our food services program, staffing, food, equipment, all that comes from that revolving account.

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And that revolving account cannot be used for say um buying text. Yeah, >> it can only be >> I need I need further clar. I'm a little confused. >> No, that's okay. >> Okay. We don't pay for any of the food.

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The district doesn't pay for any of the food staffing or equipment for any of the cafeteria workers or directors or maintenance or any of it. >> Correct. >> So this >> all comes from this fund. >> Which is funded by the state. >> Correct.

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>> But but also by the it's the sale of the food though too, right? That so that every how many students are >> for the for the alocart. So, >> right, because students can >> lunches alone are fully reimbursed, but if students want to buy a water or an extra snack, they actually do pay for

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that. >> And it shows up in your my school books. >> Yes. >> Yeah, >> I get that. Okay. >> It's not costing the district anything. >> Correct. >> Correct. >> Budget neutral. >> Got it. >> Okay. >> I missed what you said. >> Budget neutral.

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>> Oh, yes. >> Is Okay. All right, got it. >> Just one question. Why do we Not every um district would need a assistant school nutrition director. Correct.

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>> It really is looking at the size of the district. >> Okay. We're big enough that we we really need that position. >> Correct. Okay. And we really want to develop more interaction with student and student buy and and the farm-to-school

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um all those connections and collaborations. >> Okay. also want to highlight just it popped into my head um a little bit it's related but not exactly but that the one of the ways that I know that our we have been able to operate more efficiently is one of

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the things that you did which was to take it from being operated by a service and having it done in house correct >> this is funded by through state taxes >> no >> no where some state taxes some federal

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reimbursement. >> Yep. >> Someone's paying for it. I mean, we're all paying for it. I get it. It's 100,000's a drop in the It's rounding error, but >> part of part of the state budget is

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funding free lunches for schools. >> Got it. Okay. So, we're looking on a promotion. >> Yes. >> I'd like to move to approve the position of assistant school nutrition director starting in FY27. >> Second. >> All in favor?

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>> I. >> Any opposed? >> No. >> Is that opposed or? >> No, I'm not opposed. >> Okay. You're in favor? Okay. Money. >> Was that a vote in favor or an abstension? >> Yeah, it's an abstension.

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I'm in favor. That's okay. I'm a yes. It seems seem like a position we need, but it's not it's not our money. So, it's our money, but not our money. I got it. >> Okay, >> Mr. >> Great. Moving on. Um, yeah. So, the next

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few things on the agenda. Um, I I'm pleased to um let you all know that we've had successful contract negotiations with two of our new administrators in the central office. The first is the director of student services. Uh the second is our chief financial officer. So we'll take one at

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a time. I'm looking for you or a motion to approve the director of student services contract starting July 1, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. >> I move to approve the director of student services contract from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2029. >> Second.

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>> All in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Great. And then looking for the same, a move to approve the director of finance/chief financial officer contract also starting July 1, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. >> I move to approve the director of

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finance chief financial officer contract from July 1, 2026 to June 30th, 2029. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Great. >> On to >> on to budget. I'm also going to need the

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uh Apple TV again, Donna, if you can. Thank you. >> That was a different >> All right. And you all have this slideshow uh accessible here. So, uh I do want to start by saying this is not an update that uh I was hoping to bring forward tonight. Uh last Friday, uh Miss

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Rother and I met with the uh town manager and town CFO uh to discuss the increase in the health insurance rates that the town recently received. Um the town approached the FY27 budget planning for a 9% increase when it comes to

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health insurance. That's uh kind of in the range year-to-year the last number of years. And so that's why we've kind of moved forward with that percentage in mind. Um and then they've received quotes and estimates recently of between 18% and 22%. Uh which creates a deficit

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that's approximately about $1.3 million. Uh and so since receiving that that updated health insurance information on Friday, our team, our admin team has been pretty much working around the clock over the weekend, all throughout this week, we've had multiple admin meetings. Um Mr. Rothermick and I have met with all the directors, all the

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principles. Uh it's it's trying to map out what our next steps are forward uh and navigate this. It's been a pretty challenging last few days. Um you know, I I know we put forward what I thought was a really thoughtful student- centered budget. Um and then to have to revisit this work at this stage is is

