##VIDEO ID:IV7A6zf6Rk0## all right good evening it is 6:39 p.m. on Wednesday November 20th 2024 I am Brian Leon the school committee chair and I am calling the school committee meeting uh to order uh in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being broadcast at a later date over the lunenberg public access Channel um this meeting will be broadcast at a later date through the local access cable channel and on the public access Facebook page and will be found lenberg 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 be in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by open meeting law the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance if you please rise I Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right next item on the agenda is public comment I'll open it up to public comment from the public anyone on Zoom you can unmute yourself or raise your virtual hand seeing none I'll open it up to public comment from the committee Mr scull bre just a quick comment I want to thank the town for voting to support the uh warrant measure that allowed for Town Investments to be invested pursuant to the um pred investor rule I think that's a a modernization step that need needs to happen I think it's something that will hopefully put the town on better Financial footing and hopefully it will be good for the schools thank you m Ash I just wanted to mention that the master planning committee is holding a townwide meeting on December 4th at the lunenberg library from 6:30 to 8: to continue their discussion about the direction we would like our community to move in also there is the third I think it's the third survey is available um on the town website and the super attendant has sent it home to All Families thank you any other public comment seeing none uh move on to the next item on the agenda is the chair's report I have a few items uh we had a very successful town meeting uh the town did pass the additional Chapter 70 funding to the school budget uh also the study was approved for the Brooks house as well um and we heard a great presentation by uh Mr skull andrini as well the uh the annual tree lighting I head down is uh December 5th so you can mark your Calenders and also I want to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving and uh hopefully a successful winter tryy out uh for all the sports all the athletes playing sports uh next item was the student representative report I don't believe we have a student representative of tonight do not the next item of the agenda is review and approv minutes we have regular session minutes from October 2nd 2024 are there any questions comments revisions if not I'll look for a motion so moved to approve I'll second that any discussion all right all in favor approving the minutes say I I I opposed the motion passes our minutes are approved from October 2nd 2024 thank you next item on the agenda is to re and approve line item transfers warrants and donations we had warrants uh from November 5th to November 15th totaling $2 29,5 2931 I don't believe we any have any line item transfers or donations time not this evening thank you uh next item on the agenda is the superintendent report good evening everyone um I'll start by saying that um uh the select board did uh vote and approved ARA funding uh for a couple of items that were on our Capital plan uh one being the truck and plow and the other being the Middle High School Safety window film so thank you very much uh to the select board for that support um an update on our search for director of facilities uh we did conduct interviews last week for round one and I'm moving into round two interviews beginning tomorrow um the hope is to have an offer out and um have someone accept the position uh shortly after the Thanksgiving break so fingers crossed on that uh we did have our uh school specific assessment forums for families uh on November 14th um the meetings were not highly attended uh through Zoom but the meetings were recorded and the slides from the presentation along with those recordings have been posted on the district website on the main page under back to school information the Thanksgiving food drive to benefit the lunberg uh food pantry ends tomorrow so anybody who was intending to contribute uh who hasn't yet um the the school each school has a specific list of items that they're trying to collect so please check our district website for more specific uh information by school for the drive the annual gift card drive that is um organized uh by our lunenberg public school secretaries has kicked off seventh annual uh event here each year uh we receive gift card donations from um members of our very generous community and thanks to all who contribute we have helped numerous families over the last six years uh collection for the gift card will go on through December 6th and these gift cards can be dropped off at any of our schools they can be sent in by mail uh or eCards can be um sent directly to uh Mona Bowen at mowen lunenberg schools.net Mona is our secretary over at the middle school um some suggestions for the gift cards that would benefit our families with all age children uh could include Walmart Target Visa and the dollar store grocery gift cards also are very helpful to um many families um this time of year uh but any gift card would be greatly appreciated and for those who may not be in a position to make a donation this year um it would be great if U people could help get the word out um about this uh drive a few calendar reminders the next school committee meeting will be December 4th 6:30 p.m. hybrid from town hall and then December 18th 6:30 p.m. hybrid from here at the Middle High School uh reminder that schools will close be closed Monday December 23rd for the holiday break and will reopen on Thursday January 2nd the next PTO meeting is Monday December 2nd at 7:00 p.m. here at the Mill High School our next Packel meeting is Thursday December 5th at 6: PM this is a support group meeting via zoom and again one more reminder that the annual tree lighting will be happening on Thursday December 5th at 6: pm at the Gazebo on the lower common um annually our high school band uh performs to get everyone in a Holly Jolly Spirit uh the student council uh usually has some goodies for sale as well as the Cub Scouts and I uh understand that the PTO is looking into a way that they might actually uh be able to partake this year as well and of course we're expecting a visit from Santa um so hopefully folks can attend and hopefully the weather cooperates and provides a nice evening for the event uh and I too would like to um offer everyone um wishes for Happy Thanksgiving and that's what I have for you this evening when is the start of the Christmas break um actually as soon as students leave on the Friday afternoon so the 20th the 20th okay perfect okay yes the 20th would be the last day it's a a typical day regular dismissal time and schools will be closed until uh January 2nd thank you yep what are the questions comments to the committee members have on the superintendent report Mr brazowski um I wanted to say that donating to the secretary's gift card Drive is incredibly easy I did it last year um using Target and the e-cards and it takes literally less than a minute and there was a Target sale for I think it was Black Friday and gift cards were on sale so you pay less money than the give I know it made no sense um gift cards were on sale last year at some point uh it was so easy to just send them the gift card info via email and they got it and it was just it was less than a minute of work thanks for that thank you all right next item on the agenda is a presentation by the lunberg municipal building design committee uh we have our guest here Mr Michael Ray Jeff uh who is the chair welcome thank you I need to press anything here as long as it's green yep it's green is it green On Your Side Y we have green I don't know if yours is you see it green just press press the there we go thank you just press it longer um more of a conversation less of a presentation but good evening uh happy to be here with you guys uh so to the superintendent the chair and vice chair and members of the school committee it's always a pleasure I think this is one of the few um boards in town where I think I have had a one toone conversation uh with every member of this board uh due to our our you know years of working together so um happy to give an update on where we're at with the municipal building design I also would like to hear of course any concerns feedback questions that you have and uh I'm happy to answer them or I'll take some notes and uh and uh follow up with you afterwards so the municipal building design committee uh I want to go into a little bit of History here and then I kind of hopefully we'll keep this to I always say 10 minutes but my 10 minutes usually means 30 so but I'll try to be as Sin here as possible um so in the town of lunenberg you know we've had a lot of history with trying to resolve our our building concerns um I think you know there's some memory of a committee that was formed in the 1980s uh that was looking at at Town Hall and other other matters uh we had a reuse committee uh building reuse committee that was initially created in the early 2010s uh that was looking at the former um primary school as well as the uh that parcel back there and the Ritter Ritter lot area and really trying to figure out that was around the time of the creation of the architectural preservation District uh and trying to create opportunities to uh create uh a more uh business centered uh center of town uh while also preserving um um architectural features throughout what end up becoming our preservation District the recent iteration uh of it um is is was initially called the TC pasos I think uh design committee and now it's the lunberg municipal building design committee so the process we've undergone there is our initial charge was to look at repurposing the TC passal building for municipal school and Community uses uh that was looking to relocate School offices out of the uh current uh you know where you're at in TC pasal giving uh I think everyone you all know what those offices are like you know two outlets pretty much per room you know the fuses blow out every time the air conditioner is running and so really trying to help that building get to a better position I think the school committee is is more uniquely aware of the challenges of using that building given that it was vacated from from being a school um and then we were also looking at U Municipal needs and then Community spaces um we were engaged in a lengthy process we we worked with um architectural firm during that time we met with numerous um organizations in the community to try to to try to identify the space needs it's roughly 55,000 Square ft uh there was a lot of interest in MA maximizing that 55,000 s ft from a lot of different user groups uh and boys and girls club uh had some interest you know the perfor school after schore programs there as well as um some of the intricacies as we learned with the Ace Program um ultimately uh the pandemic occurred uh and uh we got hit with a very Hefty price tag of close to $30 million uh of which about 14 million was for really code upgrades um and and that was a pretty substantial number um where where we've been pivoted was you know one of the concerns that we heard from the community at that time was twofold um one was I want a comprehensive Plan before I agree to any any money um and the other was you know what are we doing with Town Hall and riter building and if that's not part of the plan or the the the motive here that I'm not interested so the um select board repurposed the group to be to look at all municipal buildings and so not just TC paals but but Ritter Town Hall um and the brook house um were all kind of brought into the umbrella and so you know we were engaged in a process of working to come up with um our task uh the select board's task was to come up with distinctively different options of what we could do with these buildings uh the board worked together the committee worked together to come with kind of three plans of what you can do with these buildings and really three distinctively different concepts and I think it kind of stood out to us that there was a hybrid uh amongst that and so we created what was the fourth option option uh which is the hybrid option and that's kind of where we've landed uh the select board endorsed that and that's where we are kind of moving forward with so I want to kind of express to you what that hybrid concept is um because that is kind of what our current I wouldn't say marching orders but I'd say that that's the general Vision that we are Marching toward so um again the challenges the challenges with our buildings is that the town hall was never built as a town hall it was a former Church church that was donated to the town it was built in around 1820 and I believe it was moved to that location I'm going to get this year wrong but I think it was on 1880 1870 time period uh was when it was moved to that location and the first floor was added to the building um but the town's never actually built a town hall um we know the Brooks house was a former um for the parcel that we're all on that that the library sits on this building is on U TC passes it's all one very large parcel uh formerly owned by the Brooks family I believe uh who then donated uh and and now we have the Brooks house which functioned as the superintendent's office while I was in school um and uh later became kind of like a storage facility office and now is a largely empty building um we know what the TC pasio is uh RIT buildings a former Library uh that was converted uh after the Li new library was built that was converted to house additional uh municipal offices and then you know what is Town Hall we know it's again an older building so you know part of our our pivot when we hit that $30 million price tag was you know we listen to the members of the community I think that um um Mr skull and Briny uh not Anthony but but the other the other Mr scullen Briny in town uh has a lot of experience with historic preservation I think that you guys know that what I do for a living most of what I do is