good evening It is 6:31 p.m on Wednesday April 16 2025 This is Brian Leighton the school committee chair and I am calling the school committee to order in accordance with the requirements of open meeting law Please be advised that this meeting is being broadcast at at live
over the Lunberg public access channel The meeting will be broadcast live through the illegal access cable channel and on the public access Facebook page and will be found on Lunberg access YouTube channel within 24 hours after the meeting The agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably
anticipated by the chair Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for the discussion to the extent permitted by open meeting law The first item in the agenda is the pledge of allegiance If you please rise
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Thank you Uh the next item in the agenda is public comment I'll open up to public
comment from the public Seeing no one in person is there anyone on Zoom please raise your virtual hand or your hand Seeing none I'll open up to public comment from the committee Mr Arshab um thank you I first off will apologize for
my soft voice as I'm running through some langitis but um I did want to say that this afternoon the House Ways and Means Committee did um submit their budget Uh their budget has a minimum aid
to schools raising from the $75 per student that the governor had Oops sorry microphone I'll try that again Um the minimum aid to um schools went up from the $75 per student that the governor had
set to 150 per student However this is a huge example of how you can't count on anything because this has to go to the Senate and then it has to go to reconciliation So right now it looks like we would have more chapter 70
funding However it could come to July 1st and it could be cut in half So it's very important for people to realize these things do go up and down They also fully funded the charter school reimbursement at
100% Um but that doesn't mean that's going to stay They have also um put 75% of all required out of district placement transportation eligible for reimbursement in
FY26 but only prorated so far as the money it holds out So once again it it is another nebulous piece of information but I wanted to tell people that our members of the house are working on it
Thank you Mr Bmore Uh just to follow up um on Mrs is Arshinbo's comments Um there have been a a number of public hearings over the course of the last several weeks
pertaining to education funding Um there was a a hearing in Boston last week that I know that the superintendent and two members of our committee attended Unfortunately neither of them are here right now Um I was able to
watch some of uh both the hearing in Springfield and the hearing in Boston um over the internet uh on both days and um recognized a lot of impassioned testimony
um on the part of parents and students and and municipal leaders um and frankly what I consider to be a lot of political theater on the part of the acting commissioner of education and
many legislators Um what came out last week in the way of a proposal that is explained as um uh one-time funding
um from the fair share tax Although the fair share tax is a permanent tax the funding proposal is one-time funding which I don't quite understand Um as well as a a House budget today Um
I have inquired of our legislators relative to the the bill that came out last week what is the um what is the net effect on the towns
in your in your districts uh what is the net effect for Lunberg um and I would repeat that same question although I've not done so directly to our legislators relative to today's house budget Uh and that is an open question which I would encourage uh people to repeat and
reprint um to their heart's content because we need that number Um and while all money at any time is sufficient um the sooner that we understand and know it the better off we will all be
Thank you Thank you Seeing no other public comment uh we move on to the chair's report Uh thank you Miss Arshambo It did uh also have the uh the House and Ways Means Committee was expected to release their
FY26 budget today uh prompting increased advocacy efforts as at a state budget activities uh as it intensifies The state house news service reported that the speaker Mariano's comments at a Boston Chamber of Commerce event last week was Mariano confirmed that the
House Ways and Means budget will sustain funding for universal free school meals and fully support the student opportunity act However he ruled out reforming the chapter 70 school funding formula despite calls from superintendent school committees and students at the budget hearings When
asked postevent about revising the formula a topic Senate President Karen Spilkage shown interest in Mariano Mariano firmly declined stating no too much uncertainty Um representatives now will have until
Friday to submit amendments Um and then uh we encourage the the public to contact your district's representatives uh this week to urge them to file amendments establishing a chapter 70 commission using the language from Senator Lewis's bill Senate 400 uh and
all requests outlined in the FY26 advocacy document um that the 211 have been working on um from Representative Scarsdale Um House Bill H405 was finalized as
H410 an act making appropriations for fiscal year 2025 to provide for supplemental supplementing certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects It allocates one-time 1.3 billion FY24 fair
share amendments sir tax surplus and has been referred to to the Senate Key provisions to the bill were a full 100% reimbursement for FY25 regional school transportation up from 80 to 82% 75% reimbursement for FY25 out of district
special education transportation costs through the circuit breaker program increased from 44% 75% reimbursement for FY26OD special education transportation costs uh and a directive for the office
of inspector general to review school transportation and provide recommendations by February 2nd 2026 to reduce costs enhance purchasing power and streamline services Uh also Representative Kush and Scarsdale reached out to me um stating that there
were 50,000 in ear marks uh for Lunberg public schools So that was good news and uh the chair of the select board also reached out stating the same That's all I have
Uh student representatives report Um so in the middle and high school we've been having the spring food drive which I mean I know I've seen a lot of kids bringing stuff in for Um we have the
Spain trip leaving tomorrow and the DC trip happening next month We've had MCCASTs in both the middle and high school and I'm pretty sure at the elementary school as well Um field day for the elementary school is on June
11th and field day is on June 12th at the primary school and then grade 5 has their promotion ceremony June 13th Thank you Next item on the agenda is to review and approve minutes of regular session
minutes from February 26 2025 Are there any questions comments or feedback make a motion to accept the minutes and approve them Second Any discussion just going to check to see if
war is on Zoom I think there's a nationwide the Zoom outage fix We are okay Yeah No we have everybody Oh yeah We do have Laura on there So let's do a roll call vote I think we're ready for a roll call Mrs Broski
yes Mr Beardmore yes Mrs Ashimo yes Mr School Green yes And Mr Le yes Thank you Next item agenda is to review and approve line item transfers warrants and donations We have warrants from March
27th 2025 to April 14 2025 totaling $368,970.31 You can do donations first Sure Sure So this evening um we have a donation in the amount of $800 from the Parel family
for STEM supplies for the primary school Uh this uh check will be deposited into the school gift account and used for future STEM supplies And we also have a check in the amount of $1,000 from an anonymous donor to
help students going to Nature's Classroom in October 2025 The check will be deposited into the gift account for Turkey Hill Elementary School Recommend acceptance of both
Move to accept both donations with gratitude All right Second that Any discussion all right I think we're ready for a roll call vote Mrs Bzowski yes Mr Beardmore yes Mrs Ashimo yes Mr
Schoolbrini yes And Mr Leman yes Line item transfers We have several Um we are looking to um make a transfer from the computer
purchase and lease line to the equipment maintenance and lease line uh transfer amount of $19,600 Uh the reason for the transfer
um is to address uh anticipated expenses from the Canon lease agreement for machines and paper Uh the reason that we needed to make this transfer I might have mentioned to you in the past that we're we're receiving bills for the
amount of copies that come off these copy printers Um so we get these bills uh periodically um and it's not something that we have as of yet anyway uh put any controls or
limits caps on on staff for how many prints they can make in a given window of time Um so this amount um of transfer should cover those anticipated bills I think I see it
Can I ask a question yes Um this is the cost regardless of how many copies are made No this is dependent upon the number of prints that come off the machine Okay We get a bill from Canon So like how much of the cost is
people making copies that's that's the cost That's what that transfers to cover the the I'll ask 19,600 bucks I'll ask Dr Gillson to come to the microphone Um
while you know basically you could implement controls on the copers Um and we do everybody does have codes Um we've been monitoring usage and we check that
every month The principles have talked with their staff but it is a little challenging to control the overall cost Um sometimes when we need to make copies we need to make copies and
um so we've been looking at the data to guide and the leadership team has been looking at the data and we will be looking to implement caps that can be put in and programmed in so that individuals cannot exceed a certain uh
print value Um please know that the black and white copies are a different cost from the color copies Um but we wanted to have data to take a look and watch the the usage to see what's reasonable right because there
are periods of time like when the you get to a new uh semester let's say you might see a spike in the number of copies being made There are also spikes in the number of copies being made um when it's time to uh put out report
cards or the MCAST or the I Ready results But we've been looking at uh ways to make those things available digitally only for next year to reduce the cost associated with the copy So can
I just ask you a question Dr Gelson how much money are we spending on copies copies Just copies I I would have to go back and check the record It's not $19,600 Well um I that also should include the
maintenance Okay Um right in addition to the copies but um we can unpack that for the next time if we need to It's just that um that's a lot of money not having controls and caps on the number When we have controls and caps on the number
then you can budget and plan for that's your max right without those caps for every user sometimes the bills come in a little higher than another month prior So again
we're studying the data so that we can put reasonable caps We're not looking to make teachers jobs any more challenging and restrict resources that they need but we're looking to make sure that the caps that we put in in place
are reasonable based on the need Otherwise needlessly prohibit um teachers and other staff from from accessing uh a resource that they need Can I just a quick followup has there been any discussion about transitioning towards
like a paperless environment yes And believe it or not we have done an awful lot of that already And quite frankly I think that you know we can do a a better job at the 612 level because they are
all a onetoone Um so again this is a leadership conversation um trying to figure out parameters that can be put in place that reduce cost shift practice um but don't don't create
uh hardships uh and barriers for teachers to do the job that they need to do Yeah Mr Great One is the entire equipment maintenance and lease line of
$83,500 Is that entirely going to network copers no Um I believe that that is also the Pittney Bose postage uh meter Um there's something else that is And do
we own our copying equipment or is that all leased uh those are least and they're and our teachers are administrative staff are for the most part using network printers The the the copy machines are also the printers Yeah
they're network printers right yep Okay Um so we've moved away from individual printers Um and even for me yeah I I print to the copier at at the superintendent So I I I'm happy to approve the transfer We
have to pay the bill Yeah I I I would like to understand the breakdown of what our costs are what our upfront annual cost is what our incremental cost is and what that means in terms of what it costs for printing That being said printing is expensive
But you know ideally our people should be using printing judiciously and a lot of times we are printing in lie of textbooks that we're not buying because we're subscribing to digital content but in some cases you
need to have a physical copy right and and so correct I I don't want to be overly restrictive I think we just need to be judicious and and that is not an easy thing to do when you're dealing with a staff of 200 some odd people
Correct And it might be that teachers in a certain content area have a higher cap because the demand to have actual paper that they can um students can work on um or grade levels There might be some uh grade levels where a
print capacity would be higher than another grade Again we've been tracking data on this so that we can take a look um and make some educated decisions around appropriate limitations as well
as uh like I said exploring ways in which we can get reports out to parents electronically and not in paper print So um it it's been something that we've
been watching ongoing in our leadership meetings all year long Mr Puchini comes in and he has all the data and he passes it out and we discuss it at all the um the district leadership team meetings So
that's been on our radar all year Do you want to do these individually or we um I think we just keep talking about them just talk about we have other issues
Um we have another uh transfer request um in the amount of $5,000 moving from the fire safety furniture repair line to the vehicle maintenance repair line Uh the request for this transfer
uh is to address a deficit in the vehicle repair maintenance line uh and to cover some additional uh upcoming expenses for truck repair and mower repair Um this this transfer we're anticipating
will um cover costs for the remainder of the year questions comments Okay Next um the transfer from the school salary reserve line You might recall that we were in in bargaining
with um two different groups last year and we had monies in a salary reserve line At this point in the year in order to ensure that we've got um the appropriate amount of funds in each of the salary lines um we are uh dispersing
um the salary reserve monies to all of the appropriate salary lines So there's many many many salary lines in in here Um but essentially the uh transfer at
this point to cover is $311,4169 to various salary lines Is this something that we've historically done earlier yes In the year yep Yes Yeah Typically when we would do something like this Mr Cassidy uh would come in
usually October November um and and move all of um any salary reserve numbers to the appropriate lines Any other questions the committee i uh move that we approve the line item
Oh I think we have one more Sorry Well I thought there was two connected here No one more large multi-line transfer expense itself you have um sorry
another moving from various uh lines to four athletic lines Uh these monies are going to be moved to the athletic transportation line the athletic special detail and athletic
events line the athletics dues and fees line and the high school after school uh stipens Um the reason for all of these um transfers um over to these lines is so
that we can make this first phase move make monies available in the athletic portion of the budget And then once those monies are in the these lines we'll be able to go back and reclassify charges that have been made against the
revolving account for athletics against the local budget lines for athletics because as we've indicated since the fall um the athletic revolving account has been operating in deficit Um
so at this point we we know what what we need to balance out the deficit but we're also tracking and projecting costs for uh the spring season as well So these will all be zeroed out The
deficit will Dr Gillson confirmed Will will these moves here take care of the current deficit or will it mostly take care of the current deficit and there's another wave there's another there's another wave okay but this will take
care of a good bit of it what are the questions comments from the committee this is uh painful this one yes yes it is Um I don't know what else to say This is
a painful one I mean we're we're basically we're zeroing out a lot of lines that during last year's budget process we zeroed out right came to the community and said "This is part of our justification for an override is we need to beef up these
expense lines and now we're zeroing out these expense lines to cover a deficit because of poor budgeting." I mean that that is the reality of the situation and it is what it is but it is a
uh a note of caution to our our next school committee Yeah that we got to be we got to be really careful about relying
on relying on um revolving funds without clarity in terms of what the expenses are that are hitting those revolving funds and that is what we did last year without realizing Yeah And I think you know to be clear for the public there
there was an added challenge for all of us last year when the town offices for their finance were very short staff Positions were open for many months Um we
simultaneously went through an upgrade with Munice that was fraught with challenge um when the new uh town finance director came on board they had to kind of dig out of a backlog to get things squared
away And at the same time we did not have a finance person on the school side either Um so I think by the time we figured out what the real status of the revolving account was we had already
passed our FY25 budget development Um so not surprising that we're here making these moves but I will say that for FY26 we did move uh quite a bit of the
the routine expenses into budget lines Um and the things that could potentially if need be become a little bit more discretionary spending moved against the revolving account Um so we're we're very
hopeful that that coupled with potentially a little bit more revenue coming in because of the increased fee the opportunity for uh advertising and such that um this is not a situation that will be
perpetuated I think that we kind of write writed the ship on what side of the budget should carry what what types of expenses versus the revolving Um so the other thing that's worth mentioning here
is a lot of work was done this year to get us to where we now are and and I I don't want to discount your work the work of the AD the work of the secretary for the athletics program the work of the superintendent to get us here Um because everything that superintendent
just described was also preceded by a shell game of funding in particular athletic expenses to the point that it wasn't clear there wasn't a clear what what Tony would
refer to as forensic accounting to kind of show us right what actually happened and um I think that we've got to get on a clear path of good practice Yeah And I think that we provided a lot of that detail in the expenses in and out
different areas so that we are kind of level setting now Everybody knows where where those monies are what the expenses are revenues in revenues out Um so I I think that we're on a really good path
Um and you know again it's all transparent at this point but I do think that we're we're on a much more solid footing um as we close up this year and enter into FY26 and turning this over to
um a new superintendent and now a new ad Okay So now could I make a motion to approve these line item transfers as proposed i'll second that Any discussion all right we're ready for a roll call
vote Mrs Rosowski she's stepped away Mr Beardmore Yes Mrs Ashabo Yes Mr Scholriny Yes Mr Leighton yes Mrs Bzowski i don't think she's on anymore No she might have
Okay moving on Uh next item on the agenda is the superintendent report Yeah All right So it is that time of year It's transportation form time Um we were a little bit late getting the transportation form out We
usually try to get that out April 1st but because this year we'll be collecting a bus fee we were trying to get the rev track set up so that we could send it out um so that payment could be made as people were you know filling out their transportation form Um
drives we might we were recognizing that that was not going to happen in a timely way So we got the transportation forms out uh transportation forms are due by May 1st At this point we have received only
413 forms to date Um we'd like to remind folks uh please do not fill out a bus waiver form if you have already submitted a free and reduced application um and qualify because we will be
relying on that Um the bus waiver forms and the free and reduced applications can be found on our website on the main page and on the transportation page And for anybody if they are submitting a free and reduced
application you will also need to fill out a sharing information form and check off the third box for busing Without this being checked we cannot consider um folks for a free and reduced bus fee The
sharing form is also available on our website on the pages um mentioned above main page and the transportation page Um in order to pay the bus fee um folks can send a check made out to the town of
Lunberg over to the central office at 1025 Massachusetts A Um please put in the memo section of the check that this is the bus fee Um shortly a page on RevTrack will be made available for the families that would
like to pay online And once that Revtrack account is open and operational we will send out a notification to families to let them know that they can now make the payment online Uh additionally details about the bus
fees can be found on the website uh on the transportation page Um just as an FYI we have received to date 27 bus fee waiver
requests Um however looking at those those are people who are likely eligible for the free and reduced if they pursue that point So um moving forward payment will be due at the time folks fill out their uh
transportation form However because we needed to set up the account a new revolving account with town hall for these funds to come in and set up with Revra um we've extended uh till June 1st for
payments to be to be made Reminder for uh registrations Uh the summer program for extended day uh registrations open April 28th For the fall uh school year before and after school extended day program registration