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disappointing to say the least. But uh that's the reality and much of this is out of our control which which I understand. So we also realize that we have a responsibility to respond to this new information uh and believe that we are the first uh group that's actually talking about this publicly. Um I do

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believe that there's an appropriations meeting early next week and a select board meeting on Tuesday that they'll also be talking about this as well. We would be the biggest contingent of people impacted by that. >> Yeah, we'll that we'll talk about that. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Um yes, we make up I

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don't roughly four-fifths I feel the budget the school department. So yeah, so uh what I wanted to do tonight is just kind of walk through the adjustments that we've identified to address the gaps uh in the subsequent reductions from our initial FY27 budget that I presented to you back in December. Um

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>> sorry Evan, can I interrupt for a second? Um before we get into how you guys are going to fix it. >> Yep. >> Um I thought uh what's the expected is 9% increase. Is that consistent?

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>> That has been consistent year to year for us >> year to year. >> Y >> that seems like to me an insane percentage year overyear. Okay. >> And then yes.

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>> Okay. Uh and then 18 to 22% is is remarkable. So >> do we know do we know why have we submitted have we look for other companies? >> Yeah. So we met with all of that stand. >> I had all the same questions. >> Yeah.

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>> Yeah. So uh Kyla Susan and I were on a call this afternoon >> uh where the town laid out kind of the process. You know they work with Brown and Brown I think is the name of the the organization to do their negotiating. Um I think what we're finding out is that there there is a rise in healthcare costs one but there's

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also a utilization issue as well that is contributing to this uh in terms of the percentage I've talked to a number of area superintendents and all the percentages are are are in this range unfortunately maybe not as high as the 18 to 22 but upwards of double digits >> essentially our health insurance

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provider saying you guys use too much healthcare and we're going to jack up your rates >> I think there is >> more than the premiums they >> yeah more than the premium so we have reached over the 100% % threshold and so that kicks you into >> and is is there a >> lot more than we pay in, >> right? And

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was there something that's happened in the last year to to that drove that spike to us using more? >> I think it's just claims. So, >> right. But is there we have a lot of cancer. Do we have a lot of

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>> I mean we can't Yeah. We don't have to I'm just I I know you can't specifically say there probably are trends that have put us over >> over y >> yeah they call it the medical loss ratio the ML MLR which if it exceeds 100%

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which we have this year that's when it gets us into this category >> and shopping around. >> We've done that's part of the process the town does. >> Yeah. >> And that's you mean we did that prior? So they actually today told us she shopped around. They asked for quotes

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for a lot of people wouldn't even quote us because they don't like >> they don't like our utilization rate. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> They got one other quote >> and it's been it's gone down from 24% to 22% was actually what we were talking about on Friday. It's now down to 18 which I think is

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>> probably the lowest it >> from the from the existing right that they came in and said it might be 22 to 24 but it's now 18. >> Yeah, that was the that happened over the weekend. We initially were told 24 22 to 24 on Friday and then by Monday it was 18%. And we can expect 9% next year.

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>> That's what we don't know. We're we've had that conversation. It's hard to say but it could be 18 again. >> Could be. >> Could be. >> Is >> there things within what we cover? Do we cover more than other districts

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more than most? Do we cover a ton of stuff and that's why it's driving up the prices so much? Well, so one of the things that they have to do is convene. They there's a a committee called an insurance advisory committee. And so this committee should start meeting

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starting now all through the year up until next year um to look at you know what what are our claims, where are the trends, what is happening and then they have to look >> an internal group >> an internal group. So, a representative

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from each union. Yeah. >> Um, >> and then look at are there plan design changes that can be made to bring this down, but any of those plan design changes then have to also be negotiated with the unions.

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>> So, I get there are things that that they can look at. Um, but it isn't anything they can negotiate and change now. Y >> I mean this does not seem sustainable to No, >> does not. >> So something has to change. >> Yeah.

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>> In looking at this such a large um amount and I'm thinking about the employees of well I mean of the town also but of our employees specifically are they also feeling like are they does that jack up their end of it as well? And that seems like a lot for somebody

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to if I that my employer came to me and said your insurance is going up 18%. >> Um would be a hard thing to hear as well. >> Yeah. So as as Mr. Bishop said, >> we're the first group talking about this.