uh is is rehabilitating or preserving historic buildings although I am no stranger to demolition which I know sometimes me and Mr skull and Briny are at odds about um but um you know where one of the things that came out of that was that we have to touch the passion buildings in town that people drive by the center of town they have an emotional attachment um to town hall to Ritter building and that any plan that doesn't address those buildings is likely not going to proceed I think from a political um standpoint uh where where I'm coming from in some of this is how do you get things to pass um when you know that things need to happen how do you get them to pass and I think the answer is you you incorporate needs of as many stakeholders as possible including the school committee I think lived in this town long enough to know that nothing happens in lunenberg uh without the support of the parents and the support of the school committee it is vital that you guys are a critical part of this project and of this plan um so where we are at and I'm going to give the vision and and you know we kind of hit a pause Point um because of the tax issue um certainly we were not in a position to move forward with any borrowing request in in in that I think that Mr Mr beardmore succinctly said it well was that took the air out of the room uh for a lot of a lot of issues um and then as we know coming into this year uh we knew that the tax bills were going out late uh and that asking people for an override um while also asking for a school override while also having tax bills that show up three days before you ask them to vote um is a recipe for disaster uh and so we also um did not not come forward last year or this year with these requests our intent is to come forward next year with a borrowing request so to explain the concept here uh the concept is to be coste effective and figuring out how to maximize the usage of these municipal buildings um the town hall the vision for the town hall is for it to remain as a town hall but in a different type of way um more like a meeting house so in historic New England would have meeting houses this is still a feature in many communities so the vision for what is now LUN Town Hall again this is a wood frame structure does not have any life safety system support does not have sprinkler systems was not designed for for um weatherproofing or any of the modern needs of sustainability um but the vision is to is to maintain the second floor that building as a primary meeting space um it is to remove what is now the town manager and HR office to get back to the original footprint of that room to have a larger meeting room and it's so look at the first floor and create three meeting rooms out of the first floor so what is now the um um assessor's office would become a smaller type meeting room um for those of us who remember when the town clerk's office was larger in that building uh is to go kind of back to that footprint of what was the town clerk's office which is now the Town Clerk and cofy room uh and that would be a secondary meeting room and then the third meeting room or rather the fourth on third on the first floor but fourth in the building would be the back portion which is now the financial area of town hall so that way we have a centralized location for all meetings to occur there's another benefit of that as well which is what happens during the day during the day uh this provides an opportunity for uh groups that need to meet whether they're AA alanon Etc it provides a meeting space for them it provides community space for you know we could easily rent out a room for an artist who wants to display artwork and there's other community needs that come up and it provides a space for them um also as I get into the other buildings what it also helps us do is future proof that one thing we know is going to be a need in the Years uh in the future is we might need more offices and so you know you're in a much better position to convert a meeting room into office space that was previously office space um than to build a new structure a new building to accommodate those needs so there's an element of future proofing in that concept of a meeting house what is now the Ritter building um will become the primary location for the lunenberg public schools um the way that we've address this as we've we've met as you know with the school committee um with the previous chair with the superintendent um various members to understand what the concerns were with utilizing that building we think that based on the space needs analysis that we've done uh that the that there's adequate space in the building to accommodate all of the current staff future staff and then also the Ace Program which we recognize uh the coordinator of that program is also part of the District staff and and needs to be collocated so the vision there is to maximize the use of that building there's a couple things to knowe um most people maybe don't know this but uh Carnegie gave donations all across the um the country to build libraries and lunenberg was one of them and so it is very much so a a carneg grant that was given um over 100 years ago in part um and uh it follows that formula of how the building is designed they all had similar looks to them and we know that what is the old Ritter building you come up some stairs those stairs have since been removed and you it kind of lends itself you know all of us who remember it as a library you can see these features previously before the round but I think that what it offers is one of the concerns we heard was that uh U walls need to go all the way to the ceiling in that in that building it needs to be element of privacy so that way when you're discussing School needs uh that that they're not being overheard by someone walking in the building so that then and part of the reason why that wasn't done previous is HVAC system so we know that that building uh one of the things with libraries is that libraries uh pounds per square foot I don't want to get too technical here but depending on what the building is depend determines what your pounds per square foot are libraries have the highest because they have the the the most weight that they're going to hold papers heavy and so libraries generally are built to about 3 to 400 L PBS per square foot whereas your average house is 40 PBS a square foot your average commercial structure is about 100 so libraries are very well built and this one is no stranger has excellent bones uh and so the conversion then for this building to be offices uh the building shows no signs of structural wear and tear um mostly cosmetic related things but we understand that the mission is to create offices create adequate HVAC create adequate privacy uh and provide office space in the basement area where we know that the Ace Program you know you're teaching life skills to those 18 through I think 22 year olds and so you know there is that kitchen down there we understand that there's going to need to be some of those life skill trainings how you do laundry how you prepare small meals um how you care for yourself and so with there being a kitchenette down there already kind of lends itself in many ways to those functions um and then the the concept is to build you know we've called it an Annex but it's really the new town hall uh and the new town hall would be on that parcel basically to the right of what is currently in and again locations will change don't quote me on this um but generally speaking I think the concept is to what is as you look at the building from Main from massav to the right of the building would be the new town hall and basically this is an administrative building that would take all of the current offices that are in town hall currently that are currently in the Ritter building house them in one location twostory building um and and one feature is that there won't be meeting spaces in that building um meeting spaces of course are expensive um to have especially if they're not being utilized during the day so the vision here is that we resolve the the foreseeable needs for the municipal uses we resolve the foreseeable needs for the school department we resolve and foreseeable needs for the community um and and we preserve um TC passs for another day now I'm not saying it won't happen but I think that um you know the committee I would not has come to this conclusion I think there's been multiple discussions among committee members members of the select board members of the uh Town managers and members of the school committee in which we recognize that the disposition of TCP is in large part tied to the disposition of Turkey Hill um now that is not for us to fully say but what I mean by that is is that um it's the center of the campus we heard a lot of parents Express concerns about that parcel being utilized for non-school purposes we recognize that there's a need for additional athletic fields in town uh and we know that the school committee is is kind of working on uh Turkey Hill um you know sharing up some of those Building Systems and then you know you're right in the Horizon of figuring out you know are you going to build a new school or are you going to uh extend the existing one in my opinion uh I think that when we start getting into cost everything I've talked about for Ritter for town hall for New Town Hall uh the price tag we have in mind is under 15 million and we recognize that when we start touching uh TC pass seals in any kind of way uh and we and I'll get into that in a moment here uh that the cost goes to the roof what we want to be careful of is not boxing Out Future project needs we know that turkey hill all schools are expensive to build um and we want to make sure that we're not boxing out that need so I think uh the the committee is at a point now where we're ready to move forward in the areas in which we have consensus I think that that affords the school committee additional time figure out dis position of Turkey Hill figure out what you're going to do there and that's going to tie into what we determine to do with TC pasos um I think the municipal building design as a whole um previously recognized that Turkey Hill would make a wonderful Community Center um that it is you know it's well located on that parcel has separate entrance separate egress um it can do everything we wanted TC pasio to do but but but better um and it's not as as old of a building I think the um you know but obviously cost comes into Factor here and and you know anything with TC pases is going to be significant money and so before we go down that road I think it's important that the school committee advances on the Turkey Hill discussion so that way we can have those conversations together um on how to proceed so with that I'll pause see if there's any initial reactions and questions and anything I can help clarify for the school committee this evening what questions or comments to the committee members have Mr SC so would the would the vision be if and I know you guys don't have a consensus on this but like your thinking on this would the um if Turkey Hill became a community center would the new Turkey Hill go on the site where TC Paso is my opinion not representative of the opinion of the M building design committee um is I think that the school committee has more options than that um I think that there's large Parcels in the whm area I've spoke I've talked about this previously that I think um would lend themselves well to a future school project I think you have a uh a large concentration of people that live in the Wham area it's a more densely populated area and the two Parcels that I'm specifically thinking of one of them is about 61 Acres granted it's a wet parcel not all of it's usable um and the other parcel is approximately 40 acres um and so you know I I think that the that the school committee has options for where future school can go uh I don't want to presume to uh to estimate what the school committee may decide on that one can I ask a follow question yes um one of the things that I like about the town and one of the reasons why we like the schools was because there was essentially like a a campus is the is your committee considering the value of having a campus versus like breaking things up but I I I mentioned the campus idea for a couple reasons so like having Dr Burnham's office the superintendent's office close to school means that she can respond quickly to things so sometimes you know crazy stuff happens and if she's running across Fields literally run across town that might not be great um the other thing is like if you're a parent picking up multiple kids and one of them is over by whm Lake it's like all right so I got to like figure this out whereas like a campus sort of has the benefit of you know you can go to basically one or two locations and get everybody um and then there's like the ancillary but of like you know my son sees my younger son out on the playground it's say high or something like that why is the campus model something that you personally don't I mean I I don't want to put words in your mouth but do not think that's a priority and I I mean I'm genuinely curious because you do you have a lot of experience with buildings like does it not add value is it not something that people typically look for do you think it's a good feature to have or is it just not worth the hassle of trying to shoehorn something back into that lot yeah well Mr I first I appreciate the question um you know I I think that the school committee's decision to put a uh article on to the town meeting warrant that ultimately passed to transfer ownership or at least custody in control of that of TC passal to the select board away from the school committee I think was indicative of a move away from that concept of a school campus that was initiated by the school committee um in in years past um nonetheless I think that you know my my opinion I I don't think it's overly relevant here but I will offer it you know I think that there's a many communities um have schools that are located throughout their communities um fitur being one of them uh and and in fact it turned out that that that was a very smart and wise decision for Fitchburg and their unique needs to move their High