opens May 5th And for the fall early learning center program registration opens May 19th Um I also want to um make the committee aware that we received notification that
we have been awarded the innovation grant from Innovation Land Education Um as a reminder uh this was one of those stackable grants Um Innovation Land will work with us uh providing us
letters of support for additional grants uh that we would pursue in order to uh complement their grant uh and our current plan is to uh apply for both the Ryman Foundation grant and the SC Johnson grant both of which have
rolling application periods Um I also as a point of information for the committee um routinely our tech department uh repairs broken Chromebooks replaces screens and the like and uh we were out of uh available parts on the shelves So
it was time for us to restock to make some repairs Um we had to switch vendors because the vendor that we typically uh use for these um types of purchases uh pricing went up 54% due to tariffs
Um so I think we all need to be prepared that um it's going to be a bumpy ride uh relative to our funding in our current approved budget for next year because we were basing not off of a 54% increase to
some of our uh routine costs So stay tuned Um also wanted to uh remind folks um for town meeting our food service program
will be offering bagged lunches Um the cost will be $8 Um the lunches will be available between 11 and 1 and consist of um a water a bag of chips and a cookie as well as different sandwich
options uh including turkey and cheese wrap uh Italian sub garden salad with pa or hummus vegetables and pita bread It's a cash and carry only I have made the town manager aware that she should share the
menu with her um staff that will be present at town meeting as well as with the members of the finance committee and select board and um I've suggested that they may want to get us a pre-order so that we can have theirs made and set aside so that we don't run out um and
that they have their lunch Additionally um I just wanted to comment that I was one of those in attendance at the Ways and Means hearing um on April 8th Um I
did submit written testimony advocating uh for some of the the bills um that are under consideration at the at the moment And based on estimates uh for revenues that could come to Lunenburgg if those
were passed uh I can tell you that we should be able to restore if if all of them were passed uh somewhere in the vicinity of nine uh nine positions So uh we're we're going to work hope for the best that
some of those um actually are funded Um It would be very very helpful uh to have Um next regular meeting of the school committee will be May 7th at 6:30 Uh
that will be hybrid from town hall And a reminder that schools and school offices are closed on Monday this coming Monday for the holiday Um as well schools will be closed all of next week for April schoolation Um and I think that's I
think that's all I have for you Thank you Any questions or comments from the school just one thing Um in addition to Dr Burnham uh myself Laura Bazowski and Mandy went and uh it was um a really
interesting experience Pretty much everybody had the same like two or three complaints I thought that the Ways and Means Committee did a good job of listening to everybody Um there was a group from Gateway School District and
they were fourth graders and they were amazing They crushed it So uh next year if we're still in a budget crisis I think you should j fourth graders have them come in and ask ask I'm looking at you I'm looking at you
while you drive Okay Yeah they were they were very effective I loved watching the the Ways and Means Committee's expressions when the kids came on and then just started dropping cold hard facts and numbers in a very adorable way I was like shocked cuz I
thought like I don't know how effective this would be And then this the chair of the Ways and Means Committee took out a cell phone I was like "Oh he's not going to pay attention." And then he took a picture with them in the background I was like "Okay they're going to get what they want I think this is good." It was really good
Uh Dr Barnham you had mentioned nine uh positions possibly being restored Um correct me if I'm wrong but that funding would come in after the town meeting So we would need a an appropriation of the fall town meeting to the town would need to make that vote
Correct Are is that funding reimbursement based on the previous year so when does that reimbursement usually hit the voters so that not all of these bills would necessarily be uh reimbursement based Um some of the money might come in
Some some of it may be an FY27 type of um benefit that we would see Yeah a number of them seem to be a number of them seem reimbursement based So yeah like if they increase the circuit breaker that that's a lag behind
reimbursement on transportation Um that's likely a a lag behind as well Would those come directly to the district or to the town um that's a good question I would imagine um they would likely go to the town like
chapter 70 monies go to the town and but they're earmarked for education So um where circuit breaker go does that go to the town or does that it's on the cherry sheets yep It goes to the town There's a circuit breaker
account and that's held in but the money's the all the state monies go directly to the town Okay Yeah So I'm not sure that's going to affect much for next year but it is Oh it it very well could affect next year but the problem is is I mean this is
what I've been saying since September right nothing that we are experiencing right now could not have been predicted last summer and our legislature decided that they're going to start taking it seriously not after the election in
November not after they were sworn in in January but in late March and April And as a result of that we're going to see some money probably in August or September which is really convenient when you're trying to start school and figure out how you're going to spend
money that you're more than happy to receive but it would have been nice if you knew about it when you were actually building your budget and supporting your strategy Um once again I know I sound like a broken record happy to take the
money but boy this is frustrating And an additional concern of mine is that it is likely to go to the town and not the schools directly until there's an actual vote at a town meeting Well yeah that that's exactly it right i mean you know
there's a lot of lot to it All right You might think our legislators never worked in municipal government Yet one of our legislators was a select board member and another of our legislators was a
president of a city council And by the way that's not unusual for legislators in Massachusetts You might think that they didn't know how this worked All right Our next item on the agenda is a presentation by the Lunberg Municipal
Building Design Committee I don't know if Michael Ray is on the Zoom We may have to table this until he arrives If there's no objection I will table
this until he arrives No objection Well yeah Motion to table that till the arrival of whoever is going to present it or your Yes Michael right i am not presenting it He's he's prepping for uh the town meeting
Yeah no objection No objection All right moving on Uh old business discussion student activities fee restructure Lunberg Middle School You have an update in your folder but I would invite um Dr Gillson and Mr Santry
to come on up and um just give you a quick rundown on progress and um what we can anticipate at the next meeting So I'm going to have Mr Santry talk about all of the meeting dates that we've had so
far which were scheduled and we've had a wonderful time Sure We've met with my school advisory I'm sorry my student advisory council and we met on I think it was April 3rd We scheduled two Zoom
meetings Um those were on March 20th and March 25th um in April 14th had a discussion with the LEA board and then we actually have a meeting scheduled for my school
advisory council for the high school for tomorrow at 3:00 The student activity fees are um ex basically they impact every student that attends the high school and so we want to make sure that
we do our best to get it right What it's looking like is I would say that um it's more than reasonable for the school district to provide onethird of the total cost for the st the advisor
stipens and and make sure that that is in the local budget Um the history has suggested that over the course of a couple of years um that is what we've been able to do even if it was unbudgeted to start um that is typically
the amount that we end up funding Okay And I think it's more than reasonable considering um that we also support athletics So um right now what I see after listening to all the feedback is that there are two possible options and
one is to consider a fee increase Uh the fee has not been increased Some people say it's 23 years Um I don't have that confirmation Um but um you know it's been a long time So um looking at what
we need to bring in I took a look at um I based it on 346 students which is about 77% of the student enrollment The other
23% of the students are free and reduced lunch And so um we fee and reduced lunch um are automatically waved from the fee So they don't incur a fee at all Um so that's option one Um we will need to
raise the fee from $55 to $70 to make ends meet And then um we also recognize that there are um students that are much more involved and other students that are not
involved at all So we are considering another option and the other option is to define the universal uh a universal student activity fee um for activities that influence the school And these can
include certain things like pep rallies competitive class plays homecoming graduation and class sponsored activities And then what we also are taking a look at um student if if
students pay a universal fee um and they're not as involved for students that are very involved perhaps they pay one additional fee for any of the options that include drama Um I'm
looking at um like big sibs best buddies um gaming GSA as the connection and identity clubs uh art clubs academic clubs and music all music clubs So there would be just one fee and you'd have an
opportunity to participate in all of those things So um I you know we feel that that's fair Um but also too it's not only being fair but it's manageable because you can't um continue to collect
fees and try to manage um all of the updates with uh a smaller office staff So we're trying to be realistic and uh in terms of our meeting um with the uh
LEA board and other other uh clubs and advisors and the through our feedback channels we've been uh looking at setting a minimum number of enrolled students uh for each activity for the activity to run We are reviewing the
number of meetings expected per club Uh because all of the different tiers they're all different prices There are eight tiers And so why wouldn't we have a uniform number what's the expected number of meetings for the the the value
of the club so we're working to define that um clubs that require transportation or a materials fee um we would charge additional amounts and that could be easily managed So we're going to anticipate uh we have one more round
of feedback to go and that is tomorrow night or tomorrow afternoon I'm already in the evening That's a little scary uh you know so we're looking at um bringing back a recommendation based on all the feedback that we've absorbed and we're
trying to be understanding of parents at home We're trying to respect the fact that we want if we are going to be in a position to have to charge fees and they haven't increased for a long time um that we're trying to make them reasonable and realistic for parents and
we'll look forward to bringing a final recommendation at the May May 7th meeting Okay Does anybody have any questions um I appreciate that these options decrease the administrative load Yeah
Yeah Especially um right losing a secretary at the high school I Yeah I took the time consideration because I felt that I I I do appreciate that um because charging per activity was going to
become administratively difficult So um yeah I I like the compromise with that option So I I have to say I also did not expect the side effect You know an unanticipated benefit of this is looking
at the expectations of these different tiers of clubs and the stipens associated with them I have had the long suspicion that this has been somewhat ad hoc in terms of our approach um or self-managed on the part of the
individual adviserss And I think that this makes great sense to to take a look at that while we're doing this so that the parents and students who are investing in this can also expect a certain amount of activity associated
with that Um so I so that that I'm I'm really pleased to hear that So the we're undecided right now about what the fee structure will look like for the those other activities option
two and as we go there uh what we're there's a potential that we might put out a um a Google form to take some data because we really um we don't have any idea about what the balance is with or
the impact balance with kids who would pay just a user fee um and not participate as much and other kids who would love to participate as much Um so we're going to have to get some potential data on that which we can we
can do So um I very much appreciate the option to having a child that didn't do anything and a child that did everything So um and I do know that the activity fee was
$35 in 2008 Okay So I don't know when it jumped That's good to know This reading no comments Uh thank you for your work on this Uh I appreciate the reaching out to different stakeholders I think that's important
And uh options It's been a joint effort Yes Thank you And we've enjoyed every minute of it Dr Gelson you put in the yman's work on this Thank you All right Thank you There's some there's some old adage that you know never let a good crisis go to waste And I I think that
you know these are the benefits of actually having to really look at some of our spending and revenue sources better understand the ins and outs of this and the you know the quality management I better understand
every one of those accounts Thank you Okay next item on the agenda is the athletic summer camps update So the update I have for you um for anybody who may not already be
aware um AD Bigalow has accepted a new position He will be uh resigning effective June 30th Um that said we did reach out to the um the board of health There is a rather lengthy checklist of
things that um we would have to take care of and be compliant with Um a lot of it is having written documents and procedures and practices and the like Um given the short timeline um I'm not
I'm not confident at this point that we're going to be able to satisfy all of the board of health requirements I know that they're working on it Um if we can manage to pull that all together in the next couple of weeks
then maybe we're we're still in good shape uh to run some of the camps this summer However um I think it's worthwhile to continue making progress on all of that paperwork because I do think long term um this is
this is an avenue that we want to be able to pursue even if we can't pull it together in time for for this summer Um so if anything changes uh if it's a definite yes or a definite no I'll come back and I'll let you know But right now
I just wanted to uh give you an update that I'm not feeling very confident that we'll be able to pull it all together in a timely enough manner to to run camps this summer But you never know surprises can happen
Our next meeting is in three weeks from now because the calendar thing with the first and third Wednesday Is there anything that you need from the school committee relative to this if you decided that yes we're a go i mean are
we we're not pending any action here i don't think so It's a matter of can we create all of the written documentation procedures protocols uh etc etc A lot of it is health related so we'd have to involve our nurses Um
but if it's a go you're not waiting on us I don't I don't think that there's anything that I'd be waiting on on the committee for Um in reviewing the files I don't recall that there was anything that would have required sign off or or a formal vote of the school committee
relative to the board of health paperwork that we need to do Um so I know that there are some folks working on it Um and uh if we can make it work we will But I just wanted a reality
check and and it's possible that it may not happen All right we do have Mr uh Michael Ray Jeff on So we are going to the presentation of the Lunberg Municipal Building Design Committee Michael Ray
thank you Uh thank you for having me with you this evening Can everyone hear me okay Yes Excellent Um so um I'm with you this evening I'd like to just give you an update on the municipal building design committee Couple things that we're working on Um first that I'd like
to discuss with you is the Brooks House And then the second thing is just um previewing or reviewing um what we have for the uh new town hall new river new school district offices uh and the meeting house Um let me see if I have
the ability to share my screen Um now we don't have a projection so it won't do us Can we pop up there okay Did I hear that you don't have a projector in the room we might
Give us a minute Yeah I haven't started sharing I'm just sitting here All right it is up Michael red Okay I'm going to go ahead and share the screen All right Thank you And can you see this
yes All right So what the first thing I want to go over is the um in the at the special town meeting in the fall Um one of the articles that was put forward by the architecture preservation district and I just want to review this with you
Um was to see if the town and the town did vote for this We'll go into what the requirements are for the select board to look into uh at the Brooks House Uh defining a lot of minimally compliant size for the property that includes at least four parking spaces as a part of
the property conveying to the buyer or lease and their successors and assigns a non-exclusive perpetual easement for the purpose of using up to eight additional parking spaces nearest to the property to accommodate customers of any business
located therein from the lot of the town owned library on 1023 Mass Three conveying to the buyers or lees and the successors and signs a non-exclusive perpetual easement for the purpose of using the existing driveway
and parking lot of the town owned library on 103 Massav for the purpose of vehicular and pedestrian access to the property Four consulting with the school committee and relevant parties on the recommendation to be contained in the report Five advising on the terms and
conditions of select or deems reasonable and necessary to protect the interest of the town and six advising on the methods and costs of placing the property for sale or lease by appropriate legal means at the town's disposal uh with the intent of offering the property for sale
or long-term lease uh by this coming October and continually retendering the offer until the property is sold or leased uh or take any action relative there too So um after the um after the
special town meeting uh as you know the municipal building design committee was a little focused on um the other projects So it does not appear as though we're going to fully be able to meet this deadline Um but we do want to be able to come to uh the voters at the
annual town meeting just with an update And so why I'm why I'm mentioning this to you and why I'm asking uh I'm going to be asking you a couple questions here in a moment Um but you know I think the vision here is that uh we you know the task at least is to be able to take this
property and and put it into a non-municipal hands for the preservation of the property um the municipal building design committee in our process we were charged with looking at the Brooks House as well as TC Passiel's Ritter Town Hall and in all the
iterations that the municipal building design committee came up with um we identified this as surplus um that there wasn't a good municipal use that we could identify that would work well and the only partial use that we thought could work um potentially could be for
like a facility director uh for either the schools or the town the town facility of director not not interested um and they were captured in the other project So really it's about how do we take this property that is historic and be able to preserve it um in commercial
hands because it's located right at the entrance of the um you know going into the middle high school and and the TCP area All of that as you know is one large parcel I want to capture as we go through this any things that come to
your mind that we need to be mindful of Any considerations that you want us to make sure that we have key here Um because at this stage of the process we don't know what that end user could be Um we don't you know we're not identifying what that use is Um but we do intend to be able to say hey based on
parking calculations etc here are the uses that could comply with our existing bylaws So I'm just here tonight first to capture your feedback thoughts on as we think about this moving away from municipal into non-municipal what do you
uh need us to be focused in on i'll turn it over to the committee Any comments on the Brooks house i I would just say like make us money right like if we're not going to use it as a municipal property pursue
avenues that would allow it to generate revenue for the town Like unless it's a a head shop like makes us money Mr Beard Yeah
I I think that this is an option that we need to pursue at a minimum as a means of not having the Brooks House as a financial drain on our general fund Um every year sitting on the capital
planning committee for the last three years the Brooks House has been a discussion and in almost all two of those three years it was the topic of requests that were not funded um because of other priorities and a lack of
programming for that for that building So um I I appreciate the work of the municipal building committee and and and Mr Jeff just to try to resolve this thing because it's just been hanging out there for for way too long And yes it is
an old building of of some historical value and and I understand the the desire by some members of the community to preserve and retain it But frankly I since it was used as our
you know as our headquarters of our school many many years ago um I don't think that we as a town have seen the value of that building and and I I think it was leased for a brief period of time to the previous owner of
the Lunberg Ledger for a period of time and and that sort of thing But but I I just I don't think we've garnered any value from that building for a very long time So hopefully this can turn into something um because the alternative is the building needs to go away in my opinion Thank
you Mr Bazowski Mimo I would agree with Peter We've got to do something with this building It would be nice if it could as um Tony mentioned give us some revenue at the same time
but we cannot keep paying or not paying upkeep and watch it demolish itself So um I'm very happy to see whatever they can manage to put together for this building to have it be done Thank you I would agree with all the other members