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>> Um >> so communication >> has to come from the town in terms of exactly what those premiums will be to staff. We have not done that. I mean that's >> that's not something we we do and and so

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>> yeah staff is I think we'll be surprised. >> Are they able to supply you with without releasing individual data but any trends >> that they're seeing. >> I don't I don't know that they will share that with us. I don't know.

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>> But it's it seems like you know God forbid we would have an unhealthy building that was driving things. Um, you know, you would think >> I agree. I think >> that they could at least provide trends. >> I know they can't share people's medical

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information, >> but from a macro level, >> hey, these there's a trend that in building XYZ, >> there's a lot of people who have cancer. >> Yeah. It's information I think we'd like to know and is that's what's driving

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that >> or >> pulmonary dysfunctions >> something. >> Yeah, cuz I taught in a sick building once and it was >> bad. >> I mean there has to be some way for us to get that information without

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violating people's privacy. >> Yeah. I mean would they wouldn't obviously >> right but >> as as Mother said I think if we that that advisory committee is meeting more regularly they can have conversations about different claims maybe if we could see this a little bit coming a little

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bit earlier right I feel like part of the stuff that we're struggling with now is the when we found out about this >> and then having to make a decision in 3 weeks >> um not that the number may have changed but if that group was meeting a little bit more regularly which we're recommending to the town that starts um ASAP then maybe we could have seen this

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and conversations with the group ahead of them. >> But you also indicated that districts around here are are uh communities are getting the same kind of >> increase >> jump. So everybody is has unwell people.

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Well, I also just think that medical prescriptions and everything else has increased and so >> add all those things and you know we don't have the science behind the numbers right

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that but I'm just curious if there's a way to find that out or is it >> guess what now 80% >> are on GLPs and those are those cost a ton of money and it's covered and that's driving up costs. I I I >> And that is what that insurance advisory

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committee needs. >> They will be able to find that out. Well, they do that. >> Yeah, they would do that work in that. >> All of that would be part of plan design change. >> Okay, great. So, I would hope that that the town would be able to work with this group to maybe

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make it so that help so that next year we're not faced with an unanticipated 18% >> and to have it come out after you already put your budget together and everything. I think that's why I know that this group has met maybe once a year from my understanding that I think

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this needs to be almost month quarterly to have these >> quarterly I think >> monitoring and that's standard practice in other communities that I've found out through this process. So I think it's something that we're going to really push for. We normally have the opposite problem where the I mean it's not a problem when it is the other way I guess

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but where the what's been budgeted is higher and then it's sort of the the last minute surprise as we're negotiating what we're going to cut out of our budget the health insurance comes in lower than what has been projected. So I guess that that caught me by surprise this year. Y

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>> I mean, and there's just a quick search shows the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission >> in December published that there's significantly rising costs all around Massachusetts >> and they're calling on, you know, different things to happen at the policy level of the state

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um because of things like administrative capacity, healthcare prices. So, I mean, it's certainly something that's happening all over. Um it is a really huge jump though. Mhm. >> Um and I I presume that the the plan offerings we're trying to keep I know that's another thing that sometimes

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happens, right? >> The plans cover less and therefore it costs the same. >> Yeah. >> And so I presume that this is partly because we're trying to keep the same coverage for our employees >> because if you >> at this time they can't do plan design changes

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>> because it has to be negotiated. >> It has to be negotiated. So the plans that exist is what this cost is and will stay. So the piece that we have control over, >> the piece that we have control over, we continue. No, no.

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>> So, uh, like I said, we've been meeting quite a bit as a group trying to figure out a way to, um, you know, put forward things that uh, even though we know we need them, uh, that we can put forward in these reductions to be able to make this number. Like I said, it's 1.3 million. The expectation is the school is not

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taking all that 1.3 million. are going to put forward what we feel like we we can or at least pushed down the road for another year. That's what you're going to see coming up is a lot of these things are just going to be pushed down the road >> um because we still need them, but maybe we can put into the the following year budget >> uh with the town, other departments, and

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maybe even utilizing free cash has to make up for the rest of this money. And so that's going to be some of the conversations that are happening next week at at appropriations and and select board. So this um slide here kind of breaks it down into buckets where we were we were taking some of the money um in some of these reductions. We did our

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best to try to not cut any staffing. >> Um and if any positions were cut, it was some of the new requests that we put forward. >> So they're not anything that's already in the budget where there's an actual person being cut. I think that's really important. Um so you can see here in techno, we'll go into each one of these different buckets. There's a technology

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bucket. Um we talked a little bit about our 0.5 ESOL position at Marathon. Um there's some cuts at the at the middle school, buildings and grounds, revolving accounts, contracted services and expenses. All of that averaging up to that number at the bottom that you see that 629,287.