School to kind of the outskirts of their City I don't think lunberg is similar in having that desire or need to do that but I think there's a lot of value in having schools to dispersed throughout communities um I think that they tend to create investment in areas um you know around those schools they typically are I mean look at some of the Yards when you come towards the schools there you got have some pretty nice looking yards and houses around all the schools I mean for the most part so I think they do trigger a higher level of investment they certainly have an impact on property value and a positive trend um I I think that there's a clear need for school additional athletic fields you know there was an effort in the town of Shirley um this past year um I believe it was uh this spring or could have been last spring in which they wanted to expand uh senior housing um and add additional units but there was a question about impact and they needed the additional housing to get above the 10% threshold to not be subject to 40 BS there's a question about how it would impact athletic fields and so it failed I think that you know this region of the of the Commonwealth um sees student body populations engaging in sports at a much higher percentage I think I've heard recently 48 to 52% in some cases in this region um that's way higher than than than Statewide uh and so I think there's a need for athletic fields I think there's a lot of value if we think of a campus of if that was an additional field that could be utilized for School athletics I know there's a lot of competition already for utilizing some of these athletic fields I think that that could be a great field and it maintains that concept of a school campus um that that you kind of spoke to um I I I think that Turkey Hill is is on the outskirts of the parcel um I think that there's a need we are when we look at what TC pasos is currently being used for or was being used for since it was vacated as a school the before school and after school program um it was used for the food pantry um it was used at one point for uh a room for U prom dresses so that way students can get prom dresses uh we have you know voting equipment that's in there with the pack studios in there so there's a clear need to have these spaces for the community you know when you start talking about buildings you know four years ago the cost to renovate a building you were talking 33 to $350 a square foot now you're talking close to $550 a square foot so when you start talking about premium spaces that are underutilized during the day at a high cost to the taxpayer it's really challenging to get the voter to agree to that because the price tag that it adds is that a new builds cost or is renovation that's a renovation cost which is pretty close to the new build cost yes um and so when you look at Turkey Hill and in my opinion and I know I've said this and certainly not to be disparaging to the school committee but just about our focus is that you know we struggled to to figure out the repurposing of of old schools we struggled it with it at the old primary school we struggled with it at TC Casio I don't want to struggle with it at Turkey Hill and so you know if buildings uh are maintained um when Turkey Hill was turned over to the car and cust select board the roof of that point was about 38 years old um it's just gotten older you know so when you have water infiltration in a building with his bestel like TC Pils and when that his bestel becomes Frable Frable meaning airborne and start becomes brittle and damaged that's when the mesothelioma kicks in and all that other dangerous stuff uh and so maintaining building envelopes adding minimum uh is so critical to building future use and so my opinion is that I I have full confidence that the school committee with all of your expertise will figure out what's in the best interest of the student body population and I expect to support Mr Bor uh so a couple of comments um first of all thank you um I I can't think of anything you said tonight that I disagree with which is unusual that is that is um but it it strikes me that when you and I first really get to know each other was three years ago in the run up to the special town meeting vote where the couple of different options failed for the um for the TC Paso property um and you know a lot has transpired over that period of time um but not a lot has transpired in terms of making decisions and moving forward and I really believe as Carol has said many times we've got to move the ball forward we've got to advance the ball and I think that you know the the plan that your committee is pursuing right now is the the closest thing that I've seen or heard to a the possibility of success that I've heard since my mother served on that Committee in the 1980s um and we referred my parents would refer to it at the time as the musical chairs committee because it you know I have nicknames for other committees in town but that was the musical chairs committee because there was no real plan to do anything other than move things around right yeah um and this is the most serious plan we've had by far in probably 50 years and I say that as somebody's 52 years old um so so I I'm I'm in support of this I think we've got to move the ball forward that being said um I do worry about the economic conditions that we are in as a town and the timing of this um I think at last night's select board meeting the interim Town manager said that the initial quotes for health insurance this year are between 12 and 15% that's correct um which last year we went off the rails over a 9% uh U estimate at this point in the in the process um we you know despite the best efforts of everybody the the special budget committee has not put us on a plan thus far that says this is how we operate in a sustainable envelope right and so in my mind we are going to have a serious budget problem just from an operating budget standpoint going into get another budget year this year uh through nobody's fault but the timing is going to be really tough I think you heard last night that um the average tax bill from last year to this year is up about $500 427 okay so um these are serious numbers and this proposal is going to add serious numbers to already serious numbers so I just I think we need to be very cleari about this that this is not a slam dunk even though it's in my opinion a very smart plan um it's still money uh in a in a period that money is not um is not quite as available as it was just a couple of years ago um so anyway th those are my thoughts I think we all just need to be very clear right about that um the other thing that I just and I didn't expect the conversation to go down the path of what do we do for an elementary school in the out years I I agree with your approach entirely um I grew up on this campus um but I can tell you that I may have been able to take advantage of more opportunities in elementary school had my school been down the street in the whm district uh for my house on Pleasant Street cuz both of my parents worked and I had to take the bus back and forth to school every day that was the only option I think we should put elementary schools where the kids are and there's a lot of kids in the whm district um so anyway just my two cents but I think those are decisions for probably a school committee after my departure uh uh but we'll see thank you very much don't m m Bowski um all right through you Mr chair to Mr schol brini in between 1956 and 1959 the lunberg school committee came up presented with and tried get built in elementary on the West Street parcel called Brookside Elementary they have some really nice printed material they had really great plans they were very good at marketing back then and they're the way they presented material um ultimately they decided not to go forward with it and a lot of their discussions the school committee's discussions are so weirdly pertinent today um they discussed the busing costes the busing costs um and I did the inflation Mass math we were paying about the same for busing son of a I know I keep that in mind it like we talk about busing going up but actually it's it's roughly the same I think it was 788k a bus roughly back then but there were a lot less kids on the bus um so part of the reason they decided not to build them in whum was because of the population density because the role in Massachusetts oh the mile was a mile and a half and they said we wouldn't have to bust them so we probably wouldn't end up busing them because we or future School committees to save money would would decide not to bus them and they would have to walk to school and we would have a huge dense population of young children walking to school by themselves in an area without sidewalks and the town didn't seem interested in developing sidewalks and the town there has still not been sidewalks it's 1956 1959 discussions we still don't have sidewalks so that was one of the large reasons and the other had to do with the logistics of buses going to multiple places um and the saving money on that and they wanted to keep one area in the center of town um and that was a big reason and the parcel was a little bit wet um so it was really interesting because a lot of their issues like they were discussing the same stuff we did they were complaining about late night meetings uh it was was a little nothing changes um um so that was part of why they didn't do the brook side I am we can we'll definitely have to talk about it in the future someday many years may maybe from now but um I think logistically having one campus in the center and I'm saying this my children will be grown by the time that's an issue but going from one school to the other racing across town to get there in time it's difficult it adds a lot extra traffic to the roads it adds a lot of backup we've got people turning to get there it just it makes it a little more difficult as opposed to just one area for pickup and we use multiple buildings was it last year when we had the extreme heat wave and we had some kids from Turkey Hill go use the air conditioning at the Middle High School which was a great solution we could do because we're so close by or there was a fire alarm and they just went and use the fields next door it was or kids from the high school come and pick their siblings up from the school so I have a lot of reasons why I like the campus thing um let me get my notes I can't read my own handwriting um so I've watched the plans evolve for the center of town over the years and I'm really happy with the direction it's gone in uh you seem to have addressed a lot of the issues I'm very happy that we're focusing on saving the buildings in the center of town um Ace in the basement seems a little well that's kind of that's a it's an important program for us and I'm not sure how much we're looking at renovating like how much focus is going to be on renovating Ritter versus how much money is going to go into the new wing for Town Offices because the way it is now it's that's that would not be suitable so um I I would actively disagree with you on that one m rowski I think that a location suitable for staff who perform work for us uh which in that case is the Veterans Affairs officer it is our facility director I think it's also suitable for children not not necessarily because I know that there's different School needs I I get that but I think that you know space that we provide for our staff uh if it's substandard for them then it likely follows that it's substandard for children right but I think that if it's standard enough for them and we're talking about adults I I generally of am of the opinion uh that it is standard for them too nonetheless you know I think it's a partial basement um it is not a fully submerged basement so it is a partial basement there are windows um and I think that the space could very well be adequate I think the alternative um of of not utilizing it uh and and going back in time you know that was where a lot of the uh young adult literature was when it was a library um so historically it was where the kids were um and so I think that you know the building hasn't changed substantially from that time to now so I'm just I'm of the opinion that all space um can be properly um ventilated and properly conditioned to be suitable for all age groups um with a proper planning and so I think that the what we're expecting here is we want to meet the existing energy code um that is a standard so you know I what I would expect is that the habit habitability of the partial underground space will be no different and the habitability of the rest of the spaces that are created for everyone else U that's my expectation at least going into it as far as cost you know we had a meeting this evening where we interviewed with the design firm um what we're working on over the next several months um culminating with a presentation on February the 4th to the select board is renderings uh is getting is taking all of these Concepts and creating the renderings because people need to see what things will look like because I can conceptualize you know my profession in my head right but for most people it has to be visual they have to see something and so I think that what we're going to be the work we're going to be engaged in over these coming months is conceptualizing that you will see us interact with this board again you will see us interact with the superintendent to say this is what we think what do you think um this is a collaborative process um and I think that if if there are changes that the school committee or superintendent wants to make in our preliminary plans as we go through this over the next uh several months then we we'll make those changes but I I don't off the cuff having a reservation about being able to transform um U what historically was adolescent space uh to be young adult space I don't I don't have a reservation there okay is it going to be a drastic renovation or cosmetic or is it going to be a large redoing of the entire footprint of the building yeah so the footprint is going to remain the same the footprint won't change uh what what you should expect is that I wouldn't say full gut but pretty close to what is a full gut that you have to get back to