Hopefully that gives you some good feedback Mr Jeff It does It absolutely does Um okay U that's really good Uh so what I'm I'm not hearing is which I appreciate what you're not saying um is
I didn't hear tonight any concerns about the in use Um so uh I want to make sure I'm capturing that correctly that whatever this use is whether it's commercial um if it's even potentially residential um that there's no conflict
so long as is it's being used generating some income everyone sounds like they're on board with with whatever that use may be Is that am I capturing that correctly i mean there's legal protections around what can open near a school So we're
protected there as far as the uses that would be truly awful and trying to think of something Having a hard time can of this place There's there's Yeah there's Yeah So um
so no consents Um yeah my I think my only thing would be as long as the driveway doesn't cut into the school driveway but then we could still talk about it The plan is the library parking because the parking lot behind there is already there's already an existing lot
there and it works Um I'm really excited this building might get used It's been sitting empty and I'm just I think that's the hope is to get it used Yes I'm happy about forward progress that we're making forward progress in town instead of just throwing up our hands and saying "Well not everyone
loves that plan so let's just do nothing." Thank you All right Thank you Um if I may switch gears I um I don't know Mr Chair if it's routine for the superintendent to appine
with the um committee members May I invite any comments that she may have i don't have any additional comments Thank you All right Now let me switch gears uh to the municipal building design So I've met with you several
times um uh before We've certainly engaged in conversation about uh what the hopes and plans are for the town hall So I just want to provide you with a really brief update uh um of kind of where we're at and uh what we are looking to what we're going to be coming
to the annual town meeting with So if I may share one more time and I will be floating through some of these screens quickly Um so all right Looks like we all see it Yes And let me
just try to enlarge this as best I can Um all right So we're like I said I'm going to be sliding through this uh a couple couple ways So this rendering which I know we've all seen before uh is the left side is the Ritter building and
the right side is the new town hall Uh as we look at some of these renderings this is just showing what it could look like for the uh 300th anniversary Uh because if all goes well uh this will be complete and open for our 300th anniversary Uh so that's always you know
pretty exciting This is looking at it from the back view coming in from the back area toward the town hall Uh you can see the uh existing town hall off of the distance We see bed liaries over here Uh and we have a nice covered walkway nice
side entrance here where we expect uh most people will likely come into the building This is showing the front view uh front door view Uh again covered kind of walkway Uh we have farmers market type activities up here It gives people a place in case it rains uh to come out
Uh but again keeping with the look of the uh center of the town As you walk in that front door this is just what's being proposed as what that could look like Uh and we our pricing calculations go off of you know what we're looking at here So you come in that front door
where again we think most people will be coming in the side door here but you have the assessor's office You have the town clerk back here and in this right corner in the very back is where we would have the um tax collector Um and then this is there's a central uh
elevator located in the building And so if you were to take it to the second floor and look back toward the current town hall this is just a nice look down that hallway Board of Health would be at the very end here And to the left here uh we would have the building
commissioner um uh type services This area depicts the school interest So uh the plan here is for public schools to have a the new district home office Couple cool features here to look at Um one is the
slightly um gently sloped uh walkway uh that would allow uh anyone from any different mobility um type to be able to start at the same position and end at the same position before coming into the door Uh this is really critical as we
think about ADA and equity uh ensuring that we don't have you know entrance one for primary or or able-bodied individuals and then entrance B uh for those who aren't as able-bodied Uh this is in keeping with the spirit of the law uh and certainly the letter of the law
Uh the intent here is also to reuse some of the existing uh steel stones that are currently located in the parking lot and make use of them to kind of help build what will be a um nice little garden here uh around this sloped
walkway So I'm going to scroll up and uh quickly and just show you a couple other areas that are the most relevant I think u for the school committee So again I'm just going through this presentation and going into the floor plan Um so as we
look at the floor plan for uh what we call the first floor not everyone I think looks at floor plans Um so let me just see if there's Yeah we're going to start here So as we think about the existing Ritter building footprint uh what we're talking about is is a is you
know this is probably the better way to look at it We have our existing Ritter building We have the parking lot that would be located here Uh we have some adjacent parking close to the building but the primary lot would be located on 30 school street in front of what is the uh historical commission's building as
well as where the old primary school used to be Um uh and this again functions as a primary primary area One of the things let me just scroll forward a bit just to show floor plan of the new uh town hall So what is
now the Ritter building would fully and totally be the school district's home Um we've met with the superintendent I know that this has come before the committee before but just to highlight um you have that walkway area Everyone again lands at the same space You have 88 compliant
doors that let you come in here The existing bathrooms remain in their current location U but we would put in a new lift Uh that would be uh a two floor lift Look more similar to an elevator Uh unlike the lift that's currently in the building what is now the land use area
would be called the ACE area Uh large kind of central area uh with some desks located uh in and in the back kind of area One of the requests that the uh superintendent and other school district office um uh members requested was for
there to be somewhat of a reception area So that way when parents come in they need to fill out paperwork or meet onetoone uh with with an administrator that they have that room uh to offer them that kind of privacy to do that What we then have is next to the lift we
have stairs that go up Uh the stairs do kind of enclose you so that way you're not getting too far And then you land in what's called a bullpen or the special service executive assistant area Um this is going into the lower level of the building So go down rather lower level
of the building MEP is mechanical electrical plumbing This is the current um boil boiler room essentially uh we would be expanding out uh the the footprint a little bit here of what is the kitchen and this would be used for the ACE program but the ACE program has
the laundry facilities the washer dryer type facilities that kitchenet facilities to facilitate those life skills that those students are learning and then in the lower level um we would also have some special service area and the special service director um we do
have a door here uh and this would be uh controlled access between the two buildings The real intent here is that we would expect that most staff would likely come in through town hall and come into the building this way Um but that the public in general would not and
that the public would make use of the existing parking lot in front of Ritter and the public would come in the front doors uh for the um um for the Ritter building school district offices As we look at the second floor uh we know that
the the area to the right here is is a large room It's not a twofloor area Uh so what we have on the second floor as you come up again a larger bullpen type area where we have executive assistance Um your accounts payable Um you know
your registar could be located up here And then we have the superintendent's office Uh this would be located right where the old staircase used to be the old or original entrance into the building Um and now is the portion of Lisa Norman's office uh right now So
what we have here is we have the hallways that you know aren't as wide anymore They're getting a little smaller to make good room for some of the offices that we're going to accommodate here with the superintendent the HR business or a manager finance uh director a uh a little bit of room here
for record storage because we will be removing an existing staircase Uh we have the food service director director of facilities and the director of teaching and learning And then again uh we do have a door here uh that is controlled access point So that way as
staff members come in they can come in off the first floor come off the staircase take the elevator and have that access into uh the area It also provides you with a second mode of egress There's a couple of of shared areas here So we have a a bathroom bank
is located in the town hall portion of the building Uh there is that student bathroom that would be in the kitchenet area You also have those bathrooms on the first floor Um um but you know we also have a larger battery of of bathrooms located on the second floor uh
where we know most of the staff will likely be anyway So it's a quick walk down the hallway to get there Uh we also have a um a coffee room and a shared coffee room uh that could work as well We do expect that there likely will be some coffee equipment uh within the
footprint of the Ritter but we do have uh again that area for that and then as well as a staff break room So the staff break room will be shared with the um with the municipal side And so that really will help facilitate um kind of
those conversations around the water cooler Uh I want to highlight the distance between the town manager office and the superintendent office that this will certainly facilitate more collaboration uh and really I think putting us under one roof The real vision here is one community So one
thing that's not depicted here are conference rooms Um and so you know one of the things that we were concerned about was given the functions that occur in these buildings uh was uh buildings or replicating too much space So what
we're losing here is we already have an existing conference room in the lower level of Ritter and then we also have a smaller conference area on that first floor uh in the Ritter So where this gets replicated at is in what we call the meeting house This is just a side
view uh to kind of show what these uh uh elevations are as we go across from building to building But let me go down to the uh town hall portion I think I'm going the right direction I may have gone the wrong direction
Um I apologize Give me one second here just to get to the right slide Um so the town hall uh because again we are losing two small conference areas in the existing Ritter building and there's a couple downsides to those conference
areas You know one is that it's it's in an office space where you you know you do have public information but it's still going to an office space in the Ritter So what we what we show here is what the new town hall will be or the existing town hall will become the meeting house Um you know to make this
an 88 building again important that everyone from all mobility types can come in the front door Um so while we retain the ramp uh for the side um it will be accessible through the front door So that will be an exterior
modification Right now we know there's a step up so that way the sidewalk is regraded to be level Um with that threshold when you come into uh the existing meeting or the new meeting house what is now the office for the assessor will become a small conference
room what is now the town clerk's office and coffee area and part of the HR area uh uh excuse me accounts payable not accounts payable payroll uh area will now be a smaller conference room or or another conference room conference room
B as we're saying here about 450 square feet Pretty pretty notable size And then the the back area here which is which is currently where the finance area uh the tax collector town accounted etc This would become another conference room Uh
you know we looked into an elevator in this building and one of the primary issues is the shaft for that elevator that to really dig in get into it we would need to remove a portion of this building to put in an elevator And so what seemed to be the most cost
effective uh answer here was to put in a lift Nothing like the one that we currently have This will be very elevator-l like but it won't have that pit at the bottom and it will technically be a lift We also create some storage area um back here uh as
well So that way as we have different groups different meetings a place to store those kinds of things Uh we retain in here an office space This is future proofing There's no use for this office but it gives us the ability to expand in the future And what is now the vault on
that first floor uh could function as storage space So a couple good benefits to the community uh is that when the superintendent wants to meet with her entire team uh everyone works in the district there's a couple different offices that provide that option uh for
you Any team meetings you know that that that could occur Let's say you have a the principles and and vice principles want to have a meeting It provides you with really premium space uh to be able to do that Uh and again uh I want to highlight here that we're adding in more
bathroom space uh on the first floor to accommodate some of that This building does not comply with our existing bathroom requirements in the town Um basically based on these uses we would need to have 16 toilets in the building 16 toilets will eat up a significant
chunk of a floor So we are going into this with the vision that we will be seeking a variance from the ZBA to not need to comply with with what are the bathroom requirements But again uh community gains and the school department gains um some some high
quality storage space uh excuse me conference space in the building As we go into the second floor we create what's called a gallery wonderful space for students and members of the community to display artwork along these walls Um and this would be the landing
area when you come up onto the second floor And then what we do here is we remove the town um the assistant town manager's office We remove the town manager's office and bring this room back to its original size Uh we change the orientation of this bathroom so that
way you're not walking in from you know the side area So we do change the door for the bathroom Um we keep cable access control and then keep cable accesses um basically control room up here as well Here we also put in that lift that
that's slightly different location We retain some storage up here We maintain the stage There is an existing office up here and we also retain that So again we have a building now that has some futurep proofing to it it can accommodate um um many members of the
community in a larger building And and what really I think is the is the one of the highlights here is that for the community when we have those artists that want to rent out conference room A for a gallery uh art show that we can do that when you have the nonprofit groups
that need to meet uh they have the capacity and ability to do that And really for the staff we create conference rooms and meeting rooms that have a community focus during during the day and evening and have a really heavy uh town apartment and municipal focus uh
during the day So um I'm here tonight again just to I stop screen sharing just to share this with you Again I know we've all seen this before and I want to thank the superintendent and the district for all the work that they've done uh to assist us in trying to get to this point And I just want to lay out
kind of what comes next So in the Massachusetts uh way that those need to get constructed that you know I I think uh it's worthwhile mentioning a little bit of history here that our procurement laws are meant to protect the taxpayers There was a lot of fraud uh that was
happening in the 1960s uh and there was a commission that was created to be able to look into how to minimize some fraud and waste in in in public construction a lot of buildings getting fully designed never getting built a lot of taxpayer dollars getting wasted So where we're at
now is is our process says "Hey we need to have a schematic design Uh once we get to that schematic design point then we're at a point where community can decide if they want to move forward." The next step here is construction documents Uh construction documents take
time and they're expensive to produce uh hundreds of thousands of dollars Because we know the value of this project at roughly $23 million for all the all the buildings and all the work We're also required to hire what's called an
owner's project manager They also get you know certain not percentage but typically they get a certain percentage of the overall project So before we start incurring uh all of those costs um that really we're going before the town
now to see if we can get the funding to move forward But the design doesn't stop Um when the community decides to move this project forward there will be more design As we go through a detailed engineering uh process which we did do some of it on this end but as we go
through that there will be some changes Uh there will be some modifications I think we owe it to the public to provide a building that's substantially similar to what we're asking them to vote on but there will be some additional modifications Uh I want to highlight that the uh space that currently exists
in the ACE program uh that provides the school committee in my view with some future proofing that in the future if the uh when the Turkey Hill project moves forward um uh and and the and the school decides on how they're going to address that building and the student
body population that currently is in Turkey Hill It gives the schools an opportunity to add the ACE program or as as accessory part of the building or to be able to segregate it better within the building uh if needed And then that would allow the district in the Ritter
building to be able to expand their footprint into what is now that ACE program Uh and so you know really I think that this plan as we've presented it accounts for a lot of the existing needs provides for um that uh expansion potential but really I think we all know
that we're in this environment where we've been operating sometimes what feels like silos and there's a lot of value in us all being under one roof You know if anyone watches what happens when a member of the public needs to get a permit or anything else like that where
they're walking back and forth across the street This really does resolve a lot of that and minimizes that foot traffic across the street really during the day to those staff meetings that are better in person uh and that can't be accomplished uh through remote meetings
So I just want to thank you for your time and certainly want to pause for any questions uh that you may have for me Thank you Mr Jeff I'll turn it over to the committee for any questions or comments I do want to say thank you for taking the school's input so well and
um working with the superintendent on those plans I think I think they work really well for us I'm still not thrilled about the lack of conference space I think I I'm not the superintendent and I'm not an admin but I think from what I've seen
I think it's a very uh collaborative work environment and there is a lot of meetings So I am a little concerned about all those walls but I'm also wondering if maybe that's just a function of where we are currently in the large classroom sizes
So I'll leave that up to Dr Burnham's opinion but I am grateful for taking all of the feedback into account and the solution that was come up with and it is it is a beautiful building Mr Beardwell
um I support this I know that we are in a tremendously difficult financial position as a town when it comes to our omnibus budget and I know that it's going to be very difficult for people to look at this in isolation uh relative to
the broader financial challenges that we have Um that being said this is a little bit different in terms of our approach Um and I think that this puts us in a direction to finally address what have
been very longstanding problems like multiple generational long-standing problems And I really hope that we can take this step It is not perfect but it is enormously better than
our current condition uh and I think re represents very good value uh when when taken in its totality and uh I support it and I hope it passes Thank you M Serge
Um I know that I have been saying for a long time we need to keep this moving and I agree that we have to keep this moving This is a good plan and as Mr beard more said it's not perfect but I haven't run into anything that is perfect I I think it's a very good plan
and it has my support as well Thank you Brady Uh I am concerned that we are spending money on this building when we are in a financial crisis that will get worse I'm having some difficulty hearing Mr
Stell I I said I'm an uh I I don't know if I support it I am concerned that we are as a town spending a lot of money uh moving forward on this project when we are in a financial crisis that will undoubtedly
get worse Um you know when we started the budget process we didn't have tariffs that essentially added 50% of costs onto our computers whatever we're doing next is going to be
beset by all kinds of financial challenges that like come and go every day change every week And I think that spending this much money on a building that I totally agree that we need at a time when the town is in crisis is
probably not the best way to allocate our resources Thank you Uh I would I just want to extend a thank you to Mr Jeffre and the whole Lunberg Municipal Building Design Committee for their work on this Uh I agree with the the fellow members that
it nothing is perfect but I appreciate all the work that the committee has put in Um for the public's sake and um Mr Jeff uh later on in our agenda we will be taking uh action on the uh the warrant articles um all that are school
related and making our recommendation Uh so I appreciate you coming tonight and presenting and answering any questions that we had Uh Dr Burnham did you have any questions or comments nothing Uh other than thank you very much for for working with u with me and the entire