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>> So if we jump into Yeah, go ahead. Question. >> Oh, sorry. I think I'm jumping ahead of you. >> Okay. Um so if we jump into the technology uh reductions, just kind of breaks down what it would be that we're uh you know, delaying so to speak. So, um, we're delaying the radio

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replacements. You know, they're they're they're ready to be updated, but we think we can probably push that for a year. Uh, delaying some projector replacements both at the middle school and the high school. Uh, trying to reduce some spending on some devices, scaling back on professional development, uh, and holding off on the new office furniture for the newly

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rented space that we've talked about earlier in the year. Uh, and again, I think most of these are primarily deferrals um and and kind of pushing off to the short term, but we will need to revisit this in future budgets from the expense um accounts. This kind

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of touches upon a number of different areas, but uh we're able to reduce around 97,000. Um areas like our legal fees, we're trying to reduce those. Again, we're targeting professional development. We're doing a lot of models this year where we're having our own staff do the professional development. We had a full day in November where we didn't bring

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anybody in. We had teachers kind of teach each other. So that'll be a model we'll continue with. It's I think it's more effective and less cost effective. >> Can I ask question just about the legal piece? So is are we reducing what we're projecting we're going to need next year? Are we finding a strategy that

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somehow we don't need as much legal representation? >> Will we have a news? >> Right. Yeah. From legal we really just look at trends. Okay. And try to use like a three-year average. And the good news is we're coming in below budget each year. So I I feel comfortable that

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we can lower this because our use of legal has been lower. >> So >> uh you also see some PD accounts with the high school principal PD account, uh athletic PD, uh some Hopkins general supplies we feel like we can um things

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we can get maybe through this year's budget for next year and some of our summer curriculum stipens. Um again, uh they do represent tightening in areas that um you know that do support the overall system and the effectiveness of the system, but I think some areas we can trim down on or at least push to um

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next the next fiscal year. Uh buildings and grounds reductions. Uh it's about 282,000. Uh this includes deferring deferring projects like upgrading the high school art uh room sink, which has been on the um list probably three and four years in a row now. Just continue

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to push that down um the road. the construction of the new uh high school assistant principal office. Um right now we've we still have the high school assistant principal in the budget. Uh we're going to look at maybe either having two in one office or use another space somewhere in the building as opposed to u doing some construction in

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the main office for that. Uh as well as the um upgrades and improvements to the seventh grade middle school bathrooms. Uh that'll be something that is needed but something we can push off. Um and then we're also increasing the use of the revolving funds to offset some operating costs. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that.

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>> Yeah, the building use revolving is one of the accounts that um of our revolvings we do have capacity to increase the use. So that's something that will help us to reach this number. And >> those are fees for people coming in. Correct.

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>> Correct. >> Y uh next slide is the new request cuts. Um, as you remember, we had uh some positions across the district. These are two that um after a lot of conversations and some really difficult decisions. Um

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we will um not put forward in the FY27 budget, but we'll look for um these positions as we move forward. Um it is the uh full-time 1.0 visual arts teacher at the middle school. If you remember, we put that in the budget for class sizes. We have a really big middle school, three huge classes next year at

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the middle school. So, uh, we'll have to, uh, manage large class sizes in some of our visual logic classes for a year before the sixth grade then moves over to Charleswood. And then the Marathon Esau position 2.5. We felt that was best practice. Uh, again, that's something that um, we will look to put back in the

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budget hopefully next year. But something we could probably do with, again, we want these all, but could we do without them for next year? I guess that's something we have to have these tough conversations about. The next is around just contractual services. um you know we identified 30

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30,000 in here. Uh much of it revolves around um services that have shifted a little bit over time based on student needs. Uh and in some cases we now have the ability to internally kind of provide those services um at least we think for this upcoming year. So um that

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is an area that we felt like we can cut a little bit working with some of our directors and and principles. So when you get to kind of the overall where we are here um the reductions based on what we propose which is that number in the top left corner um we are

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now at this 71 um.207 million as opposed to the 71.8 um which is now an increase overall of 4.92. If you remember our increase prior to uh this process when we came through in nove uh November and December and presented this was 5.84% 84% increase.