okay yeah you have to put in I what the building is going to need is new wiring it's going to need new Plumbing it's going to need new HVAC so all Building Systems will have to get replaced that means you need to get into the walls walls that weren't created to house most of this stuff and so there's going to be a substantial effort I mean I don't want to say full gut of cuz maybe certain spaces during the exploratory work may not need that full good I don't know the specifics of the renovation that is currently the planning area uh and and how much that area is going to need um but it's going to be a significant renovation uh to the building that and I would say something quite similar in town hall on the first floor will be a significant uh renovation okay and accessibility is it going to keep the same style because the current layout of that Ritter building there it's multi-tiered I didn't know that about the Carnegie Library that's very interesting um so it's it's multi-tiered is it going to keep the same style of elevators with the sort of built-in uh smaller elevators or yeah you know we have to discuss that with our engineering team uh I think generally generally speaking you know the concept that we come up with when we think of accessibility of buildings is that everyone deserves a Dignity of walking in the front door um and so what has already been approved for Ritter building unrelated to this project is changing the accessibility of the front entrance and making it accessible so that everyone has a Dignity of coming in the front door that's already a product that's in the works um and so what I would realistically expect is that is that the primary door is going to be the same door utilized for all people regardless of their Mobility needs and that should be true for Town Hall should be true for Ritter building uh and should be true for for for the new town hall okay um yeah I'm I'm happy about town hall going back to its sort of original purpose as a meeting house as a meeting space uh space is at a premium in this town when Andrew's Hall was sold the community lost a lot my girl scout trp used to me to Andrew's Hall um we we lost a meeting space in the center of town that the girls could walk to after school to meet um it it was a loss of resources and it would be it would be fantastic F there was a meeting space there there's a real need for it the cultural Council when we were playing in the Arts Festival we used to have a real problem finding meeting space there were a couple meetings we actually had in the children's room at the library on the tiny chairs for a town meeting uh because that was the only space available so there is a real need for additional meeting space in town so that sounds fantastic um and then I I wrote under 15 million and then I just wrote the word how square footage so I mean it's it's you kind of some of this is formulaic um in the sense of you know you calculate you know Town Hall roughly 6,000 um I'm going to be off in some of these numbers plus or minus 500 square fet um you know when we talk rder building I think it's 55 or 65 somewhere in that range and we talking ax four to 5,000 is I mean these never going to go up um but you know if you just pull out a quick calculator um and you can you know do this exercise with me but if you kind of assume that we're roughly talking about 15,000 square ft and you multiply that by high estimate of 600 bucks is you going to have a calculator to tell me what that math comes out to ran 15,000 ft time 600 bucks are we adding square footage to town offices we're adding okay 9 million 9 million how much square footage are we adding roughly 4 to 5,000 square feet so I mean we're currently working with 12,000 between the two roughly and we're looking at adding another four issues in that range so again I mean I think from a formulaic perspective um you know we're not seeing cost at $600 a square foot right now but if we assume that we are and we assume that the square footage is going to land somewhere around 15,000 you know just the formula say we're going to be about 9 million I you know but this is also some of those things that happen during the planning process where you know you start putting in Marble Floors your cost goes to the roof um you know some of these are design elements that that you can plan for um um and some things cost more um you know we're not talking about a new town hall with uh with um slate roof for example I mean that's a that's cost prohibitive um and so when you start being economical in some of the decision-making and long-term durable materials uh I think from a formal perspective we can get there okay yeah keeping the Ritter building lets us maintain the um architectural history and um Elegance of an antique Building without having to build something impressive me just puts an addition B isn't beautiful I agree so that's a good and the the other thing was this is so minor can you put bathrooms off a foyer so it can be unlocked for community events like off an entrance in an addition because things like the farmers market if there needs to be a bathroom unlocked that way you would not have to unlock all of town hall you could have someone just unlock a bathroom I think that that's something we can bring up in conversation as we kind of conceptualize this um you know one of one of the benefits is you know this one of the things about the center of town is that parking can be located within a half a mile doesn't need to be on the parcel or or immediately adjacent to the parcel that's the apdcs or is that the zon is it's the zoning okay in that District um there's kind of two things happen there's an overlay district and there's also a preservation happening so when we look at the 30 schools stre parcel this is where we envision a lot of this parking occurring at um something that I tasked to um the U TJ uh who kind of spads the T team is i' I've asked him you know we know that we're going to cut into some of that green space that was the former um primary school to to account for parking calculations so we know that that's going to be needed um but I think one of the requests I had to them was you know we don't want to again nothing happens without the support of of parents and the school committee um so one of the requests was you know let let me know how much square footage you need to keep running t-all and that way if we take away some of it we you know there's a kind of Cliff back there we can do some fill and replicate I'm not saying it's going to be a smooth field and I'm not saying converting and I am not at all in favor of converting it into a playing field but I think that a green space that's located there which the town already supports um that can be used for multiple things including t-ball I think is critical for products like this moving forward because you preserve for the people using the spaces they their use and you also provide an opportunity for the people who live in apartments who don't live in the single family homes which isn't a big chunk of lunar but is a growing amount of people lunenberg you provide an opportunity when they want to have family reunions or family get togethers you know little cookouts you also give us space for that so I think that there's a lot of functionality in in the fact that we do have that 30 School Street lot that we can utilize so what is your timeline for bringing things forward because we have as you know the Turkey Hill study is out is happening right now we're not getting those results until April April and then we're going to need time to look at them and talk about them so we're not going to be able to make decisions for a while I think these are unrelated I mean they're related but they're not they're not connected in terms of making a decision for this but I just offer to to the committee that along the way there are going to be routine regular updates as they move through this process so you will have some insight along the way up until April it's not as if in April you're going to see everything for the first time you you'll have a sense of of how things are shaping up along the way yeah I guess this is the that would be that's the next step after the municipal design so what's the spring the answer is the Spring Town Meeting in the spring correct you know and to Peter's point I don't disagree I mean it's hard to go to a taxpayer in in one year and say I need a million dollar for an override $200 extra to a household or I don't know how the math actually shaked out but I thought it was somewhere around 200 bucks um and it wasn't quite a million it was a little less um but you know it's hard to do that it's hard to go to the town say oh and by the way we need you know we know your taxes is went $427 but by the way we need to you know add another 200 bucks for the next 20 years oh and by the way we know that um there might be another override coming so we know that these are questions that that the voters have to decide on you know the thing with buildings is they will never cost less than they cost today um and that's that's just reality that's that's true for everything I mean something I I say to I say to people when they talk about money is would you buy your house at the value today h would you buy your house at its value today versus when you maybe 5 years ago maybe 10 years or whenever you bought it but would you buy your house at its value today I think most people would say I either a can't afford it uh or two St out no and I think that concept triggers trickles over to government as well that you know delaying decisions on property and buildings does not decrease cost and it sure doesn't decrease need um so sometimes we have to make these tough decisions and I think that as a community if you put forward a plan that's been vetted uh that has had a lot of interest from Key stakeholders that's been well communicated the voters can make that hard decision if the answer is no the answer is no you know you can try again or you accept that we have what we have that's not functional um I would expect that we probably would try again um but you know I think that I trust the voters I think the voters generally make the right decision uh there's not many times I disagree strongly with the voters even if I don't agree with an article or what the voters decide I mean I generally think the voters make the right choice so I feel confident that you can come to the voters with a variety of spinning options and if they say no to all and they're saying hey don't give me five things at once if they I mean you know these things can be overcome but but really you know I think we have to also understand the public you know a third of our town are seniors for the most part uh not quite a third but a little less uh and many people on fixed incomes many people who retired 15 years ago cannot reasonably afford to continue to live in this town um and and and so they may have an interest in voting no you but separately I think we know that you know we we all come into this role with a variety of skills and a variety of interest and and separately something that you know and I I intimated that I've been engaged in some soft conversations about this but I'll share it here tonight is you know we need more senior housing in town I am actively working with a developer to come up with a plan for senior housing and starter homes I think if you if you tell the people who've lived in town for 40 years here is a viable option for you to downsize and remain in your community you know when that person gets their tax will cut in half they just might be more willing to say yes and or or they can foreseeably agree to something today that they can understand that they can better afford tomorrow so I I think you know we all have to do things in unison we all have to work in you know kind of even despar Parts at times but I think we have to address multi multiple aspects of the problem uh in order to get to the solution here miss aseno um you and I have had this conversation a million times a million in one yes at least at least so you know where I am with this I am going to use my favorite David Ortiz quote keep the line moving this has to get done my thought exactly was that the longer we wait the more expensive it becomes when um the plan with all the buildings and the 80s that we're all going to be built you know  would have been a lot cheaper in the long run than what we end ended up doing correct so um we said that then but we it it didn't work and I understand that this this project will add money to people's taxes I get that I am one of those senior citizens who retired not 15 but 10 years ago I understand that but I also understand that we can't have all these buildings fall down around us this is a great plan I I this plan has been vetted a million different ways and and I think it really should go forward and as you have said if the voters decide this is not the time we can't afford it we're not going to do it then so be it but at town meeting I will say the same thing the longer we wait the more expensive this will get and all these buildings will fall down and we can't have that so um and we've got to govern our town and we've got to give people a place to work where they want to work you know I mean this is all part of our ability to to hire and retain and retain good talent you know I don't I don't want to be at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Talent or not be able to you know because our space is disgusting you know like this is all part of running of an Effective Government I would agree and and I think that um the discussion on Turkey Hill is for another school committee but it we will move on that and you and I have also talked about how this has to move cooperatively and then we'll get it all done this is the most palatable comprehensive plan that I've have seen my entire long time living here this is I think the closest we've gotten well I I don't have Peters 30 50 years but I have 35 years in and this makes the most sense the closest thing I can think of in terms of like a an open and shut case and it wasn't was when we decided to build the public safety building and we knew we were going to tear down the old one when we built the new one right what we had a boat