team um through the process Much appreciated Thank you Thank you for your time All right moving on Next item on the agenda was the school committee goals I was uh I'm okay if I pass this over if
there's any objection for me Who needs batteries all right we will continue We have a busy agenda tonight Yep Uh next item is an action item Turkey Hill ADA study
report All right So I will invite Dr Gillson to the table and Uh Dr Burnham if you could bring up like the ADA um study on the back screen Um I
would like to introduce uh Kaya Sasta who is our architect from CSS architects and uh she worked with her team to conduct a study uh with the Turkey Hill
Building and I would love for her to be able to um describe uh major parts of the study that she feels are worthy of um bringing to our attention attention
Um okay Ka are you with us Kyle uh where I saw her on the screen Oh there she is She's Ka is right uh in
the middle like there There she is All the way up to the top there Uh yep And she's muted There's nothing Oh Ka Oh great Perfect I couldn't I couldn't hear anything Oh okay That's good And all
right can you hear me yes thank you Yes Okay I can um and and if you could bring up the other Hi So um I'll show you um thank you for
um having me um present but um um I guess I don't know what Susan said for an introduction because I couldn't hear anything Um but um we are just wrapping up our study of the um
conditions and assessment and ADA um compliance for Turkey Hill Um we we do have a draft that we uh submitted and we are going to basically
hopefully get some input from the committee to finalize uh this this study Um it's a study but also schematic design Um thank you Susan Um
so I do have there is a a summary in the beginning but I did write a letter too to make it easier to summarize basically what we had done um which is is not this it's actually expands on this study
summary um but the intent of this was to basically um review the school uh building components both exterior and interior Um and that includes the roof
includes the windows includes the doors it includes the mechanical uh electrical and plumbing components Uh it includes um the um
uh the condition It includes uh looking at all the reports that were submitted and it includes um the um fire protection also Um so the report
basically summarizes the um the things we looked at which I just mentioned and it um gives our recommendation of what we would recommend and again that is based on not any really input from um the
school yet Uh it's just based on what we our opinion So I think it would be helpful to get some more input on the the options and recommendations um to include in the study Um I think it's pretty clear that the roof uh is
way beyond its useful life Um and should be replaced Um the windows are original Uh they are very poor condition and it's very clear that they also should be replaced Um they're They're single pane
glass They're all rusted steel Um they probably don't work very well anymore Um so that those two items together right there um basically if you do those two items
that then kicks in the full um AAB compliance accessibility compliance for the the school So knowing that we did look at the accessibility in great detail only because this was supposed to be an ADA
mainly study So um there's been numerous studies done on this school since n 2006 2007 I believe um looking at the school looking at all the components looking at the conditions
looking at the issues um making recommendations um so again I looked at all those previous studies uh and then I evaluated uh what has been done since those studies what if any of those items that
were recommended have been implemented um and there obviously were very few things that were implemented from um those studies and previous reports Um I think we did have um as far
as accessibility uh the door levers were all replaced um with the lever handles Uh that was one thing Um the uh counter at the offices uh was lowered
to to allow someone in a wheelchair to be able to to uh pull up and and have access Um there gym bleaches were replaced I guess to to be more compliant Um
drinking fountains were replaced Um and there were a couple doors that were replaced um to with with the 3-FFT doors A lot of the doors uh are not 3 ft wide which that's one of the items that
that uh is required for egress and also for compliance Um the girls lock boys locker rooms aren't used anymore So we did not spend a lot of time thinking about that or coming up with any design because
they didn't they're not needed um what they want to do with those spaces Um I didn't get any input on um suggestions for a use for those spaces Um so
uh I know that they're going to be replacing some of the doors So we included um you know information about what is going to be done So there's going to be a project that's going to replace four doors uh two of the main entry doors which is good Um and then
there is uh also a a project and I'm not sure if it went ahead uh to do uh upgrade of the fire alarm and security systems Uh so we just mentioned that in our report Um and then our engineers uh
reviewed all of the um the uh components fire alarm electrical mechanical HBAC and plumbing Uh and they've come up with you know basically they they're um the review of
the evaluation of the existing conditions and they also have come up with recommendations for uh different options uh of what to do So it's all very detailed You can see there's a lot of information um in this report Um but
I think I think the the main the main issue with the board is you want this school or you're trying to evaluate whether this school you should put money into the school to bring it into the you
know into the future to uh have it um provide uh for um the needs uh 20 years plus um and what needs to be done to do that So um we
um again I you know priority to me is roof and windows Priority to me is building envelope Uh you want to keep the water out You want to maintain the interior of the building You need to protect the exterior envelope So to me
priority is that getting that done Now you can get funding from the MSBA You probably realize that from the ARP programs we're doing We've been doing um working with the MSBA with the ARP since 2010 since they started the project with
the program So we've done numerous numerous schools um windows ru boilers Now they don't do boilers unless you want to electrify your school That in itself is very expensive And uh we
touched on it We explained what the cost would be but I am not recommending that option Um your interior components I know you were concerned about the interior whether it should be it needs a facelift Yes it probably does need a little bit
of a facelift Um the flooring mostly BCT flooring There's some hory tile uh and tile in the in the kitchens and toilet rooms Um that is in basically good condition Um some of the original
flooring is still there near the cafeteria um that it's probably going to have some asbestous um can um materials maybe mastics if it isn't the tile itself So um but it's intact Um it's not
in bad shape Um but if you do want to replace the flooring that would have to be evaded Um I know some of the floors have been replaced and abaded throughout And I know you do have an a hero report that
needs to be updated Um it hasn't been updated since 2019 That needs to be updated every 3 years It's in your bag What is this so this is the stuff I just there a question no Go ahead Sorry
Okay Um so yes you could go ahead and and you know it needs to be painted but those are small items compared to the larger items And if you want to look at the existing edition photos which are
scrolling through uh most these are the ramps that you um have connecting the classroom link as you can see there the windows I have pictures of the windows and um that are really in poor condition
Um the exterior masonry is not bad It's pretty good shape There's only a couple areas and that's been like this for a while Um windows again uh very poor shape Very very poor shape of windows
And um you have a a lot of solar panels on your roof which the uh lease is up this year Um and basically uh if you want to do the roof
replacement you have to remove these panels obviously to do that Whether you want to buy new panels or do another lease agreement with uh solar panels that would be up to the school Um you certainly can but that again is
is up to the school Um so it's part of the accessibility all of the toilet rooms would have to be upgraded Um they're not compliant at all
Um so as part of this full building compliance all of them would have to be compliant We did schematic design plans basically more than schematic designs really We're showing you how to how to upgrade these toilets to meet the
compliance Um you have a number of casework areas and sinks that aren't compliant So again as part of the full building compliance you'd have to either remove those or upgrade those You have this wonderful courtyard which isn't
accessible because of the the threshold the change in grade in the door and the material would not be compliant for someone in a wheelchair Again we provided the design options for that Um your front your
entry um your main office area um there's some issues even though you did fix the counter Um we have some uh issues with clearances for the doors
door clearances not having your uh 18 in on the pull side or or what have you Um access it into the nurse's bathroom Um the bathrooms in there not compliant The vertical lift you have is that ramp is
not compliant and the vertical lift is very old Probably should be replaced um teachers This is uh I think the old dining the old home room which is I was told is a uh I'm not really sure
actually if it's a teachers dining area or something But again those aren't compliant They'd have to either come out or be made compliant Uh your double doors you're in your in your hallways those are only five foot openings They don't comply I you'd have to either take
those out put new doors in which we've shown actually that would be compliant Um your doors to your classrooms are compliant as long as they don't have a closer and a latch I don't think they have closers Um and then your egress
paths outside of your egress doors uh are not compliant because the slope is too great um your stair stairways uh they do not have continuous inner handrails and then outside you need a
curb cut Um there's a lot of accessibility items We pointed them all out We have them itemized We have costs for them Um so you could see all all of these items broken down I have them
under categories um in the cost estimate which I think is probably in here we could see but again the options for the MEP it's either option one would either replace items that are broken or failing uh in
kind uh as they as you need to um as I said you can't get an MSBA ARP funding for boilers gas boilers anymore but um they're probably reaching their they're probably I I think they're
working now fine but they're reaching the end of their pretty much useful life once they get to be like 25 or 30 years old Um so that's all about the the boilers and the the controls And the
second option would be a full replacement of all of your uh components Again just keeping it uh gas fired and uh keeping the um and replacing some of the conductors in the classrooms with a new ERP system and um
things like that which I'm not the engineer so I'm not going to try to go in explain all all the MEP stuff Um so this session four is all your options and your solutions and um pros and cons
of each one Um so again roof skylights windows and and doors accessibility um which we have you know again if you spend more than um $500,000 uh you have to um have a
accessible entry accessible toilets Uh if you're doing window and roof replacements if you spend more than 30% of the value of the building you have to upgrade everything Um check So that's that's
basically that And again fire alarm electrical systems Oh the other thing is if you spend more than 30% of the test value you're supposed to put in sprinklers in the building Um if we you know again some of this is
you know uh determined by how the building inspector might interpret some of it or whether they would allow you to um put some of these things off Um I know as
far as accessibility there's some items we would go for variances We wouldn't even try to uh we wouldn't fix it We could just try to go for variance um certain things you know you're not going to get a variance on Um but it's always worth to try to go
and get some variances for some items or I'll say "Listen we can't do that now but we'd like to We will do it later when we have the money." Um Okay Can I ask a question Yes Mr Um so first of all thank you for your
report and for your work on this Um and and I I I apologize for just cutting right to it This we're in the middle of a very long meeting tonight and I want to move this topic along if if at all possible
Um clearly this is a pretty stark situation Um and you know I I feel that at least we're making progress There's been a lot of conversation about this building over my term on the school committee with a lot of opinion in terms
of what we can and can't do And my personal goal for this project was to get the facts laid out so that we can make informed decisions about how we're going to do this going forward Do we build a new building do we do we continue to duct tape and bubble gum
this building etc etc um and and what I my interpretation from what you just reported is we need to think about introducing this building to a build bulldozer and and replace she literally says the cost to
replace the school would far exceed the cost to repair replace and upgrade you how much about about well I I came up with about 16 if you did everything I have everything about 16 million If you
want to replace the school probably close to 100 million So yeah it's it's a lot more to replace the school than to So you think it with with the and and again we need to program an
elementary school for grades three four and five Right Right now we have a middle school that was programmed for a middle school in the 1960s So yeah and I cannot speak to the
educational program We are not um we're not uh school architects that we get involved in in programming and the requirements for educational for the the grades We're mostly a building um building architects and component
architects I mean I know the class sizes seem to be uh probably adequate for what we've seen uh for elementary schools Um yeah I'm not concerned about the classroom space What I'm concerned about is the environment the building the the the long-term uh use of the building Um
I I want to really get to to two points because I'm hearing two things and I'm not really clear in terms of the financial aspects of this The MSBA has programs for things like roofs and windows and and and heating systems The issue with that building
right now is not the boilers It's the the units that we have in the classrooms their ability our ability to circulate heat in the building Those those units in the classrooms are original They were they've been there since 1967 Um and I
do have the engineer on board if you have any questions Well my my question is is what's the shortest path to success there and what's the cost well maybe John Cotton can speak to that because if it's not electric then we're going to have to burden you know that
that that full cost is on us right well MSBA wise uh yes right now Yeah Yeah Unless that changes Yeah kind if I may Um my name is uh John Cman with Christine Engineers Um I'm a mechanical
engineer by the way So we had looked at the three different options and I'll keep this brief Um obviously Ka has mentioned about the envelope windows roofs etc Um and that's great That gives us a lot more insulation and now that ties into our absolute energy efficiency but air quality is the
biggest thing We know that the existing equipment is at its end of useful life um and and should be replaced Um and of the three strategies it's kind of broken up into two separate buildings Um before we get to the HVAC um with kind with the work that Kai has mentioned we know if
we're going to have to put a fire sprinkler system in you're looking at like 2 million bucks So that's kind of a given that has to go with it As we start looking at the additional things that you would want to do um most importantly being air quality and the environment especially when you have you know younger children or anyone in that for
that matter building Um so looking at the two HVAC strategies we've got the main building that houses the boilers and that whole heating system Um in option one we're not touching the boiler and we're not touching any of the um we're not replacing any of the ventilators in that room but we are
replacing the ventilation units in the main building and we're just refabing in the classroom wing Um in option two we looked at um replacing the hot water system and using basically just the traditional heating system for the whole building with minimal air conditioning
And you can select a certain spots We can look at the air conditioning strategy separately But the option two using the hot water system is kind of keeping the same infrastructure in place and just rehabbing it And that would provide you heat um as far as air quality goes Um and that kind of is
where we get into option three which is technically the all-electric option But in those two options option two and three we can pick some elements from one and um and kind of combine them as a hybrid approach And and my thoughts are to treat building one um by replacing
the boilers um uh replacing all the heating systems in building one and then putting spot cooling in the administrative areas Um and then areas like the gymnasium the cafeteria and the kitchen we'll kind of keep that functioning exactly how it is now So if
we took the elements from option one which is just replace those HV units and get the ventilation units up to um a very high level air quality throughout the spaces in building one we've really accomplished the task there And then also in that building we would have upgraded the heating system which we
provided for building one When you look at building two I like adding the elements of all electrification for that with the boiler system as being supplemental heating Um and what that will allow us is that um you number one you would be able to get some sort of
rebates by using utilizing the electric Um granted it's not for the entire building but it does kind of break up two two performative zones and and it would absolutely address your ventilation issues um specifically for those classroom areas Um so I without
getting into trying to engineer it um of those three options so we know there's about 2 million bucks for the sprinkler system The mechanical options from the very basic option one uh range from we'll say 2 million to 8 million Um option two and three which is you know upgrading boilers or adding electric
that's somewhere between you know seven and 8 million But by combining the different strategies maybe reusing some of the existing infrastructure and um as it is in as it is in place while um upgrading major components we can certainly reduce that cost but obviously
air quality is most important thing And I me being an HVAC engineer for 20 plus years that's my biggest priority And I I don't I don't like to cut corners Um it's not about me Um what I see here is I see a building that has you know a good solid foundation And as Kai mentioned to go and spend 80 or 90
million to build build a brand new building would be great but we know what's going on financially and it's a very tough time And I I know that you guys want to you'd love to see this go for another 20 years And if you're going to make the original investment you know just to do the honorable and spend the
two three $4 million if it's a little bit more and you can get 30 solid years out of this building I think that would be a great investment because I mean ultimately the building looks good It's a good shell It's a well-built building and by rehabbing the the exterior
envelope you're providing you know much more of an energy efficient envelope for these newer systems to operate So um by having that hybrid approach where you've got say the electrification and the in the classroom inside with the supplemental heating you now have the option of dual fuel source And we know
the utility rates are bouncing around like crazy And and I like the idea of kind of having you know that flexibility um you know all of one option or all of the other option I don't necessarily agree with that you know with this with this situation here but it's not up to me Um but I really do see a lot of
potential and and trying to rehab this building and my logic would be is that you're going to spend you know a good chunk of change to do everything in the outside Um you want to make sure that what provides for a good environment on the inside is is also done And it's it's really up to us or you know the engineer and the architect to figure out how best
to do that from a cost point of view But I really do see potential um and I just try to keep it as simple as possible And obviously we know the electrical system for example is it's pretty outdated That's going to have to get upgraded no matter what You can either go with the 700,000 or the 800,000 roughly you know
like there's things that have to happen but there are um there are you know earned value approaches that we can take to this Um the numbers that you know we've come up with so far as an initial um estimate they're probably pretty close You know they're they're pretty
accurate for type of work that we're doing but there's definitely some room to find efficiencies Um and I just think building has potential So hopefully I was able to explain that well enough I don't know if you guys have any questions on any of the specifics um that you'd like for me to answer Thank
you Uh what other questions do the committee members have excellently Sorry unopened on me Um first of all thank you for this incredibly comprehensive report Um it there's so
much in here I haven't had time to read every inch of it because it's like 128 pages Um but I've I've gone over it Uh first of all at a later meeting can we get a report on what's going on with the
solar panels that expire the lease expires in August 2025 So can we we can know what's happening with the solar panels are they are they removing them tell you about that right now Yeah we can Um the company went bankrupt and so we are no
longer obligated to them for any reason Okay So are they coming back for them or is it now our trash it's now our trash Okay cool Because that's what and if we want to replace the roof it is our responsibility to pay for that
The removal and putting back on the solar panels that dealer is no longer available Y thank you Are we when did the company go bankrupt in speaking with Chris Ruth he looked into um the company I don't know exactly
when it went bankrupt but we're no longer obligated to make um to make any further decisions about the solar panels or pay any leasing anything So where are we still getting money from