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Right? So there is a reduction there. So the next steps, I think we've talked about it a little bit already. Um is, you know, we are putting forward this. We've met with town officials. There's going to be an appropriation meeting on Monday, a select board meeting on Tuesday. There still needs to be another

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um 600,000 that gets cut through other departments and maybe through free cash. Uh but this at this point is is what we feel as a school district we can um you know contribute to the reductions to make sure that we're meeting this financial expectation for us with the >> and they did highlight some of that for

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us in the meeting today about where they're cutting out. It's not just us that are >> not just us. >> But we do have four-fifths of the budget. So I think there is an expectation that some of it will come from the schools. >> Are either or both of those meetings uh going to be joint meetings with the

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school committee? Not that I'm aware of >> in terms of can we just talk for a minute about the visual arts at the middle school the class size. >> Yep. >> It first of all actually want to just start with fantastic job pulling your team together to be able to make these

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numbers and I'm asking not because I'm >> debating it but just looking for clarification. The class sizes in that grade are by adding the visual arts, it would have taken some of the burden off of not just visual arts classes, but the ability to have kids

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smaller class sizes in some of the other classes as well. Is that am I misinterpreting that? >> No, you're not misinterpreting. Some of the related arts classes. Yeah. >> Okay. But it doesn't include then a trickle into like math classes or English classes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

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So we know the the amount of money that is needed to cover this gap, right? >> Yeah. >> Are we about in a position where we've covered our percentage of what what that is? We feel we're this is what we've brought forward is what we're comfortable >> okay

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>> bringing forward which is about half the number that uh >> and they they hopefully come up with the other >> other departments which I know that they've been working just like we have with their their people and trying to make sure that they make the cuts and then I think there's going to still be a gap that hopefully because of the time

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frame of this that the select board will be open to um utilizing free cash >> but if not then we have to continue to have this conversation. Do we know if there's additional I I know the certification of free cash and my memory

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of it is not crystal clear from back when it was discussed. Uh if there was additional free cash that was not allocated. Do we know that >> there is? Okay. >> Yes. >> They're anxiously awaiting our vote tonight. >> Well, I I wish that we were not here. I

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feel like we had a a great process leading up to this and it almost felt like it was too easy and knew that >> it was. Yeah. >> And everybody was very conservative on >> agree >> their needs and what they had highly aware of that >> so

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>> yeah we were already >> at a difficult budget. >> Yeah. >> I make a motion to move to approve the revised FY27 budget for $71,27,200. >> I second. All in favor? >> I

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any oppose? No. >> Okay. All right. And so that brings us >> grudgingly do this. >> Yes, we do. And agreed. And you know, you know, like we said, we'd have to uh adjust uh to the information that we're getting, but it certainly is disappointing and I know a lot of people put a lot of effort and work into the budget. Um and like you said, I thought

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we had a really strong budget process was transparent. Um and you know, it's unfortunate that we're in this place. So hopefully this advisory committee will get together more often. will be able to kind of address this and hopefully we won't be at the same position. Thank you. >> I also said during the meeting today that the communication to employees I

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hope goes out that we still do value our town employees and hope they do use their health insurance. >> Great. >> So thank you. Um so that brings us to the end. So I will say I'll recommend that the school committee approve the items by consensus as listed in your

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packet. >> So moved. Second. All in favor? >> I >> I >> Any opposed? That's okay. >> My kid make sure he's up. >> Is that you? >> Make phone calls. >> I'm trying to babysit my kid at the same

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time. >> I can't find him on a camera, so I'm trying to call his iPad. >> Good lord. >> If the call gets rejected, you'll know that. >> Yeah, that's Yeah, that's all I need is a rejection. >> All right. You want to read it? to

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comply with or act under the authority of MGL chapter 30A section 21A2 specific to conducting strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-unit personnel and the school physician because discussing in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the school committee's bargaining

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position and oh sorry move into executive session before all that and adjourn an executive session >> I second your motion >> thank you Nancy >> all in favor We are adjourned.

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>> We're entered into executive session.