yard in the front yard that we didn't resolve but but you know I mean but but at least we had an operational plan you know and and um that that's the closest thing right I mean even the library which I think you know in I opposed it at the time partially because partially because there wasn't a plan for the for the Ritter at the time nobody was going to put a dollar value on how to do that the the plan for the Ritter and what was going to happen with it and I think everybody knew what was going to happen with it but nobody wanted to say it and I think you know over time we've kind of learned our lesson that we have to tell the whole story right that building is newly abandoned when I moved to town yeah it wasn't abandoned long because everybody kind of knew where it was going right anyway thank you Mr Jeff I want to thank the school committee members for all their insightful questions and comments uh I think uh hopefully uh you can take a lot back to your committee or our committee uh and also I think uh yeah we are moving in the right direction and um I think it's keeping the ball moving but also keeping that communication open so the public knows and other committees know so thank you for reaching out to attend our meetings and I appreciate you coming and giving the feedback and giving us a lot of the backstory too I want to thank you as well and think the members of the municipal bu design committee current and former I think that Mr beardmore knows how I mentally process as long as I need to argue a bit uh and Peter has been that sound board to kind of help work through a lot of these uh iterations and challenges uh while he was serving on on the committee previously and again the members I think were blessed with a good membership that is interested in and and really representing the Committees and boards that they do represent and doing what's in the best best interest of the town so thank you for having me thank you thank you Michael thank you good evening all right next item on the agenda is new business discussion item on student competency determinations yes we thought that we would um just give the committee an update on the impact of the ballot uh vote relative to elimination of the mcast test for high school graduation requirement um Dr bookas is with us tonight you know she gave you an overview essentially at this point we're just defaulting to our own um school committee set requirements for graduation um so there's there's really no action that the committee needs to take um you know we are awaiting some additional guidance from the state as an example um students needed to have a certain uh performance level on the mcast exam to be eligible for um schar scholarships as an example um so we don't know exactly what the plans are relative to that there may be no change quite honestly because they're still going to give the mcast test um it just won't count um as a graduation requirement um but again Dr bookas is here if you if you had any questions relative to um the impact of that vote Mr scull Bry so if they don't count can the kids opt out of doing them opting out is not an option okay it never has been so but I mean I guess I'm trying to figure out like is it are we going to adopt as the school committee are we going to adopt a requirement that they do the mcast we don't have that um Power um that's a the state every state yeah must for the federal government um do an assessment of the students and in Massachusetts mcast is our assessment um so that's why we still have to give the assessment because that's for a federal requirement the at the time um the state just determined that in addition to giving this assessment to meet a a federal requirement we are also as a state going to say that a certain passing score is required for all high school students to earn their high school diploma that is the piece that has been removed so there's no change in anything other than the mcast being tied to graduation correct okay Mr beardmore um I have a couple of questions first do we um do we include mcast scores as part of our students uh transcripts you know I was just looking at transcripts the last couple of days as a matter of fact and I don't believe that the mcast scores are on a a high school transcript but I could be wrong I can go back and double check that and let you know yeah I would doubt that I don't I don't believe that the score on the on the trans Miss bookus I don't think that's typal to have that as part of the high school transcri we can double check my and I'm I'm I voted against this measure I think it was a bad decision I think it's a bad law um I think that we need aside from having a standard for which we want students to strive to attain I think that there's a certain benefit to those of us who are responsible for the performance of our schools know that these tests are taken with an incentive that everybody is doing their level best uh to to achieve and you are measuring and comparing from year to year against the level best I work in sales and marketing and I know when I look at our Revenue numbers that our sales you know if we're up and down over quarter or years it's largely not because our sales people aren't trying hard enough it's because I'm not enabling them well enough or there's something wrong with our go to market because our sales people are trying to sell they're trying to make money and and I kind of view that same incentive as you know something that we can rely upon when we look at our mcast scores all that being said the voters have spoken and that incentive is gone um to whatever extent that we can do locally to reins some sort of incentive to have a measurement that is reliable for us um to ensure that we are doing our best I think we should pursue that and one possible angle is including mcast scores on a transcript um because then it becomes visible to anybody who looks at that transcript uh to include higher education and whatnot so i' I'd like to ask ask that that's something that we potentially investigate I don't know if it's legal I I'd like to know I think the what what you could do um and I'm not saying I agree with it but I think you could make mcast a lunberg requirement to graduate you can make what they're saying from what I got from the the passing of this vote was that the schools now decide not the St so that is an option that was not interpretation that was not but I would but I would love to hear an attorney's opinion on that yeah um that's going to be a lawyer thing pres that seems a little going around the um and I don't it's not my intent to subvert the will of the voters of Massachusetts right but I do think that as policy makers for lunenberg we do have the ability to say okay this is a little bit different approach because we you believe there's a benefit of an incentive here why um because you want the data I want the data I think the data benefits everybody I think you know and it so I would say that reliable data we are we are going to get the data they are going to take the mcast and we've seen it from third grade to 8th grade that those students do not need to pass the mcast to move on to the next grade or to graduate that those students are taking it and suddenly the 10th graders are not going to care I think as long as we can continue that testing procedure that we do through for third through eighth graders that it is an important test that we're going to take it serious then we'll get the same data from the 10th graders that we do from the third to eighth graders yeah I and I know you spend a lot more time with 10th graders and I do but I do not have the same level of confidence in but maybe I don't know I don't to put barriers graduation as a parent of a 10th grader I just am a little bit uh a little bit more skeptical I I would you very heavily against putting extra barriers to graduation that the voters of the state of Massachusetts voted to remove that's not what I'm suggesting I'm suggesting we annotate it we annotate a score on a transcript and I am curious about can we add additional requirements those of the students scores not ours I mean both maybe you know I'm not I'm not I would look at all options here right um anyway I think it I think it deserves a look I'm just not sure what the benefit is I mean just because you want the data doesn't mean the students owe it to us I I I I tend to agree with Peter and I also think that if if we could we should put something back in place because if they know that it doesn't count the chance that we get their best efforts is probably not high and if we don't get their best efforts then the data we get is not as useful and since all we can do is track them at the school committee level all we can do as an oversight body is to review the data then having better data will give us better information about what to do next if we don't have that data I I you know like I am a firm firm believer that more data more accurate data will give us better results and I don't really see anything about putting an educ like if we can do Brian's thing and make it a requirement they already had it as a requir it's not my thing the law this what if we could if we could if we could fur that idea boy then you know it it's and I I hear you're saying about the the will of the voter but if it's if it's not illegal then the voters didn't talk about it so from my my perspective as a teacher I think it comes back to local assessments we can get data from local assessments students should be evaluated assessed based off of the assessments that they're taking in the classes that they're taking they should be graduating based off of the the the credits that they're earning in English and math the social studies and World Language and and getting those credits I I don't think the mcast data is an all-encompassing data we get data I think from a lot of different assessments I I agree exactly with that and I think the the students don't owe us that data they we owe them the education they have to to fulfill the requirements the four English credits the three math credits that they have to pass those are the graduation requirements we have for them they have to pass those classes and do their best it's almost punitive to to find ways to force them to do their best on a test because we want data that reflects more accurately if you really want that pay them to do it or something find the money for that because it seems it it just seems like you want the data so we're going to force them to do their best and that's I don't think that's how education is supposed to work I think as we sit here I think as we will sit here in a little less than a year from now and look at our mcast scores from this year we will find two things number one I predict they will not be as good correct as they were in the past year that's prediction number one prediction number two is not a prediction it's really a it's really a truth we cannot tie that to the previous 15 years of data that we have and and do any reliable Trend analysis and decisions years of dat have 20 it's they redid the test in 2019 they didn't take the test in 2020 2021 was a delay modified reduced version of the test honestly we have 2019 2022 23 and then 24 Massachusetts put in the mcast nearly 20 years ago as a result of the No Child Left Behind 2003 and it became a requirement yes but at that time there is 20 years of data now the tests may have changed the data is different and there are there are changes in the data but the reality is is that we've been doing it this way for two decades and now we're not and so our approach to data will now need to change as a result of that particularly with respect to Performance in the eth grade nth grade and 10th grade right it may not it may have no bearing and it probably won't have any bearing on the primary school or elementary school but it will have a bearing in our ability to determine our Effectiveness in the middle and high school Mr I I would say the educator in me says that I agree the numbers are not going to Jive that it's not going to Jive but you have entrusted the Educators and we have a department of teaching and learning which makes a huge difference and they can find ways to assess what they are teaching that is more in the moment makes more sense to the kids because it works with the units they're being taught and what they're learning it's more organic let's say than sitting in a high stake situation now the the data is going to be different but I believe that there are ways to get not the same data but data to tell you if we are um helping our students to achieve the standards the way we should be are the standards being taught which was the initial reason for the mcast to make sure that the standards presented by the Department of Education were actually being taught that was the original purpose it was not a graduation depart um requirement initially so I believe that we can do that with whether it's groups of communities like the central Massachusetts English Department teachers get together and they come up with some kind of a test that will actually reflect what the kids are learning I think we can do something very similar I do I look forward I look forward to that being explained to me in a way that I believe it and and and then not not to say that you're that I don't want to believe you or that I don't believe you but that I've been listening to exactly what you're saying for the last several months in the messaging that's coming from the MTA and I don't believe it and I say this as somebody who when I was a high school student knew how to Target the easy grade teacher and that that took all you know and I was able to do that in college as well by the way right and and and maybe it is different I look forward to somebody explaining that to me right but but my my my assessment right now is I think I'm a pretty smart product marketer and I'm surrounded by a bunch of pretty smart product marketers and I'm part of a larger marketing department in sales department and boy can we convince ourselves we're really good right when the sales numbers don't come in our CEO says well you all think you're smart but what about the results right and what you just described to me is a bunch of people who are like me telling each other that they're