the panels we're still getting Yes we're we're getting incorrect Yeah Okay So we're gonna have to pay to dispose of the panels if Okay that's my understand Now it's our trash Yeah Okay
great Um if they stay up there longer we continue to get the credits You get credits yeah Okay great That's kind of ideal So they're not going to come get their panels or make us renew So we can keep them for a few more years
till we just We can also hire someone to put them take them off and put them back on too Yeah Okay So this is not All right Um Okay fine Um I'm thrilled with the report because I'm thrilled that it's such a It's much less money than I
thought it was going to be It's still a lot of money 16.57 million $60 million is a lot of money Um but it's not as much as I thought it was going to be And compared to building a new school it's a lot less
So that's good news And it we could still put more money into renovating it a little to make it more appropriate for an elementary school Um so uh my first question is do we need to w how many doors do we need to widen is that marked
in the accessibility every time I try to scroll down uh is that marked in the accessibility study specifically every door that would need to be widened yeah So I I do note on the plan um there's a plan that shows what doors need to be um
relying uh like the doors in the links there they would be replaced Uh the doors in the corridors would need either to be replaced or add new doors Um so it's
it's laid out so you could see and it's also in the cost estimate how many doors are being replaced Um but the classroom doors were okay Classroom doors are okay because we switched out the doorork knobs Yeah Okay
Um is there a price in there for replacing the vertical lift yes Okay um and adding another one as an option at the music room to make that compliant Okay Can you in section four would it be
possible and it's okay if the answer is no but would it be possible on section four it would be helpful for me if you could put prices with the options section four is options and solutions where you lay out the options And I love how you've laid it out This was um
fantastic the advantages disadvantages uh like a little menu Um however if you could put rough prices with each of the options I think it would help Okay Um that would be helpful
Um and how likely do you think it would be that we can get a variance for the fire sprinkler issue um well I don't know if it's a bunch of variance as it is talking that's more of
a a building inspector uh issue um and fire department too I believe um I mean the code does clearly say it would be required if you exceed the 30% value and
also you are touching more than uh about 30 or 50% of the building Um so you know we've um we've we've come up with this a few times where we're just doing a roof replacement and the
building value is so low that we're exceeding the 30% But because we're only looking we're only touch not touching more than 30 or 40% of the building We're just doing a roof that um it wasn't required to put sprinklers
in So it all depends on what the scope of work is What's the dollar amount for that 30% Well your building supposedly right now is assessed at oh about 9 million7 or something like that So you
exceed which is low you exceed 30% of that value Okay That's if you just did the roof No If you just did the windows maybe not Um so but if you did both yes you
probably would Is there a time is there a time span between doing the roof and then doing the windows where it would kick in yeah you have three years I think it is Um thank you What you spend within three years of time you have to do this as one
financial package if you're going to do it I mean you can't peacemail it You can't peacemail it There's just no way to do it Yeah Um okay Uh and how much of this the 16 million do
you roughly think MSBA would cover well it depends on your reimbursement uh rate I don't know if you have other done other R ARP projects with MSB that you know what your reimbursement rate would be Um usually it's like anywhere between
30 something and 80 something% um depending Um so let's say it's 50% Um I think your the windows were like two 2.25 or two something like that So it it
reimburse half of it Um so that half of that would be reimbured by MSBA and the roof is about 2.6 and again that would be half of that would be reimbured by the MSBA A lot of times they will do
they will uh do two items they they might say yeah you're eligible for windows and the roof and so we will consider that as your project and reimburse you for have 50% for all that So definitely it's worth
pursuing definitely but your options that are covered in section and sometimes it includes uh also again I they they're they're more lenient now on the accessibility costs
and what they will pro what they will include for accessibility costs and I'm trying I'm trying to remember what their their latest with their the last meeting we had was uh I think they said that if your the
value of your improvements kicks in the 30% they will also include the accessibility improvements in that um scope of work and reimburse for that too Thank you Yeah So that um because it
used to be it would just be they would pay for the the if it was just accessible entry accessible toilet they would include that but I think now it's actually if it kicks in the the 30% for compliance of the whole building What
are the questions the committee members have obviously this is a good report that our next school committee can can run with and build some planning around I'm not going to belabor this I I I still
find the mechanics of MSBA ADA triggers what's reimburseable what's not and a lot of very high priced items and this whole idea of potentially doing something first and making it a priority where we don't have the money for any of
it unless we go for some sort of excludable debt Also I you know I'm I have this sticker shock idea because the current building that we're in which we're programming seven grades worth of kids in and and
greater space needs than we need for elementary school kids we built for $65 million Yeah that has to be part of the discussion So this you know I just I I I I think we need to take a look at what the current MSBA projects are for
similar projects to what we need and and do a comparison Um yeah it's a good first step but I think it's important to get all this information that we need about what it would take to get Turkey Hill um school ready for the next 20 years And I think that's what I'm
looking for if if your report can highlight that number uh and give the details of what would it entail to keep the school going for that 20 25 years maybe even 30 years and that way we can present that to the town citizens so
they know what to expect ballpark number of what it would cost oh I had one more question Mowski is it possible to encapsulate the original floor tiles or do they need to be removed um you can encapsulate them you can go over
them Um it's usually I there is also some asbestous in your window cocking So um you know if you if you do that the windows would have to be abaded Uh it just adds a certain amount of cost to the
removal The roof I don't anticipate any problems even if there was a species It doesn't add to the cost Okay Um and and the flooring yes you can go over it um with flooring without having to abate it If you if you're doing anything that
disturbs it like drilling through it or whatever um then you would have to abate that area that's being disturbed And correct me if I'm wrong but if you do not abate it when the building is torn down you will have to pay for the abatement
Well there's there Yeah If you tear the building down and there's hazard map materials it's all going to be part of your demolition cost of abading it Yeah You can't just willily go in and do it without um without uh taking care of uh
it contaminating the environment Thank you Another cost that we need to consider here is it'll be costly to future building You got to remember that our impact on operations if we do this This is not a summer project right i mean best case scenario this is probably
a one-year project So probably two Um which means we got to displace a a lot of kids and a lot of staff for an extended period of time Yeah None of which is captured here How what is the
timeline roughly in your you know engineer architect opinion oh well again if if it's just windows and roofing well doing just windows let's say let's say full let's say we did it all Yeah
Um well again um you could go ahead do the the roof of windows first or and then do the interior and all the mechanical and I'm I maybe I don't know John could speak to that but I uh I'm not really positive I
think if you did everything all at once the the time frame that pops in your head is about a year maybe a year and a half something like that If you if everything was properly engineered documented organized constructed true mobilized you know go rip off
Let me let me let me just go I just want to tell you that we're doing a four-year project right now with um a Brook uh charter school in Boston where uh they are basically converted their whole
system from a gas fire boiler to electrification So they have been working they work uh two shifts during the summer which their summers are only six weeks long So they spread this work out over
four years for for converting over from their existing system to a new system So it is actually possible to not have to shut the school down um that you can divide this up into four components and
do it in phases because we are doing it right now with a school in in um Boston and if you want to talk to them about how they do it well you know they'll they'll tell you but it's uh it seems to be working and we're in our going into
our third year of um a four-year project right now where um they are going to be finishing up the last phase um of converting and that means they've had to take all their ceilings down put ceilings back up run duct work put
sprinkler piping in Um and and it's extremely complicated but they're able to do it over the summer and then have have the school back and running in the fall So it is possible that you don't have to shut the school down that you
could actually do that um phasing it uh without shutting the school down and just doing it over the summer Okay For the price that you just showed us Yes Yeah It's it's it's just uh you know it's the same amount of labor materials It's just uh yeah maybe you have an
escalation of material costs or labor Um but you're not having to move the students any where do you move them and then move them back i don't you know I don't know Do you have an empty school that you just move them into for a while a year if you did that'd be great
Thank you Any other questions from the committee all right Thank you We appreciate your work on this You're welcome Good luck making your decisions All right Next Uh so that is an action
item Uh just to accept that are we pending any additional work here or we is this it this wasn't addressed I think any comments that you would like to have her
look at in terms of the report or things that you need to have added like Laura mentioned that she'd like to see the itemized listing of costs I don't remember exactly your break down the cost and options And I think a breakdown of the cost and also
if we can do a summary of a cost for full renovation so the town knows comparable what a new cost versus the renovation without the additional obviously soft cost of what we want to do on the inside But yeah if we could move the asbestous report to an addendum
that would cut down the size of it because my tablet can't handle this 128 pages I think a brief summary of the recommendations to take care of everything Yes And I think you know she also um presented today a summary Um
there's a a very short like one page two-page summary at most in the folder Um so you might want to I know Laura have you looked at that yep I did Thank you Very helpful The numbers aren't in
there Yeah If you wanted to add numbers to the summary too because the public is going to read this Sure The public is going to read this too because we're So you'd like numbers added to the summary we do We like numbers and we
like brief uh summaries and charts instead of having to scroll through Yeah I I mean I you're going to be here a lot longer than I am I think that this lacks an executive PowerPoint that
explains in a slide the condition and situation quick the options and the costs associated with those options in a slide the potential impacts on operations what is in scope what is out of scope I think a main extremely hard
to follow several options after that but the main recommendation and then there can be some options below if I can Excuse me I I appreciated the summary letter but I but it had no costs So like all of these this is like somebody
giving you a receipt for your groceries but not telling you how much things cost Like I'm grateful that you've identified all of these needs that we have But if we don't have costs and we I I ideally what I would like is what we need how much it costs how how urgent is the
replacement like the poor fair that kind of thing for each of the items and have it be one page or two pages not long because as as it is the report is is too long and the summary letter is not complete in terms of uh identifying cost
I understand with the summary letter um she was just asked to prepare that Yes this one No Yeah I still want money Still want the still want the piece So the piece like there is um certainly
room for input and that's why we have this So you know so one other piece that I think will be helpful and and what I would consider to be you know things that are potentially going to have a major impact on our operations is when you look at a fire suppression system
for example that's no small potatoes in terms of how you get something like that engineered and put into a building if that's something that we can legitimately look at a waiver or some sort of longer time frame It isn't clear to me who the controlling authority is
on that I served on the zoning board of appeals and never issued a variance for fire suppression in in my time there I I don't know if the ZBA or the fire chief himself or the building inspector and what our existing folks what their
opinions are on on these sorts of things um said in the report building inspector and fire department but but that isn't necessarily to my knowledge a building inspector does not issue a variance So So what exactly is
the the authority and pathway um to to deal with these things all right So maybe we uh table the action on the report and for uh revisions and get the report accept it as a draft accept Yeah Yeah
Motion to accept the report as a draft Second Any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed Motion passes Thank you everyone And thank moving on for the hard work on that Yeah Thank you everyone for the work on this Uh continuing on the
FY26 budget free cash and FINCOM memo So two items related to FY26 Um we had some conversation at the last meeting about the ways in which the committee would prioritize uh use of the 500,000
uh in free cash for FY26 Um and we also uh de developed a memo uh to be shared with the finance committee Um but in speaking with the chair he thought potentially the memo would also
serve well um as a printed uh document available uh to the public um for annual town meeting Uh so I don't know which you would prefer to take a look at first whichever you're comfortable with
I guess we can talk about the uh the draft memo Um I worked uh with Mrs Broski on on developing this Um we put all of the personnel cuts and the expense cuts into
a table Um we included impacts for each one of the cuts um in the table and just gave a general overview statement Um at the beginning
we did include or I I included um a pretty basic definition of what a level service budget is versus what a target budget is Um not not because the finance committee needs that information They understand that But should this document
suffice um as a handout at town meeting for the public um that information might be useful Um additionally I did embed the side byside overview comparison doc
um that just shows side by side um the things that are the same in a level service budget versus the town manager's target budget which was the approved school budget You know so that you can see Yep
The all the contract obligations are the same in both versions the transportation or out of district costs are the same in both versions Um so you can see where the the the versions of the budget differ Um so I I don't know if anybody has any
thoughts or feedback as to whether or not this is a satisfactory memo for the finance committee that we can just send off or um feelings about whether or not to use this um as is in terms of a printed handout
or any other feedback on on any of it Any feedback from the members i would just comment that after listening as I did yesterday to the April 3rd finance committee meeting they're
using instead of level service they've been using the words level funded So very different which are very different and that's why I'm glad this show you know shows this um as a difference I don't know if you want to I could add a
definition for level funded a definition for level funded because it's very different and the terms were used back and forth more level funded than level service I think it's good to educate the finance committee Yeah
I don't know how to respond I I I don't know Well I think it's just good in general to to define the term I mean quickly for the benefit of anybody because we we do have quite a few on the meeting tonight
Level funded means you get the same dollar value Correct For the next year which essentially means costs go up So you're cutting Yeah Even at a level funded it's the same dollar value level level service means you keep
everything that you have staff-wise operationally you know supplies materials all all of that but you factor in uh cost increases whether that's contractual cost increases or material cost increases So you keep everything
you have but it costs more money Same price versus same service Correct Right My concern with the memo I'm fine with it going to finance committee I have a concern with the town meeting that there is not clarity on the
connection to the article that it's associated with I feel like this is connected solely to article 11 citizens petition and I don't want people to confuse it with article 12 the supplement to the Lunberg public schools where the free cash of $500,000 where
people could be looking at the free cash and being confused on these positions where maybe there needs to be another memo or the slide in the the PowerPoint at the meeting explaining where the free cash is going Okay So maybe there's
maybe the PowerPoint slide connects to article 12 That's great Free cash But maybe this memo needs a connection to article 11 citizens petition to specifically state to state that to state the connection it I'm glad you brought this
up Mr Chair because there's also the omnibus budget that we're going to vote on right and so I think that that's kind of the starting point which does encapsulate level services minus all the stuff on
that list right which is the budget we ended and and and I think that that while that budget is articulated in the warrant there there is a need to kind of illustrate that yes that number equals
current level of services minus all this stuff Then there's the free cash which we're going to talk about which is a supplement to that omnibus Then there's the citizens
petition which is level service because some of these cuts that are outlined in this memo might be restored with the free cash but they're listed here because the free cash is not
guaranteed right so they are still listed as cuts Yeah So it it's going to be very confusing for for the the uninformed citizen who walks into town meeting to kind of absorb this Oh it's like a real
confusing meeting for but like we got to if we want people to follow what we're doing and think we're doing the right thing and be transparent we have to make it really clear And I think that we have to address both those So I think the title of the memo something like FY26 school department
level service budget in in response to the citizens in response to request for information on citizens petition something along those lines And then maybe a a line or two in that first page that includes that brief kind of
summary of what below entails and the requests for clarification or for cl request for information based off of that citizen's petition and maybe article 11 is mentioned in
there Is there a reason we make these PDFs landscape and not portrait um because the tables would have had to cut and we would have had it extra long It's going to be long It
is going to be long There's a lot there Any other discussion on the memo a lot of information right but I think it's important for the public to know when they get to the citizens petition because the um the the side byside budget town school department budget and the little service budget that little that gets hard to
read when it's on multiple pages So I think that this document is fine for communication to the finance committee I think that and I'd be happy to make a motion to approve that I I think that
something that would comprise a handout for town meeting needs a little bit more work and and I think we can authorize the superintendent to do that and we can consult with her as we individually see fit Yeah I can put something together and
bounce it out to everyone and then if you have feedback we continue to work on this is too much Let's do that So I'll look for a motion I move to approve the uh memorandum to the finance committee as presented
Is there a second second Any discussion all those in favor say I I opposed Motion passes unanimously Thank you And do we need a motion for the town meeting or you want to just go with the direction that we gave her i think we
just go with that direction Moving on So the other part of it is the FY26 budget free cash that we are going to have a PowerPoint slide for town meeting So we need to let the citizens
know where free cash will be going so they know what they're voting for So are we talking about this first yes let's talk about it first the PowerPoint slide says then we'll decide
So are we working from free cash recommendations updated right now or free cash FY26 i have free cash FY26 in the full day Okay Okay Is there a different one there's a couple Yeah What else do you have are we
looking which one should we look at not the one that says disregard Not the one that says gift cards That's good Um free cash One is just a word version versus um an Excel Same file Yeah Okay
So either one Take your choice Dr Bernham do you have any intro on this or we jump right into it um the highlights for you All right So when we had this conversation at the last meeting
um I suggested that there might be uh different um umbrella areas for consideration One of those being restore some of your expense cuts um making some decisions and expenditures that would put the
district um in a better position as we're entering into the development of uh FY27's budget as well as restoring positions And um my takeaway and you you can correct me if it was not the right