good marketers and I I just I'm I'm having a really hard time resolving that Mr scull so I I'm listening to what Carol said and what Laura said and what Peter said and I think that I want to change what I said before I think I'm wrong and I think that's a credit to the fact that everybody here really cares and thinks reasonably I do not think that the only way to get this information is to have a test I think if you look at other places where people are evaluated on a massive scale they have developed systems aside from a test that are really really effective and one of the ways that I'm thinking of is and the strange but the way they evaluate baseball players the the fact that you have essentially a portfolio model like you do in an art school where you you know you do your thing in front of experts and a number of times in front of a number of different experts and then they create a system of evaluating you uh it's the it's like a 20 to 80 scale and it is really effective they don't always pick like you know if you go back and you look at Greg maddox's scouting reports they were terrible and those people should all be fired but there were people who evaluated him and everybody else that makes it to the majors it's like these guys are really good and by and large every single person who has the ability to play Major League Baseball with maybe like a handful of examples worldwide is in Major League Baseball and the same thing is true with other Athletics and how they evaluate people so I do think that there are other models besides the test and I think that one of the concerns that people had was teaching the test I think that's a legitimate concern so I do agree the the thing about whether or not they should be evaluated or whether or not there should be a high stakes thing I took a test it was a past fail test and if I failed I was going to be crushed by amountain of debt and it was called the bar exam so like whether we do it here or we do it someplace else or they do it some other time in their life eventually kids are going to have to be tested in a high stakes way and if they can't do that then they're not going to be functional adults so they're just going to have to deal with it the other thing that I think about like do they owe us the data like I don't think they owe us anything but our job is to go get it and if we can go get it by incentivizing them to you know really engage and participate with whatever form of evaluation we have then I think we will do better I think that not having any data or having data that is skewed because they're like ah this doesn't count anymore I I think that that's that's worse than in some ways that's worse than no data because we think it's legitimate and it's clearly not so like whatever mechanism we develop whether it's put it on the transcript or some other method of evaluating them I think we need to have a method of evaluating them that is high stakes so that we can get a realistic assessment I mean if you went to the hospital and you're like I'm just going to like FIB to the doctor that doesn't help anybody or if you go to the hospital and you're like ah you don't need to tell me the whole truth then like you have a kid who's you know overdoses on drugs and tells the doctor it was a stomach flu and like he doesn't get treated and so things happen later on we have to have a way of making sure that they're putting forth best efforts in whatever method we use to evaluate them because that's the only way we can get insights into how we're doing and if we don't have that or we have some half measure like what they're proposing now then I think Peter's right we're all just going to be patting ourselves with back being like they do great and then you know you see the graduation rate slip you see the acceptance to top tier schools slip and then you know we don't know why the last point I will make is about the schools they're all doing this anyway right like they have metrics they have methods of sorting through data and they evaluate people Based on data right like they say like you know I I know that when when I was in law school one of the people that was one of my teachers was at the Admissions Office at Harvard Law School and and she described how they did and it was all you know like secret but some of the things that were open because they were part of litigation she described how they do it and you know like they would assign each essay to 10 readers or five readers and they would give them a score of like one to four with one being not great and for being the best and they would make sure that all of the tests and all of the scores distributed fell within a range so that there wasn't everybody got a four you know the kids are going to have to do this anyway and if we don't start inculcating them into this method of like do your best really try you're being evaluated when they go on to college they're not going to score as well they're not going to get as good as schools and even if they do get into those schools they won't do as well we have to have some way of saying you need to take this seriously we are using this to evaluate whatever it is but I I think you guys have they're still taking test like there's still test in school there're but the test in school are not the test in school and the finals aren't the same because we don't have a way of universalizing that data they're still getting that pressure of learning to take test right but like I think that like what we need is we need some way to say this data is applicable Beyond you know like Beyond lunenberg right and and you know the mcast did that maybe it wasn't a perfect way to do that but it allowed people to have an Apples to Apples comparison I mean I think about my Law School versus law schools that other people went to like I when when I was at the public defender I hired one of the most brilliant people I've ever met to be a lawyer at the public defender and she went to Yale she had you know Supreme Court Justices teacher class and then I realized that they didn't have grades right like it was a past fail so I think that like saying that our our in school tests provide that same level of rigor and examination in a way that's useful for us like I think that like you know I'm thinking of my son in Mr esterbrook's class his tests are really great to get at whether or not they understand that material but how how you can extrapolate from those kind of tests to like Statewide performances or even Nationwide performances as a school committee I don't know how you do that in a meaningful way like I just don't know how we can take you know in-class tests and say these are metrics that we should be using because like you know not everybody teaches the same material not every teacher teaches the same way but we need to have some standardized method of valuation that requires the students to address it with some rigor like real rigor they need to feel it and you know by saying it was tied to graduation the mcast did that we got rid of it and whether or not there's another approach we've got to find something or we're going to be lost I think it is a dire problem without a solution I think this is one of those things where the voters blew up the dam and didn't realize the water was coming cuz like now what do we do so I would I would say I think a lot of it as especially as a teacher I think we're going to have a lot of teachers have their local assessments whether they're common assessments or not to assess the students on those objectives but also I think you look you still have the high St testings of either SATs or even AP not every student takes AP classes but they're still getting those rigorous AP scores AP testing and we're going to get those AP results as well um but I think what it really comes down to is I think we're going to as a as a school going to have to decide what the the graduation requirements will be for those students now that they're basically sending it back to the the schools to decide so Dr baram did you have anything else to add there's a lot a lot um a very valid comments that were made and many of them I agree with um an in-class test is not anything that we can in a larger comparative way to see how our kids are performing I think Miss shambo's um Point around the importance of maintaining a curriculum office that's where we'll be able to continue to um hold a certain level of expectation for uh the curriculum that we're that we're teaching um relative to marketing around this uh campaign um some of what I heard in the commercials as arguments to eliminate this I I I take exception what some of the commercials made it sound like we'll get rid of this and teachers can go back to teach them what they would like to teach the way they would like to teach it and not teach to the test teaching to the test is when you learn strategies how to approach and get the best score you can on an SAT test which is different from how you strategize an approach to get the best score on an AP test or The Miller's analogies test right you you're penalized if you answer incorrectly so if you're not sure don't guess because you'll lose points you're not penalized for answering incorrectly go ahead and guess you might get it right and get your point that's teaching to the test teachers have been asked for the last two decades to teach a curriculum that is aligned with the standards in the content areas that the state has set for that content area for each grade level that's what they've been asked to teach the assessment assesses whether or not the kids learned what they were supposed to learn in that content area at that grade level teachers I take exception if any of our teachers are saying that they teach to the test they should not be teaching to the test they should be teaching a curriculum designed to align with the stand standards that the state has outlined for Content area at their grade level that's what they should be teaching content there are a lot of challenges that we're going to look at now relative to the validity of the data how do we compare we'll still know how we compare to the state because they're still going to give this assessment yeah our problems are not unique like no when we compared like if our 10th grade scores go down everyone's are going down it's not like the Luna bird kids alone figured out they don't need but I don't want to be the district that didn't think of how to incentivize my kid when every other District around me figured it out right right because that's where we'll really be in trou but theoretically if our teachers continue to teach a rigorous standards aligned curriculum and they assess their students along the way as to whether or not they've learned what they've been taught that's theoretically what they should be assessing with unit Assessments in their classroom they should have a sense along the way how kids you know are are prepared to perform now might there be kids who report to testing and do the Christmas tree method of filling out their you know I'm familiar with it the bubble sh right I mean it's possible it's possible but I I do think it's it's a conversation around why it's important for the kids because we have to do this in all grades up through grade eight why it's important for you to show what you know please give your best effort because we look at this information and we make decisions about you and your your placement in classes or if you need added support right like we we will continue to want to look at that data for those purposes and I think when you explain to students why it's important for them to give their best effort generally speaking they do yeah right we found particularly with the eth grade that perhaps the I ready scores were not the most accurate reflection because we saw that their mcast performance was better than their I performance what might have been the factor there lots of testing in the eighth grade test fatigue for sure but the kids I believe believed that the mcast was a more important measure than the I ready assessment sure and they maybe didn't give their very best effort on the I ready assessment but they have been giving a pretty good performance with the mcast test and and I think as long as we as a district teachers in particular in the classroom conveying that this is still a really important tool to help us make decisions around curriculum around you know placement in courses or placement in additional supports when the kids know that we're looking at the information and we're using that information in ways that could impact them I think generally they they they give their best effort it's really I think going to be up to us around messaging to help them understand that that it is still an important tool even if it doesn't count for graduation can you keep us updated on what other districts are doing though I mean like Peter said yeah I'm sure that there'll be plenty of conversation ongoing and um you know obviously the school committee sets and adopts different curriculum at different grade levels none of that is changing we're we're still going to be moving forward with all the curriculum that's been approved um again it it really I think is going to come down to messaging all the way down to the level of classroom to be perfectly honest state legislator sometimes has a really they like to overturn not overturn but find ways around it so we voted to overturn the um mcast they might just rename the test you're not wrong um was possible Al so so like I said they're removing the requirement for graduation and giving it back to the the schools they might come up with a new test that is but again the the requirement for graduation though yeah the requirement could be put on us you know I mean required that they might offer three tests and say districts pick one of those and that now you have to pick a test her I I don't think they could do that if you look at Master general laws the section chapter 69 section 1D which is the part that was struck by the ballot initiative it said the part that was struck was as measured by the ass the assessment instruments described in section one so they could I mean I guess they could change the name or put it in section two but I I think that by making it tied to assessment instruments