takeaway Um the committee felt that largely um they wanted to prioritize restoring positions Um so obviously there are many positions
that were on that cut list So I solicited some input from the principles um and I had shared some of that uh feedback with the committee prior Um I've also solicited some input from
committee members and had multiple ongoing conversations with committee members around um you know what what is the right combination to get us to that 500 Um
so what I think I I heard in my uh conversations with the committee um is that there's uh interest and support around restoring the fifth grade teacher position the math teacher position at
the high school Um something new since we talked last and um Juliana Hansum is here and she can speak to this Um if the committee uh would like
um last year our challenge in an ongoing way was constant mechanical facility issues that kept popping up and needed to be repaired This year the thing that has
been our challenge all year long um is the shifting uh landscape around um special education the number of students in out of district placements needing transportation so on and so forth
Um we in the last couple of weeks after our our meeting um on the 2nd um we're looking at uh potential additional outofd district placements Um this is
not due to a move in situation Um however um Mrs Hanscom feels that um a reconvene of the team and a discussion that we could potentially
create services in district rather than um have to go out of district to meet the meet a student's needs And this uh hiring of a teacher position um could
potentially meet the needs of multiple students And it would be more prudent to spend the money to have a teacher and a program in district in house than to um you know have to have to place students
out of district So uh she can she can address questions on that more fully in a in a few minutes Um one of the things um that you know uh was on the list for the principal's um request for
consideration was restoring the assistant principal position at the middle high school Um however we also now have the resignation of our athletic director and
um we I think the committee can recognize that um Courtney Fuller is our um athletic secretary part-time and over several meetings through the last couple of months when there have been questions
and information needed data money spent how many kids are participating what's the cost so on and so forth Um Mrs Fuller has been able to chime in because she is also your recording secretary and she's on all of these meetings and she's
been invaluable um with the information and the way that she tracks information Um so I think the resignation of the athletic director opened an opportunity to consider a different
configuration I can tell you that all five of our assistant principles in the district have or currently do serve as coaches for athletics at at the high school level So um I think that there's
an opportunity here for us to restore a half of an assistant principal and have that individual take on the athletic director responsibilities Um and in also
restoring the part-time secretary you need that person to be able to support a less than full-time individual for an athletic director but this person also sits in the main office at the middle high school where we have
also cut a secretary position So the combination of a restore of part administrator reduced to a part athletic director restore the part-time secretary
That combination for for a cost of about 43,000 in free cash um I I think gets us a lot of value for for that money
Um I yeah I question if we do this as free cash then next year we will not have to find a new source because we already have a line for the athletic director So we would basically just be bridging the
gap for a year We would if if the if this model works and if the committee were interested in maintaining that model and not cutting in some way Right now what you've got in the budget
is the athletic director's salary minus 20,000 offset from athletic revolving And that was the money that previously had paid the part-time
secretary salary Okay let me just ask this in a in a a yes or no fashion If we do this and restore this with free cash this year Mhm the next year we will not have to do this and we will not add new cost
because we're essentially taking the athletic director's salary and splitting it between we're going to come up short because this in next year's budget we offset the athletic director's salary by
20,000 from the revolving account Now if the health of the revolving account is restored potentially you can still you you could potentially use and it would be a zero effect on the budget It might be it might be a small increase Okay got
it But the net net is we're using $43,000 of onetime money and if we don't find a way of restoring those funds through an override or some other source then we or if we save money on the athletic revolving we can get there right so it's not like we have to add
more money We just have to basically spend what we were supposed to The other the other piece of good news that's included in this again this is going to require close management but it would seem to be that the close management that we've put in relative to athletic
transportation fees recently we've saved money bearing some savings versus what we spent last year That's right So our actual budget which we thought was going to have was going to be short by you know 20 to $40,000 may actually cover
our athletic cost our transportation cost pretty close or pretty close So okay So that's not my read on this is that's not beyond the realm of possibility but it's there's some risk there
So the the next positions um again this is covering bases and again this comes back to priority conversations that we had relative to budget cuts in previous meetings to get to the approved budget
for FY26 Um is the title one it says here title one grant funding to Massachusetts is currently in question Is that because of the uh shuttering of the program on a federal level not because of the shuttering of the department of ed
rather uh due to um a a request put out by the federal government to every state uh asking for uh certification letters to be signed off Oh is this the Harvard students case this is connected to right um but
expressly it was to ensure that no schools were doing any DEI practices Um there's no definition for that provided Um and each state has responded So Massachusetts in
collaboration with the attorney general's looking at the law They responded but we don't know if it's been accepted and the um commissioner of education have provided the response and the response is essentially every year for these grants we complete assurance
forms We've completed the assurance form and that's you you've got what you need Um the initial request uh was for these uh certifications to be turned around in a
10-day window They have um extended that deadline to April 24th Um so there's a little bit more time We've already the state we have already submitted a response
Um I would anticipate that we would hear something back from the federal government after the deadline has passed as to whether or not our funding in Massachusetts is going to be held up or
not um in consultation with um MASS uh they're hearing that there's a possibility that um this whole request for the certification is is potentially going to be rescended So if that's the case then business as
usual All I'm saying is in this moment right now we have to make a decision about how we would use free cash And what I'm saying to you in this moment Title One funding is uncertain in my mind I I can't in I can't confidently
sit here and say no worries Title one grants are going to come as usual We'll we'll be fine So to be fully transparent and again these positions are listed here because of the
conversation that this group had when we were deliberating over cuts and what positions you wanted to maintain and fund with grant monies and so on and so forth If the grant monies don't
come I'm assuming that the committee still wants to prioritize intervention supports Yes At the K5 level Absolutely So what I'm proposing is we are transparent and say
that we would fund these with free cash if title one does not come If title one does not come However if Title One does come what we would do instead of fully funding an MTSS position at the primary
school because if the grant comes the grant is going to fund it like we planned That instead those monies would restore two pair of professional positions one of them to support the ACE program the other to be determined as to
whether or not that's a Turkey Hill assignment or a middle high school assignment And that would be based on the assessed need at that time at at that time Um again because we have to do this
in advance of the town meeting and we're not going to have another meeting it I may or may not know something on April 24th or April 25th I I may not know any more until sometime later in
May I don't know when I'll know more So I figured this this was a way to be transparent and put free cash towards those things that the school committee I thought was prioritizing through the budget cuts It's a
safeguard If the grants are not in jeopardy and the grant money comes then the grant money will be allocated as it was originally planned and instead we would use the free cash to restore uh two PAR positions and that
little bit of money um that we are applying toward the.5 MTSS at Turkey Hill would be applied to other allowable title um expenses to be determined Um it could be additional tutors It
could be it could be for the public's edification How much money in grants are we talking about the federal government withholding i would have to go back to my slide deck and pull up the grants
However I'm going to ballpark for you about a half million dollars plus between title one and special ed federal grant monies I just want to be clear for the public's edification We are not
doing anything This is the state of Massachusetts correct making a determination The state of Massachusetts has responded and essentially said we don't need to sign this because we've already done it Correct But technically that could be read as a declination by
the state of Massachusetts Correct So and I will say that the state of Massachusetts response is not unique Other states are making the same assessment of the law and the their response has been very similar As of
April 3rd there are 16 states that are signing it There are a number of states that are still reviewing it And there are let's see if I can get this four 13 states that have provided the answer that we're the state of Massachusetts has provided grant total
is 694,000 694,000 in gr federal grant monies in the current year federal government is threat correct to withhold from children from children in our county Wonderful
Okay cool And then last on the list for consideration again this is based on numerous conversations and dialogue over budget cycle etc etc Um if we were to address the town manager's concern that
we will struggle to find a highly qualified candidate for finance at the price that we budgeted um if we allocate some monies towards that salary Um we also need to allocate some monies
to um the mini split project that was grant funded with the green communities grant and that we have amended which we will take another vote in a regularly scheduled meeting tonight Uh we've amended our uh capital requests for FY26
to substitute in the capital project for the mini splits at um the primary The dollar fordoll value came up short about 23,000 and change Um I put in around 25,000 toward this because I fully
anticipate that costs are going to be uh slightly up Uh I if they're up as high as I'm now very concerned with tariffs at Century Park Chromebook parts are up 54% I I I am very concerned about what
the cost of this uh project is going to look like Um and then lastly the remainder um I put toward unemployment costs Now I I said that I would work with the uh
director for finance for town uh based on the assumption that we would pay uh 30% of a salary for 30 weeks um and based on the number of cuts that would be eligible to
collect unemployment And I say that because there are there are cuts on our list that are currently unfilled positions Nobody's collecting unemployment Some are retiring Nobody's collecting unemployment Um we have had some uh knowing that they were on a cut
list seek other jobs and accept other jobs and offer a resignation So they will not be collecting So the shorter list of positions that would be eligible to collect Um based on that calculation he recommended that we uh would need to
have 200,000 in unemployment But I feel very comfortable with if we're restoring some positions with free cash then those folks are not collecting And additionally many many of the people that would be out of positions cannot
afford to sit home and collect a lesser amount of income for 30 weeks So the likelihood that everyone would remain on unemployment for 30 weeks and not find a different job either right out the gate
or at some point along the way I I I feel pretty confident that we won't be putting out 200 um in in unemployment Um but isn't that and we already had 25,000 in the budget line for unemployment So this would bring it up over 50 Isn't that counting
on a robust job market that given all of the uncertainty we have talked about and that seems it seems unlikely that we will have a robust job market continuing but when you look at the actual positions that are cut um those people
can get jobs pretty easy um yeah and I mean when you look at our par profofessionals they aren't necessarily all going to hold out for a have a professional job They they may seek other employment opportunities as well Um so
um I I feel confident that we won't expend that much uh money Um we'll have to monitor it and see how things are going Um and we'll have to be very attentive to it and if they're looking like n we might actually exceed what's
in the budget line Um we'll have to plan accordingly Okay Um if we if we had to we could lean on maybe some school choice revolving for some of it if if it was necessary So
um again up for discussion but the combination that you have before you um obviously I think our administrators would like to be able to restore a whole
lot more positions than than what we're able to with the free cash and um you know maybe if we didn't have to earmark for the mini splits and some unemployment We might have been able to squeeze out one more
um but um open to uh some discussion on on your thoughts on the recommendations I'm a little disappointed that we knocked out the um third uh another
accountant so we could build up a business office because I I really think that we need more eyes in a business office I'm very concerned Well I would suggest that if the earmark comes through you might be able to allocate
that money for a position like that Yeah I'm just um but you do have the business manager position 20,000 studio too right so that would increase um but I mean honestly if we find a good candidate for less than that then that
money can be applied to something elsewhere Other questions or comments mr Skull Brady Um I I think that to the extent that some of the athletic transportation costs are being
addressed in other ways this plan gets us in the right direction in terms of not requiring a renewable or repeating funding source and sort of just bridging the gap until we get to 27 and hopefully we'll have a more comprehensive plan I
do have a little bit of concern but you know I I don't see why your predictions you know more than I do so I don't see why your predictions would be wrong about the unemployment thing I I think that like we've heard tariffs we've heard threats on title one all of that
stuff just introduces a huge amount of uncertainty in any budgeting for any operation And so I'm just like and we're already very very tight and we are already really tight this year My thought on that is that schools are kind of already in that
budget mode now and they're hiring now and they're looking for positions So people are going out there now I I can tell you that there are people um our employees who are in positions that are cut from the budget um that are
already interviewing and going on second interviews and are going to be we have some really great things that we're losing good losing Yeah Yeah The money that isn't coming here Yep is going elsewhere and they're hiring Yeah
That's the reality of the situation They're going to have to go work in cities but and I think the bad if the federal funds go away I feel like those cuts going to be made later on next year Not so much over the summer Okay And we're not restoring the gym teacher
position and that's disappointing Uh but the title one grants that were supposed to come from the federal government we can't count on those problem with it to the federal government It's crazy It really stinks that we're in a situation where we cannot count on our federal
government to do what they promised So the only thing I had was the the high school level We had talked last time about scheduling Are we good at scheduling at this layout was my question
that was I would have to have Mr There's a different request of restoring positions Good evening Thank you for having me here and actually thank you for uh including me in some of the discussions that we had two weeks ago
around what the priorities of the principles were But it seems like that's that's switched a little bit from what we had presented two weeks ago And I know things are fluid and changing all the time And I know that um Mr Beardmore has disagreed with me vehemently about
the PE position And Mr Scholenrini tried to explain around if I can if I can keep academic choices um whole if I could have that PE
position back So if I'm not getting that PE position back getting a math position back which I love you know we had now six math pos six math teachers but um through our strategic cuts we were able to maintain all of our
programs in our major academics It was in that PE position that we needed to kind of balance things out so we had places to put kids because we had made strategic reductions when we were asked to in that in those departments So thank
you for returning a math teacher I appreciate that We are going to have some difficulty with the scheduling without a PE teacher We had four the the argument I gave you last time was three-fold right we had a discussion
with Dr Bookis around the curriculum piece We had a discussion around the scheduling piece and we had a discussion around student choice We had about 400 students sign up for PE So you know when you put kids that wanted to go into
PE into another elective like I don't know watercolor or something sometimes that's maybe not the choice that they wanted to maybe we're going to experience some behavioral problems in there It we had talked about choice right we were able to
um keep choice for our academics for those AP and honors courses We wanted to keep choice for those PE So like I said I think there's a 0% chance that the schedule looks the same but we're going to have to scramble and see see what we can do
Questions or comments from the committee members thank you You're welcome Any other questions or comments on the free cash is it an action item believe so Yeah I think so Yeah we want to There's going to be a slide or slides
for the town meeting going to town meeting This is article 12 I would make a a motion to approve this slide here for presentation at town So I don't think these slides are going to be the presentation though No it doesn't have to be these slides We can just fit it all on one Okay Yeah This there's a a
little bit more school committee based slides Oh so then I would make a motion to uh go forward I think it's the recommendations for the free cash Accept the recommendations for I make a motion to accept the recommendations for free cash at some
point I will second that Any discussion all those in favor say I opposed The motion passes Thank you Okay Thank you and then we'll work on the slides and get that uh out to the committee just to review Thank you All right Next item on
the agenda is the school choice So the committee um had asked uh me to look at and bring back recommendation relative to um opening up school choice
seats beyond just the ninth grade So um basically uh we pulled together the data um took a look at because this this will become
um how many moveins did we have at each grade this year since July 1 Um and if you take a look um on average it's about 10 give or take
Um we actually saw a lot of moveins in grade six this year We had 16 Um so is that the big the big the bulge class um yeah the um you can you can take a look at
the current enrollment Um that that is a pretty pretty giant class at 100 oh my god students Um it was the winter of 2015 What happened is that true oh my god
that is so crazy The big storm snow again every Oh my god Well it's got to be close No cuz I have a Yikes Fifth grader who was born in 201
Well then All right What do people in New England do during the winter i have a fifth grader who was born in 2014 So if you take the current enrollment and move them all forward to the next grade for next year and if we think
about wanting to maintain a cap you know of class size no greater than 25 And if you then leave a buffer of 10 seats for moveins um you could open five seats in grade
two It still leaves you 10 seats for moveins before you hit the 25 in a class cap Assuming that the free cash is approved and that we can restore uh the
fifth grade teacher position you could open seven seats in the fifth grade uh eighth grade you could open two and then the 10 that we had recommended previously for grade nine gives you a total of 24 seats um which gives you
potential revenue of 120,000 Again these these numbers allow that buffer of 10 seats even given the numbers that I I'm
suggesting that you might be able to take it So just for clarity I'm trying not to figure this out So the you say the fifth grade but is that the current fifth grade or the next fifth grade if you look at
confusing Yep So if you column C in your table fifth grade Yep Column C in your table Your current fifth grade uh class size is 115 but they're moving up to the sixth grade Your fourth grade is currently at 108 That's what's moving up
into the fifth grade which is why we thought initially you can get by without the fifth fifth grade classroom and your class sizes would still be okay Which is why restoring the
fifth grade teacher position um has not been a a strong ask of your principal uh group Um we would not likely want to open up this many seats with the fifth grade if
we weren't restoring the position right but restoring the position we we could open up these seats Yeah Questions or comments from the committee i'd be okay with this pending
not as long as we're restoring that fifth grade teacher position So this I just want to stipulate the way school choice works
is it's a following year monetary effect So we're not going to see this money in FY26 We'll see it in FY27 plus we'll also see chapter 70 contributions based on this population