it's going to be hard to it it doesn't I mean I'm not giving anybody legal advice but it doesn't say anything about what local school districts could do so Mr beard obviously this is a conversation that full spans probably months if not years um I'm curious about and I don't I don't think this needs an answer now but I would like some thought around um graduate like the way we have graduation requirements right now and have had for eons is you take a certain number of classes and those classes are in certain categories and they give you credits on the transcripts there is waiting now at lunenberg high school relative to the level of class that you take so if you take an honors class or an AP class there is waiting associated with that that renders a higher grade I guess I'm not exactly sure how it works GPA points yeah they're GPA points but um my my question is [Music] is is there some sort of calculus that that could be included in graduation requirements right that that that ultimately harnesses the the talents of the of the student that may be strong in math but may be weak in English or something along those lines whereby the student could could be incentivized to achieve in higher level classes um so that's just one thought that I have um the other thought that I have is uh and I think everybody knows this I think that we should not be requiring physical education uh in high school um I don't think that it is particularly helpful through most of the spectrum I think it should be an option it should be an elective uh we should certainly offer it but I don't think we should require it I know that there are some state requirements associated with that but there are also the ability to wave those requirements with respect to Varsity athletes and I've made this request multiple times to the high school administration uh I'm not sure how serious my requests have been taken but I think that that is an area that I would like to have looked at as well so that we can focus our students on classroom learning your request would be to wave all physical education or just for student athletes for student athletes well personally I think it should be an elective but the state requires a minimum of physical education I believe but it is wable but we do not we have not adopted those waivers in wber okay just want a clarification on what you were looking for thank you but in a perfect world I would make it all all right I think uh the superintendent has some good uh feedback on thank you student competency determinations listen to the whole conversation as well so thank you for being here Dr bookus appreciate it thank you all right next item in the agenda is cell phone policy discussion oh good is another can something controversial discussions short meeting becoming longer yeah Mr skull bre so uh I I asked this to be put on uh the agenda and i' ask this to be put on part of our goals for this year um last year after the budget after everybody exiled and with the passing of the budget override or the the prop two and a half override more than one parent approached me and said I think the next thing that you guys should look at is the cell phone policy and we do have like a couple of different policies that would touch on the cell phone policy I think that what people were looking for is like real guidance on this and so in trying to get a few of like how this works how this works here how this works elsewhere what the research said I met with a couple of different teachers I met with the Union president uh I read a book written by a gentleman named Jonathan Hy I listened to a couple of interviews for him I reached out to people at Utopia which i' talked to before about other things um I reached out to a woman uh who has a Tik Tok account where she's like a teacher talking about you know funny things that happened to school um she provided probably the I mean other than the people that you know I met face to face she Pro probably provided the best feedback even with all the phds and famous people um I talked to a bunch of parents I talked to students um and it sort of had like two different kinds of polls where all the concerns gathered around one of the things that people had said and one of the issues that's raised in all of the the literature on this is whether or not there's like a centralized policy put forth by the school board that Administration adheres to or there's like deference discretion to the classroom teacher another thing that came up in all of these discussions and I I just want to lay this out before we start talking so that we have some idea of like what things that people are talking about out there is are there different rules for different grades um and talking to the the woman that was a social media uh influencer and happen to be a school teacher her name is Dugan she is hilarious but she talked a lot about how in a big school district she worked in a big school district in a little school district and they had different policies and those policies became really complicated especially as you went down from high school to all the way down to Primary School like where the transition happens the other thing that came up a lot in the discussions and the research was people who talked about like absolute zero tolerance policy um people who talked about having uh Zero Tolerance policy during during classroom instruction periods but not in lunch or recess or study hall um one thing that is mentioned and I know that there's some grant money available which is why I'm mentioning it is a Yonder bag does anybody like if you go to like a like a faad day it it is a fair I mean that's essentially what it is but it's branded so like if you go to like a a standup comedian you have to put your phone in a bag and it locks and it has like a device that holds it locked and then you can either unlock it by going to this device or they can send a Wi-Fi signal that'll unlock all of them at once um some people uh talked about different approaches in the classroom I know that um one of the teachers that I talked to they had a box another one had like a back of the door shoe rack um one of the so like there were a bunch of different solutions but over and over again when I talk to people the things that came up were you know reaching kids where they are sometimes requires or is made much easier by allowing them to use cell phones and so like the example that I thought of that actually the social media person the the influencer person told me was like uh gentleman named Devon Rodriguez who's like an artist on Tik Tok and Instagram he's like 50 million followers but he like does really great artwork and he does it in like an interview format and you know he done Oprah done President Biden all the different kinds of people you know he he it would not come across the same way on a computer or a Chromebook it doesn't have the same sort of you know like Vibe whatever there are some examples that people have given and I thought that was a good one um you know talking to teachers here a lot of times they would have uh things where the kids would be able to do things um more easily on their phones like uh uh one of my sons had a project where they did like video and they made a video about like some specific topic and you could have edited on a laptop but the kids are just much more comfortable doing it on their phones um so there was some like real pedagogical reasons um there was a lot of concern on the parents part and on some of the intellectuals part about interactions during non-classroom time that if kids had access to phones every time they were not in instructional periods that they would just like sit next to each other and text each other instead of actually talking um there were obviously some safety concern some parents thought that like you know having phones open their kids up to certain things and other parents had the exact opposite concern which was if I can't reach my kid in in case of an emergency like their grandmother goes to the hospital or you know something like that I want them to have their phones for that reason um there was also concern on the parents part the kids part and the teachers part about concerns for attributing Fault In the case of loss damage or stolen items um and then there the last concern especially for the younger kids that some of the parents that I talked to who were parents of younger kids mentioned was what would happen um for devices so like there are I I just realized this but there are a whole array of devices aimed at younger kids that are not cell phones but still have the ability to call some of them are watches watches yeah and other devices um that have the same tracking features and same calling features but don't have ability to do like interaction and they're not really screen devices like the biggest screen would be like an an Apple Watch and so how would those be treated and you know everybody that I talked to had a different idea about how different devices would be treated but that was like my survey over the past year of trying to gather information about what the common themes were and who said what and why they said it I don't think that I like I would not feel comfortable like going to policy subcommittee and drafting a policy without input from everybody here cuz this literally people would not like from person to person but within a conversation with one person they would say the exact opposite thing and it wasn't like they were just like forgetting what they said they're like o that's a good point I didn't and so like it was like where do we go I I you know I think that it's it's a really difficult thing I think that one of the like common themes that I got from parents was I don't want my kid glued to the phone but I want to have immediate access and be able to track them and those two things are not mutually compatible and then from the teachers I got a sense and this wasn't just teachers in this District I talked to teachers in other districts I talked to this woman like I said from Kansas they were concerned about having a policy that would allow them to say this is the rule you don't like it's not my decision it's the school district's decision or it's the school board's decision and then having admin back them up I don't I don't think we would have that problem here I think we have a a pretty strong administrative core and if we put out a rule that would be the rule but that was a concern in a lot of places you know we have a smaller District but like some of the people that I talked to were teachers in districts that had like you know 25,000 or 30,000 kids and if you're doing that and you know each teacher has some variability then the students feel like there are no rules so those are the issues Mr bid I have a number questions on this um the first is do we know if our teachers think that cell phones in a student's pocket or in a classroom is detracting from the students attention or our ability to teach them I would say that from the people that I talk to including and especially the union president who has sort of a a more uh comprehensive overview than I would talking to one people at a time that every educator said they were concerned about divided attention Okay um I in my mind that is the most important metric yes more important than my ability to ask my kid if he's got football practice today yes and and and I rely on that almost every day because there's a forgotten uniform or a who knows what there's always a thing that there needs to be some form of communication and but I I think that our ability to execute in the classroom trumps everything um but I and I I would like to be able to give our teachers the ability to manage that in a way that is more than what they have today now it has to be nuanced right I don't think it's fair a bags when you walk in the school and you open it when you leave right I just don't the other thing is is that there's actually a budget implication here right aside from the equipment of what you do with these things if you take them away but when I was in high school the office was the messaging department for the school right because they would get the call from me saying can you ask Ray if he's got his football uniform you know like we don't need to be doing that today right like there's no need for us to be in that business anymore so I think I I think we should give our teachers whatever policy tools they need to be as effective as they think they can be but I think whatever it is has to be nuanced right and and I'm not exactly sure what that prescription is Mr Bowski can students in the Middle High School receive emails outside of the lunenberg public school's email address so still if they have email on their phone yeah they got a Gmail account that's do we not give them Chromebooks during the day we do they can check emails so like they can check their email dad from home so they're not uncontable during the day no no like we you can email your kid and say did you remember your so you cannot so I cannot email my kids lunenberg school yeah that's what I email address I can email my kid's Gmail account that he has separate from which he could log into if he wanted to from his Chromebook but I but I can't hit his student account I do believe that that is true because we have to protect them no I know while they're accessing email right so pretty much it's a CL only be in the in the network that's okay good to know M Ash um I I agree cuz I'm a little removed from all of this but um when I st it's first grade and I've only had one kid with the watch that kept going off but um but I agree that that the kids it's difficult when the kids are distracted by their phones there's no question um I know that it makes sense to me and maybe you know maybe I I'm up a tree but I like the idea of the shoe thing and just coming in and putting your you have your own spot you have a number you put your phone in your number and at the end of class you pick it up I know where my husband Subs the kids are not allowed to take their phones when they use the restroom I know that as a rule and I know that my granddaughter in Middle School um in another Community has two phone breaks during the day and she is allowed this this whatever time it is she's allowed to check