with the calculus of the sending community Correct So it it's $120,000 assuming we fill all these seats which we probably won't but that's the school choice $5,000 a kid number but then there's also a chapter 70 followon
effect that will also positively affect our FY27 budget It's just that this is the revenue number that would go into your revolving right Miss Ashenville yeah I'm I mean I won't vote against it but I'm not a fan of the
grade two openings So I think for me uh it is a challenge It it is frustrating to try to add more seats but I think it's a a strategic plan that has been thoughtful and I think it makes sense where if you have
class sizes of say 22 in one grade and 20 in the other grade why not bump the 20 to 22 uh bump the lower end uh up and you're not needing to add more teachers you're not adding more staff
um but you're providing more revenue for the schools and resources for the the students And the other thing I would support this too if the if the committee voted to support these numbers um we could still hold off until after
town meeting and we're assured Oh yeah that we get the free cash to restore the fifth grade position because we do not have to submit to the state until June 1st Okay So so we can Yeah you can agree and
approve and we wait until the vote and as long as the vote goes through then we submit to the state If yeah we can make the motion tonight even contingent on passing the article So when you said we get we get 10
moveins a year does that mean every year we're adding we're adding 10 year we're adding 10 kids to the class each year no not necessarily But that these were the numbers this year And I think you know if this is becoming something
that's more of a trend we we'll have to keep an eye on it So if you look at these numbers kind of felt like okay a 10 seat buffer before we hit 25 in the classroom That's reasonable I I don't
think that we're going to see a repeat of of these numbers Okay Cuz my Yeah My question was if if it's that way every year then and when we do school choice we lose that 10 seat buffer and because 154 kids in grade six that's
a lot of kids Yep But you can take a look at the other class enrollment numbers and that's not that's not your form And I think that gives that 154 is actually kind of a good buffer as they go to high school too because we're going to lose some going to different
high schools Evening out the class sizes There are benefits to that too because then the teachers have a more equitable distribution I mean Mr Sandre can tell you that historically we see at least 10 any given
year register for sixth grade It could be just that that's a transition year for a lot of folks from elementary schools to middle schools and they're moving and they're going to you know make that jump at that point Um so
that that does seem to to be kind of a fairly typical number in sixth grade Some years it's a little down from that but um I mean this year we saw 16 That's high We don't typically see 16
I think it's also a great way to increase revenue where we're leveling off the the smaller classes for we're bringing them up closer to the the second smallest class Any other discussion i move that we
approve this proposal uh contingent upon the passing of the artery Second Any discussion all those in favor say I I Opposed The motion
passes Thank you Thank you All right Next item of the agenda is warrant articles So I thought we'd just go through them If I miss any feel free to speak up but um we can discuss them and take any action on
them The first one school related I had was article 7 uh the fiscal year 2025 closeouts uh school department unanticipated sped moveins uh $50,000 That was just one component There's obviously the snow and ice and
the total uh the finance committee and select board deferred I I don't have this No I have it I got it tonight I have all the articles So article 7 is the fiscal year 2025 closeouts submitted by the town manager to see if the town
will vote to raise an appropriate or transfer available funds the sum of 465,000 to cover FY2025 and prior year operating deficits in the following accounts and one was the school department unanticipated sped movements had enough to take action
to recommend are these final numbers now is the snow and ice is not No but the school department moves Are the article numbers yes these are the numbers Article seven It is gone to Prince This is article 7
So that the the public would know if we wanted to support article 7 Any discussion all those in favor say I I Opposed Motion passes Article 8 is the fiscal year 2026 capital program There is the FY2026 program of capital
projects option one which was prior to our vote the other evening and then there's option two which includes the primary school heat pump system So what's the what what is your
understanding of the town manager's plan it's because she is not articulating Dr Burnham can yeah speak to it too as well but it sounds like they're going to have two options in the in the in the booklet In the booklet but there'll be a motion that recommend for one of them Okay Yeah
So which one do we vote for what are the two we voted for option two Okay For the primary school and I think we have local funding for green communities award Yeah we have a we already have we've already voted for this And we're going to vote again because it was emergency meeting last time That's option So this is Do
you want to put a motion on article 8 option two i'll make a motion to approve article 8 option two as we previously voted recommendation Yeah All those in favor say Oh Is there a second second Any discussion all those in favor say I
I Opposed Motion passes Thank you Article 9 authorization to fund special projects Uh I included this because there's a decommission portion of TC Pasios for $75,000 Didn't know if we want to touch that one Make a motion to recommend that one as well Second Which article this is
article 9 authorization to fund special projects decommissioning portions of TC passes Yeah Any other discussion all those in favor say I I Opposed Motion passes Thank you Article 11 citizens petition This is for the uh override to
supplement the school budget 2,992,99,337 Proposition two and a half ballot question I would make a motion to approve the citizens ballot Second Any discussion i think
given what we have endured over the last few months Um I I have said personally I will vote for this but I I think given the situation I don't think that the school
committee should take a position on this Oh interesting I agree I agree Then I will retract my motion I won't do your name Why should we take a position the select board did not even put it on the ballot
I think our position as a as a committee in in our joint meeting with the select board in multiple conversations is that we believe that the approach that we should take is a is a townwide fiscal plan long-term planning
and and again I think that as a school committee that is the responsible approach now and as citizens I feel like we can all take our I'm happy to pull out my wallet and and vote for this and and say "Yeah I'm I'm in favor of giving
the schools more money but and I certainly wouldn't oppose it I just think given the situation that we're in we should not take a position." I agree I withdraw my motion All right Is there any other motions all right Seeing none move on Uh article
12 Uh this is supplement to the Lunberg Public Schools fiscal year operating budget Uh $50,000 free cash 50 This is art Sorry $500,000 Article 12 Trying to go fast We'll go back to the other one Then 948 We still
got a lot of work to do Article 12 Recommend I move to recommend approval Second Any discussion all those in favor say I I Opposed Motion passes Thank you Getting there Uh article 28 Marshall Park Design
Debt Exclusion I would invite the uh parks commission if they would like to say any words or uh we do have your presentation but this was school related so we're just still here to answer questions Okay so I'll open it up to questions before we take any action on
this one How much is the debt exclusion for is it still like $7 million 13 right now 13.8 million In order to move forward with these planned improvements the town must approve an appropriation of 13.8 million So we we use the schools use Marshall Park for the ball fields Correct Correct Baseball Baseball
Baseball Baseball And softball And soft And we have no baseball or softball fields of our own Correct Okay I think that affects us So I can read it to to see if the town will appropriate a sum money to pay costs of designing construction and equipping improvements to Marshall Park including but not
limited to construction of a basketball court three pickle ball courts a universally accessible playground a picnic area a picnic pavilion with restroom facilities and a concession stand a baseball diamond a softball diamond adjacent restroom facilities additional parking lots and walking
paths and to pay all other costs incidental and related to there too and to determine whether this appropriation shall be raised by borrowing or otherwise provided here However that the vote taken here shall be expressly contingent upon approval by voters of a
proposition 2 and a half debt exclusion question socalled or to take any other action relative there too Oh sorry I have a question discussion Yes Um just based I don't think my thing's working here but just based on
um the April the April 3rd Fin meeting the debt exclusion that's going to run about $240 a family or whatever it is or something 4631
whatever it depends on who you talk to Last night they said 278 So but whatever it is um that was what phases of this project does that include that's both phases Both phases If you can come up to the
mic that'd be great too Thank you Because I just want to make that clear to the public That's that's the whole project So we did scale back the project to two phases from four Uh so it doesn't include the walking trails We we eliminated those Doesn't include the dog park any pocket park down by Marshall
Pond those things have all been removed Um and that's the cost we're at So that that debt exclusion is for the whole project the 13.7 million The one the 2 A and the 2B one 2 A and 2 B Okay Yeah we do have it
We we do have part of our thought process there is the option too of if there's a support for part of it and not all of it then it would be project part one and part one then includes all of the um water runoff all the water issues
that we would have to deal with uh would be taken care of in that first that's why the cost for cost for the first phase is larger than the cost of the ball field portion of it Sure because it includes all the water storm water management and things like that Thank
you Other questions from the committee comments so I just my opinion um we've been talking about this the but the first conversation that I was involved in on this was when I was on
the finance committee and Dave Pacios ran for parks commission and this conversation ensued Um Anna Lockwood got involved Um uh and a number of other uh I've been here since the start of kind of moved in
Okay And you were on the parks commission 2021 Okay So um yeah I I think I honestly think my first conversation on this was in 19 could be Yeah Um at the time this was a conversation
about bootstrapping through grants and five $5 million and now it's substantially more than that And and I I
understand the the investment in the community and in recreation I I get that But it it has the feel of a bait and switch And I know that that's not
intentional but we've gotten ourselves all wound up in this project through a discussion of it's going to be free money and grant funded and and now all of a sudden well that's not as realistic
as we thought And now we've got to take out a pretty big loan and and we all get to pay for it in perpetuity or it for for 20 or 30 years 20 years 18
Um seems like perpetuity right now um when we've just had conversations about town offices and Turkey Hill and our budget and a whole lot of other things that we're going to ask citizens to reach into their pockets for Um and and I
just at at some point you got to ask yourself what are our priorities and and if our funds are indeed limited and we believe that our citizens at some point are going to say no because it's too much not for this project but in
totality then what can't we afford what can we live without and and in my opinion this sits in that category Um and so I I as as I always say I I'm I'm you know
I I'm maintaining an open mind here You can convince me otherwise but but that's my bias on this right now So we we have already gone down the grant route Uh and it's grants we've actually returned like we we've had to turn down grants because of where we're
at right we had a million dollar u $500,000 parks grant uh million dollar grant I mean we've had grant money coming in u but we've had to turn those down We've been encouraged to apply for those again when it's project ready Uh which we'll certainly be doing Uh and
the intent would be to continue to apply for as you know many use town resources with the grant writers and so forth as well but to continue to apply for as many grants as we would be eligible for um which would then
continue to drive down the cost of debt exclusion and so forth as well Um that was we're you know I we're none of us are engineers % none of us are in construction We're volunteers as you guys all are Um
and when this project started you know unfortunately it was a bad initial cost estimate and that's the path that we're on Um and the cost of everything as we know is going up And so it's you know I I think the philosophy of the parks
commission was the town has continued you know given with the discussions we've had of this the town has continued to support this project throughout We've done great crowd sourcing We've had the community involvement the entire time There's always been a support for this
project And my personal philosophy was this Let's put this forward to the town and continue to let the town have their say in the in the project and not you know have five of us sit around a table and make a decision
Any other questions comments or discussion from the committee i would just say uh for me um as a school committee member I support this I think it's uh good for our students not only for the high school students who play in the fields but the younger students who will also access these
fields and the playgrounds and the facilities Uh I think it's also uh a great opportunity for the broader community It does come with a cost and I think that cost is up to the citizens to decide but as a school committee member I will support this Um I
did I very appreciate the fact that this plan worked very hard to find something for everyone to to cover It's all yours That's aside to to cover something for everyone Um
yeah I think it affects a lot of students the ADA accessible playground is a massive thing because right now we can't provide that for our students and that's upsetting We just had to take out the playground study out of our capital plan Um so I'm happy it's in this plan
Uh and like I said earlier we used the baseball diamonds So I I was I would support I I understand Peter's point Um I think I think there's some work to do about educating the public about the difference between override and the debt
of exclusion and that the override adds to the total levy and the dead exclusion isn't the amount isn't going to go up We have a second information session on April 26 Uh I would encourage anybody to come and listen presentation at 10 a.m at the TCP gym Thank you On Saturday the
26th and the one from last week should be available soon And the one from last is online Great Yeah read the language of the word to see if the town will appropriate a sum of money to pay costs of designing constructing equipment and equipping improvements to Marshall Park including
but not limited to construction of a basketball court three pickup courts a universally accessible playground a picnic area pavil picnic pavilion with restroom facilities and a concession stand a baseball diamond a softball diamond adjacent restroom facilities additional parking lots and walking paths and to pay all other costs
incidental and related there too and determine whether this appropriation shall be raised by borrowing or otherwise Provided however that the vote taken here shall be expressly contingent upon approval by the voters of a proposition to have debt exclusion question so-called in accordance or take
any other action relative there too So this is not the debt exclusion itself It's just it is to Oh it is Oh and then it'll get it on the ballot It'll be on the bot It is on the ballot So it needs to pass to pass this and then it has to
go to town meeting and the ballot The select board put this one on the ballot Yeah Oh they did What why did something on the ballot peter I I just have a question on the the financing on this and thank you for pointing out the 18-year amortization schedule
Um I think in the past our school buildings we've and the library and the public safety building we advertised when it was all said and done with bans over 20 years but the actual final bonding were 20-year bonds and and
recently state rules have changed for buildings where they'll allow you allow us to bond them 30 years How did we end on here and did that come from some sort of bond council or how there was counsel around it I'm not I wasn't in on those I
mean Anita chair met and so there was a 15-year discussion and an 18-year discussion and then the consensus was this could fall into the 18year Is it Nina the one who used to be a town manager yes Yeah She's the parks chair She's our
chair Yeah I think we're ready for any motions if everybody wants to make a motion I would make a mo maybe I want I will make a motion to recommend article 28 Second Any discussion all those in favor
say I I Opposed no Stayain All right The motion passes three to two Thank you Thank you Article 29 municipal building design debt exclusion They put these way at the end Yes Yeah
it's going to be a late view They did that on purpose right i saw that So I can just I'm trying to summarize this but it's uh an estimate estimated the construction cost of the proposed work has been independently estimated 18.3 million the total project cost which
includes design fee owner's project manager fee furniture and equipment moving cost photovalttaic canopy and police details and an owner's contingency for what might be discovered during renovation is estimated at 22,422,9898 This is for the river building This is
for all the town buildings Okay So this is R Town Hall Rder Town Hall and the the annex The annex I move that we recommend approval to article 29 Yes 29 Second Any discussion
all those in favor say I I Opposed The motion passes 4 to one Thank you That was the last one Thank you everyone All right Yeah Yeah And if I missed any let me know right now All right Next item in the agenda is the superintendent search We have I think Alicia is still
here Yeah Alicia is still here Thank you for waiting Alicia Oh my goodness I'm sorry So much so much stuff Way too big of an agenda So we do have in our folders the timeline dates uh of when we would be planning to meet Did Tony fill
that out no I did not cuz I did not know what my schedule was But I found out today I am not going to be gone the Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week of May So I have a little You'll be around Yeah I have a little more flex So right now we have potentially the
drafted dates of April 29th Tuesday uh an interview Wednesday April 30th interview Thursday May 1st interview and Monday May 5th interview and deliberations on Tuesday or Wednesday or
both Tuesday and Wednesday Um if needed uh May 6th and 7th feel free to jump in Is there any way we could do all the interviews on one day like I just I don't think I could take that much time off of work Does not seem
very on the evenings though So we're like I think it's a 7:30 start 7:30 Yeah So it gives it a little bit more it looks flexibility that we don't have to be here during the day It's it's because they're doing site visits Dr Bern Dr Bernham will take care of that for us
and Alicia Um my concern with my concern with this is that it seems funny to me to do three in one week give a weekend and then one I think the challenge is with four people and that
we aren't available I'm available on for for the days that week What are the dates again it's the 29th that last week of April And I think you were unavailable Monday and Friday You're you're available remotely
but not Monday and Friday So we're only all available Tuesday Wednesday Thursday but Peter's only available remotely on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday And I got to tell you I'm available Monday Friday That's going to be tough I mean I'm I'm working in San Francisco
So yeah I think the challenge is we also need to get this done Yeah we have to get it done We're Can we narrow the pool this is what the screening committee is sent So again we can do what we want but
I think I Yeah it just we should have an obligation to Well I mean we can right we could hire someone right now Yeah Yeah we can Maybe like went ahead and say we don't want to hire unlucky people I would like to see the process I don't think that works that way Tony You could
do that They're unlucky If we're to follow this I can tell you that there's a very strong possibility that I will miss one maybe two maybe three meetings that
week So my other thought on that too is let's get it recorded Oh yeah We're going to we're going to ask even your questions right so I think that helps a little bit It does It does it I mean to see the interview again my preference
and what I suggested at our last meeting is that I I personally don't feel an obligation to connect the day the on-site days with a school committee interview I think that
it outrageously advantages whoever goes first Yes Well that's what I'm saying and and it puts kind of a crazy burden on on all of us So I my recommendation would be we should stack them We we should I mean
agree you know either number one put them all on a weekend day all on one day and do it on the fourth on a Sunday or or do two on Monday two on Tuesday and then we hire on Wednesday at our regular meeting So I can have Alicia speak to that a little bit but I also want to
just add too that my concern for the for for Yeah Well that's the concern but the the concern about them getting the advantages maybe it's a the YouTube is not live for the meetings that it's just open to the public We record it but then
post them later Can we try to do that as a potential to not post the the YouTube of the interviews until after the Zoom these things and you're not I mean yeah probably going to zoom in
I don't think that's feasible So why can't we do a Sunday alicia can you speak to the So it is it is entirely possible to separate the day in the district from the interview um you are asking the candidates to come back to town multiple
times Um the other concern I would just raise is you do have four candidates If you do all of the interviews in one day even on a weekend the interviews are usually about an hour and a half 75 minutes to an hour and a half So you're
talking about four candidates for an hour and a half You're six hours of interviews So what if we just cut them down to half hour we've been sitting here for three and a half hours tonight Why not this is after a full workday for me So I I mean with all due respect I I
I I'm unmoved by that Yeah I I think we can cut down the time I I don't want to cut down the time You could You would definitely have to cut down your questions right now The submitted questions that I have will probably run about an hour and a half Yeah I'm not
cutting down the time I I would like to stay with the schedule Is it possible to do two in one night or and then do the site visits on another day i would like to know if the candidates are unavailable to come to
town twice So I did ask the candidates for their availability and it is in that spreadsheet that I sent right um you're going to start as we get to that the week that is April and May you have more
availability from your candidates But as we get into that second week you start to lose candidates that are completely unavailable for anything It would be possible to do two interviews in a night I cannot imagine asking your staff and your stakeholders to do a double day in
the district I can tell you I just finished with Beverly and it was two days in a row and it was absolutely exhausting for everyone involved plus the interview that night So to think about doing a day in the district and then stacking two interviews on a night
you would have to I don't know how you would accommodate the time on that one either I have concerns that I would not be able to attend both sessions if there were two in a weekday night Well I this isn't ideal but I mean I've got a night that I thought I said I was unavailable but it's here I'll make it
work Um but um I think this is what we go with I I don't see a lot of options So what's the SK i I I guess I'm missing how to interpret this On the bottom you'll see the names Those are the ones Those are the draft dates If you go far
to the left draft dates Who's arriving on what date oh okay So those are the draft dates but I do also want to make note of the fact that I did put I have a couple of unavailabilities myself but we can I can check with other staff to see who's available I do have at least one
other field director who may be available later in that second week Um however that first Monday where it says no staff available that is the night before Day on the Hill And if any of you were attending Day on the Hill with us
in Boston the staff is in Boston all of Tuesday which would make it hard for any of us to get um here do to your district during the day You could do a deliberation that night or you could do an interview without one of us that if you don't if you feel like you can have
someone else who can um sort of walk the candidates through those evening stakeholder meetings and your interview you can totally do that on a night where we don't have any staff available Yes but we have Yeah we do have that Monday night is the
night before and we're doing an all staff and the executive board are meeting together for MASS MASC So there would be nobody available on that Monday night I guess I'm So we're trying to plan around Alicia's schedule all of our
schedules and the candidates schedules Yes Boy it is a challenge It's not an easy process I I don't mean to be flipped It's not going to be perfect What does Alicia do during these sessions so generally what happens is the the
staff in the district will escort the candidates during the day and we like to give the candidates and the staff time to talk to each other We don't want to be hovering over your teachers when they're trying to have a conversation with a potential superintendent candidate Usually MASC staff appears
towards the end of the afternoon um as the teachers and whatever stakeholders are at the end of the schedule um have their meetings and then we take over for groups like your PTO your um parents caregivers community members Um very
often the CPAC will meet um I did send a draft schedule as well um for those visits So we wouldn't be meeting we would not as MASC staff be joining you until mid to late afternoon and then we would stay all the way through the interview in that evening just to make
sure that we were on site for any questions from you any questions from the candidate that sort of thing Okay because I'm seeing like May 6th 7th and 8th when Peter is available in person that I I think would be preferable And I know that some of the
candidates aren't the candidates aren't available Two of them are on one date and then another two aren't But we could put that one on Yeah but somebody isn't at all And my concern too is that we're pushing it closer to the election date and you still need to deliberate and
then try to negotiate a contract as well And you do have one candidate who was unavailable that entire week right Because they did base this the survey I gave them was for those two weeks but your original timeline only included that week that is the end of April
beginning of May and then you were going to be making a decision shortly thereafter Whether or not that's because now you have four candidates and maybe you were only anticipating three I don't know but you do have four candidates So it's four nights plus deliberation
So is is Sunday an option is May 4th an option i mean I'm not available Okay What about um Oh May 10th Again that's pushing it a week out What about April 2 what about April 27th we could do May 10th
do four one and a half hour interviews That's six hours of work and we could deliberate the following week or we could just do a marathon session and get it all done that day Oh god no I need I would need a day to think about it We could meet on
Sunday I mean I you also you're planning on having your stakeholders complete a survey for their meetings with the candidates and for the public that wishes wishes to watch the interview that night So you're going to want to give them at least you know I
would say half a day to finish a survey after a candidate and then we would have to put it together for you and get it back to you So I wouldn't necessarily want to do it back to back on two days I don't know that you would get everyone's feedback I don't think this is going to work Well
I think it has to We're going to have to I think we almost need a motion to accept what we want to do I think you know like if we have a week if there's only two weeks that we can schedule and one week somebody is completely unavailable we could we could always leave it to the future school
committee I don't want to do that I don't want to do that either Exactly I think we need to work this out Um I think my concern is I have a couple of concerns My first concern is Carol's
concern about one person has a huge advantage in this I mean or one person doesn't or one person has one person has a really big disadvantage whatever way you whatever it is somebody's out there on that last week So my thought was to
see if we could move maybe the person on the first Tuesday to Do we send them all the questions no we don't send them all the questions So then one person again this is one
person It's not going to see the questions if it's all posted on YouTube Maybe we don't do it on Zoom Maybe we don't post it on YouTube No Zoom Just in person meeting and don't post it on YouTube until after the final So if you're going to if I am going to participate remotely Oh I need to
participate True It needs to be a public connection Yeah this is true Yeah Yeah So that is not an option Okay Good point So you could potentially there is room in the schedule to do two the first week to the second week and then deliberate
sometime after the that second pairing We can arrange that There are candidates at least available that I can slide someone from the first week to the second week Um I need to reconfirm with them that they're available And then you would need to decide when in that second week you want to meet um to interview on
two days and then when do you want to deliberate i really think I really think a Sunday option of all four at once so no one's getting the questions It's got to be all all day weekend I know it's going to
stink for us Two in the morning two in the afternoon We have like a half hour for lunch We get it done I I know it stinks but we're used to long meetings We're We can handle it It's not like we're asking the Oh sorry Not like we're asking the candidates to sit here for
six hours No we would have to check to see if they're available for I guess it would have to be that Well is are you guys free the 27th of April too let's figure out when we're free Yeah but they have to do the they have to do the on-site day They have to do the onsite So what
if we did it on the fourth they have to do the onsite first Yes that's the that's the whole idea is they want to be informed before they come to their interview with us with their experience in the school The 27th is not an option I have a lot of commitment If we could get them in here for their day on site
during the week of the 28th and then do a stacked interview on the 3rd or the 4th Can't do the third The 4th or the or the 10th or the 11th Then I think we should I am not available after 1:00 on Sunday the 4th Okay Um I'm just going to
say that we could just 11th is Mother's Day and the 11th is Mother's Day So Sunday really is not an option Um Saturday Saturday the 10th The 10th is only available Very late Yeah I mean
I'm I'm traveling but I would cancel my trip for that It's late in the process I I think we should try to figure out if we could do two that first week and two that second week and deliberate on our regular
meeting night I guess my thought would be why different than three and then one Is there a big difference between doing I don't know It just seems odd to me to have one person out there Whatever If
if it needs to be done and yeah we need to file a license What day is town election the town election is 17th We're right up against So the 10th is too too close for my liking Can we do it the week i mean it would be
next week but can we do that i'm not around Okay So So we either go two and two or three and one I I that's the way this has to go If we go two and two that's easier on
Peter because there would be one that he wouldn't have to worry about Um I would be fine with two and two I'm okay with three and one as well I can do two and two I think All right Carol Okay I'm going to make a motion to
see if um once again we we could ask Alicia to do some maneuvering and make it so that we have two candidates the week of um the 28th and two candidates
the week of the 5th Yeah that'll work I can make that work as long as it's not Is there a second i'll second Any discussion i can't do the Monday the 28th I I I will be That's fine Yep I will be physically present but dead on the 29th Yeah I I think Monday the 28th
and Friday the 2nd is still not available for people So it's got to be 29th 30th or or the 1st and then preferably the 5th and the 6th But if we have to go the 7th then we go the seventh It would be nice to be able to
deliberate on the 7th If I can ask that would be my next question If you're going to do Monday the 5th and Tuesday the 6th do you want to deliberate on Wednesday the 7th yes Yes That's our normal day I just want to confirm that before I um start moving the candidates
around Okay I will make that schedule I know you're still in the middle of your motion but I will make that schedule um adjustment based on what the candidates have told me they are available for and I will let them know and then I will let you know which people are on which dates Great So thank you So between that
Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday when when do you think we'll know what of which two of those three days we're we're we're interviewing so I have the candidates's availability right now and unless they come back and
tell me my availability has changed Um do you you can tell me right now do you want to do Tuesday Wednesday or Wednesday Thursday what would you prefer to do that first week wednesday I just need to know I don't know It doesn't We can Wednesday Thursday is
fine with me Okay Then that's what I will do because I have their availability So I will stack them in the places where where they are available based on their original availability that they gave me So you'll do Wednesday Thursday of the first week and then you'll do Monday Tuesday of the second
week and deliberate on the Wednesday Yes I will send you an updated email with all of that Um if not later tonight then sometime tomorrow morning I will send you the updated email of when exactly everyone is Thank you Any other discussion
all those in favor say I I Opposed Motion passes Thank you Uh a couple other things Just the timeline on the days for the the candidates Uh I have listed 10 you have this in folder too 10:00 a.m primary school tour with the principal
10:45 to 11:15 middle school tour with principal 11:30 to 12:30 lunch with central office leadership team 12:30 to 1:15 meeting with superintendent 10:5 to 205 high school tour with principal 2:15 to 3:15 Turkey
Hill Elementary School Tour with principal 3:40 to 4:40 teachers union uh after elementary dismissal location based on where they end the tours um dinner break until 5:15 public stakeholder meetings after
that 5:15 to 6:15 students uh where the committee will be meeting uh 6:20 to 7:20 families PTO and community where the community will be meeting and then 7:30 is the school committee interview any stakeholders we're missing any
concerns I just have concern concern of how many kids are going to be available 5:15 to 6:15 is it would it be possible to at each stop um at each school to make sure maybe I don't know but is
there a way to get the kids in earlier in the day when they're at school yeah I think that we can work that schedule out for you internally Okay All right Thank you That works then Any other concerns about the tour um what did you want to
do about the dinner break because we had had some conversations right do we Sorry Sorry Carol Um because we did discuss this a little while ago too It's up to you how you want to structure the dinner break If you felt
like you wanted to put a stakeholder group with a dinner break um you could do that Generally what happens is um we have we let everyone get a break and catch their breath and get their bearings and I would talk to the candidates about whether or not they wanted to do dinner on their own or if I
needed to facilitate dinner for them We generally leave the dinner break as an actual break and I will deal with the candidates and see what they want Do they want me to bring something to them do they what do they need for that break very often candidates will just um
sometimes sit in their car and listen to their nervous system for a few minutes before they go for a round too Um so I will I will arrange the dinner break details myself All righty I like that Yeah they need a break They just This is a long day It's a long day It's such a
long day Yes Any of the discussion on the schedule no All right Uh we had voted I think it was 3 to one uh that the MASC should do the reference checks Any discussion on that no Okay Uh also MASC repres uh
recommended that if we have student representatives sitting at our school committee uh meetings that we should allow them to ask questions during the interview process and be a part of the process So I reached out to them and uh
I said that school committee would have to vote for it Uh but that that yeah they should draft questions Yes So I just want to see if the school committee would support that I make a motion to let the student representative ask questions Yeah Do we give them guidance is there a second oh sorry Do we second
any discussion did we give them guidance on how many questions and uh I did give them guidance on how many questions I did not tell them uh specific uh categories and I did tell them they could reach out to Alicia too and give those questions to Alicia Is this
specifically our student representative to the school committee or we have two that alternate so I emailed both of them Okay They look similar but they're two different people I thought they changed No no they swapped back Yeah they swap
back Um my thinking on this is if we're going to contain this to an hour and a half and we've just heard that our questions if capture online are an hour and a half's
worth of questions and response This has got to be tightly controlled So yeah that's my only com I will tell you from my experience and just like let's say lots of things um that candidates will talk for as long as they want to talk and they might not
get to all the questions So maybe we put a timer on it I did see uh from um now I'm trying to think of the name of the school district Uh Grandby a grand look up Grandby YouTube and uh superintendent search highly recommend it But they I
believe they had a time limit on uh day So we can do that to try to limit it But candidates will go through like all of their time on I don't have a preference This is in the context of a student representative asking questions And this is a student representative asking
questions in our interview versus a parent versus a general versus a staff member versus a general community member Technically my my point here is technically they're part of the we're the ones who are voting and and there
there needs to be a a strong bias toward our questions getting asked Technically Mr Bowski technically the student representative they are a member of the school committee and their input is necessary and they are supposed to be a part of the superintendent
search So Mr celebrating What if instead of I mean I I think Peter is right but I also think like technically Lori is correct What if we just limit them the the superintendent to say your answers must be five minutes or less oh five
minutes isn't long enough I I just feel like otherwise you know like I want to get a bunch of questions more so than I want to get like a 30 minute dissertation on So my recommendation we take their responses into account and we also remind them on how much time they
have left and we're going to let them know how many questions there are Oh okay Okay That if we're clear about it and we would like to hear their answers to all the questions we will remind you on how much time you have left Yeah it might be useful to see how long they go for knowing and we can have timed
markers at a certain point I would work out with Alicia to remind them how much time And I'm I'm I'm very serious about my position on this because there's a strong possibility that I may miss one or multiple of these sessions and I want to ensure that my questions get a fair
share Yes I agree And and by adding additional questioners there's plenty of opportunity for this thing to go sideways Yes So I believe we have a motion in a second Can we put them at the end for a possible compromise
um we can schedule a block of time during the day when we have access to students Um I can work with both of the this uh school committee student representatives Um they could potentially
facilitate a student interview of the candidate during the block of time that we have them here during their site visit during the day Um and it's a purely student driven interview of the candidate I think that would be great I think that
would be a good a good um solution to that and we're going to they would be able to respond to a survey about what they felt So we would get their input and talking to the the student representative tonight That's what she she was very interested in the opinions
of her classmates and wanted to have a meeting with that group of students to get some ideas on what the questions would be like So I kind of think that might have questions and they can as well Did we vote we did not vote yet We had a motion Draw the motion Thank
you All right I think we are good then Um I think that's all I had What any other any other Did I miss anything no I mean that's all I had for this particular topic We got another hour Are you kidding i got to go I got to go We
can't Can we Let's table everything So I think we're done with this topic Here we go So that was superintendent search Next up is the second read of the policies I'll make a motion to the second read of policies Second Second Any discussion no All those in favor say
I I Opposed All right Next up is the capital plan Uh I put this on the agenda because we had an emergency meeting and I would like to have a regular meeting vote on this So I will open it up to motions as I think we're probably ready but we can have discussions I think we just did I think that our endorsement of
option two should suffice All right Sounds good I agree I agree with Peter All right Next up is reports Motion to uh I would make a motion to table reports because it's 10:31 We keep doing that but yeah Any discussion all those in favor say I I Opposed Motion passes
Next we'll open up to public comment from the public You're still on Zoom Raise your hand Your virtual hand Chris Sullivan Chris Sullivan 108 Island Street Um as a private citizen not as pure for the parks commission at this point
Um just uh listening earlier in terms of the athletic director discussion um I the possible solution that was proposed budgetarily and I totally get where we're at budgetarily right now obviously um I would hope that that we will look
as a very very temporary solution um there's a reason we have a full-time athletic director uh we hear it time and time again there's 50% of the student body is participating ating in high school sports Um to think that that job is going to be done on a part-time basis
I think is you know shortsighted Um even in the short term but again I understand where we're at Um I think we've made a lot of strides in the last few years uh with Lunberg Athletics uh in terms of the quality of the program that we continue to put out uh in terms of the
level of participation in terms of the uh spectator participation a lot of our at a lot of our sports And so I just would would hope that that would be a uh if necessary short-term
um solution there Um additionally I would just point out prior discussions in terms of what our athletic has been charged with uh one team in particular with the ski team to make sure we don't lose sight of um that discussion what needs to happen with the other schools that are involved with a ski team as
well And if that's going to be something that's going to default to somebody that's part-time um that also becomes a bit of a a bit of a concern as well So uh thanks Thank you Mr Sullivan Any other public comment on Zoom
all right seeing none any other public comment from the committee Seeing none next item in the agenda is topics for future discussion Seeing none next item in the agenda is executive session to conduct
strategies and session for preparation negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-un personnel I'll look for a motion to go to executive session and adjourn following Make a motion to go into executive session and then after and then adjourn after Second Second All
right Roll call vote Mr Powowski Yes Mr Beardmore Yes Minimbo Yes Mr Sullbury Yes And yes for myself Thank you Good night everyone