her phone twice during the day so those are the only things I know about cell phone things but I I agree that if it is distracting and it it should be addressed and the other thing is I would like to survey the teachers before putting in anything to place because I really don't want to be the board that goes down and messes up something that's working you know but if if we survey the teachers and see what what their suggestions are they may have way better ideas than I do though Tony hats off to you for doing all that back work every single person that wanted that I asked there was a teacher they had an opinion about this I bet they did was Mr brazowski um I'm I'm too mind of this because as a parent I'm a lot stricter about cell phones but as a school Committee Member I I really would I want to hear from the teachers the administration because if it becomes an Administration issue do they even have the resources to deal with what the first year we implement this will be an administrative nightmare getting kids used to whatever comes down um I want to know what the teachers feel about it and I do want to know what parents feel about it and I do want to know what students feel about it um because those are important things I know that some students have safety considerations about it um so it's really hard to form an opinion uh right now it's pretty Loosey Goosey though the way we hand it which is it's up to the discretion of the teacher and I do know there is teachers in the school who do the calculator pockets of just put your phone up here and you get it on your way out of class you can see your phone don't be nervous it's right there get it on your way out of class but I also I don't think they should have it during the day except for cell phone breaks or a chance to check it they don't really get service in the building anyways unless they're using the Wi-Fi so I think I don't know I'm a little on on in favor of they don't need it during the day but that's my personal opinion and it really depends what the teachers need us to put in place so that they can do their jobs best I think the other folks that need to be involved in the conversation are it Department um in talking with Mr sry about this um he would be very concerned with the zero tolerance policy because it does lead to much more um involvement with Administration and discipline we have to hire someone just to deal with that the yeah um but his suggestion and I agree with it um is to push this back to the school advisory councils at each school um to do exactly what what you suggested that we need to survey to get information from a bunch of different stakeholders relative to what is the problem because at different grade levels it's a different problem so a pol a single policy that solves one problem may not solve a different problem that that we have or make that problem worse right um which I know nobody would want to do there um so it might be a matter of pushing it back to the school level to do some research and get some data and some possible solutions that the committee may want to consider and have more whole group discussion again before it goes to policy subcommittee to come up with policy draft Yeah so as an individual I am definitely hesitant to create a new policy that would restrict the uh the cell phones I think uh especially as a teacher I think it should come back down to the teachers you have different teachers different styles uh some have the pockets they could have the cell phone Pockets other teachers don't want them uh other teachers are utilizing the cell phones in class as part of the education I think having that flexibility allows teachers to to be themselves and teach the way they want to teach and also I think discipline also starts in the classroom with the teacher so the teachers are discipline disciplining the students and I would expect that the administration would back up those teachers if if they had an issue with cell phones or a student with their cell phone in the class so I honestly I I'd want to hear back from the teachers but also I I honestly I I think it should be left up to the teachers and have the teachers uh decide but this is not a an issue that is new it's definitely been around all over every school and Across the Nation so it's a difficult I think an important question to ask here is the Lev both the offic official and unofficial level of empowerment that our teachers have when it comes to this today right sitting here right now I don't know the the answer to either of those questions but what I'm very concerned about is the teacher who knows that the math teacher on either you know the math teacher who knows the math teacher on either side of them doesn't care about cell phones and doesn't mind if the students are on the phones all all the time during class using the calculator function or whatever meanwhile you know they're the ones that don't allow anything or wouldn't allow anything except for their peer pressure on either side of them right and I I I'm purely projecting because I have no idea if that's a thing but I I do feel like it is somewhat our job to level the playing field and make and make sure that they feel empowered to the degree that they feel necessary in talking with Mr sry he seemed to indicate to me that at the high school level teachers can choose to let students use the phone during class time for different functions whereas at the middle school level it's a no cell phone during school and that's the level that seems to be presenting more of a challenge because it's zero it's zero Toler no no cell phone so there there tend to be more challenges there with student distraction because they're trying to sneak the phone so and so forth the other thing I will say kids are pretty smart and they find workarounds you can do your lock bag for the day and um kids will bring their old phone and put it in the lock bag for the day and they have their real phone in in their and I think we're trying to teach them we're trying to teach them life skills too like they're going to have to go into a job and have their phone in their pocket and be able to decide okay now I can do my work okay I got a text I can quickly respond to that put it back in my pocket and get back back to work the other thing too I'll just throw there um in the world we live in today when the worst possible situations occur in schools yeah kids and staff are getting on cell phones and giving play byplay information in real time to people who are responding good point yeah yeah and that's just the reality of where we are today um it's an important tool in a situation like that so this is a big challenge like this Genie's been out of the bottle for a long time yes trying to put this back in the bottle is not it's not going to it's not going to happen it's not going to happen it's more about being smart around how to navigate this so we're not creating incentive for kids to you know be distracted because they're trying to find ways to sneak and work around things um but you don't also want to require that every teacher has to use cell phones in their classroom in in a context of you know teaching dayto day well find a way to use your your kids cell phones in your class well you don't you don't want that either um this is a really complex issue um so I do think that there's going to be a need for some data Gathering and more conversation and I I don't think it's going to be something that we're going to get to real quickly nor nor should we because it's so complicated an issue um but I think it's really good conversation to start to have right and the like I said the issues are going to be different at different grade levels um so I think we all need to be clear on what what is the challenge at that level and what is the solution at that level is this scull bre so as we were talking one of thing that I thought about was like having a policy that would work into the future like I was at in-law school when cell phones did not do all the things that they do and we talked about pen Registries in constitutional law and like no one knew what they were then and now they don't even exist and so like having a policy that can contemplate what kind of devices would exist in the future and how people would interact with them is really hard to do but I think that we got to make sure that we don't say like you know if you have a smartwatch uh cell phone or a tablet cuz like those things are going to be different and look different and it's not going to be the same the other thing about future proofing is I I no longer get to go to school I only go to school for like you know the legal requirements that you have to do to keep up your bar license but the best class I have been in since my philosophy class taught by my favorite Jesuit priest at Boston College was a class put on by the federal court on the US sentencing guidelines which is like the most boring topic ever and they started the presentation by saying everybody pull out your cell phones and everyone kind of like looked around and they did the entire presentation LinkedIn to cell phones so that they would ask us a question we would like get it was almost like a game show and I know I know people that you guys do this all the time you're Educators but like I found that so engaging and fascinating about how they delivered the information and like they were able to send like different video clips to different parts of the audience it was it was really incredible and so like that's the other way in which I think the policy should be I the eye towards the future not just future devices but future teaching methods we're not writing a constitution they policies no I we review periodically we don't need to Future proof them we can update them one of the challenges around policy is not to get so into detail that's right right that it needs to be changed constantly but we don't have to worry about like 10 years down the line what you know the neural implants like we don't have to but we but we do need to we do need to be thoughtful particularly when it comes to how technology is leveraged and what are we exposing our kids to relative to the opportunities associated with technology and how technology can be used as a tool that there is a danger that we over rotate away from technology and in doing so unintentionally Shield them from that level of exposure right yeah um and I I do worry about that I mean I work in a field that moves very fast my company is completely focused right now on technology that two years ago I didn't know existed right right right right right and it's a fortune 5 like it's a real big company but AI has eaten the world in Tech and it has literally changed everything and two years ago I didn't know what a GPT was I I if you had asked me what that AC him I couldn't have told you so another discussion topic but but the but the point here is is that like we do have to be careful right we do have to be careful about unintentional consequences and because we our kids are going to live in a world that is 10 times more technically oriented than ours is and we want them to be able to engage in that in a way that's productive and and we don't want to make them afraid of it that too yeah all right so I think we've had some good discussion on this like to see if us we can keep moving along uh next discussion item is the 2025 2026 school calendar so I thought I'd just bring this forward um for the committee I no no decision needs to be made right now um we're still in the process of gathering input on next year's school calendar from many different groups the pel uh meeting last time uh Juliana hansum said that we were starting to look at this calendar and if anybody had thoughts relative to anything pertaining to the calendar to please reach out to their school administration um our in school building leadership teams comprised teachers and the administration they're looking at it they're talking about it at their school level School advisory councils I I've asked all of the principls to make sure that it either got on to an agenda for a school advisory council meeting if they had one later in this month or uh next month to solicit some input there um the um the teachers union executive board is going to look at it our uh PD committee has looked at it they offering their thoughts so there's lots of conversation happening in all kinds of groups relative to um what should next year's calendar look like um based on the way the Christmas holiday fall and the New Year's holiday fall we're in the same sort of situation we were a year ago when we were considering is this a twow week school closure and in having conversations with the uh District leadership team we came back to some of the same worries that we had and shared with this body a year ago um if we were to shut down for two weeks um students would leave at the end of the day on Friday December 19th and not come back to school until Monday January 5th that's 16 days out of school and some of the worry is for um some special education students for whom a lengthy uh break from school can lead to learning loss um the same concern about students with food insecurity that's a long time to be away from um a resource that provides uh food the other is for our students who have mental health need and the access to school counselors is the only mental health support they have particularly at a season of year that we see an uptic in mental health need right so those were some of the challenges that that we see um but again we are still in the process of soliciting feedback from all kinds of groups so I just wanted to you know let you see you know a calendar and where the actual dates map out um most of you actually have an opportunity at a school advisory council meeting meeting to weigh in on this so we don't have to have a lengthy discussion this evening but I figured i' I'd put it out there for your consideration um as a as a whole committee but also you know so that you're aware that this will be coming up at a school advisory council meeting in the next handful of weeks so miss Ash I just have a quick question an early dismissal on Tuesday December 23rd does that mean PD in the afternoon I was going to say that would be ridiculous that's too mean that that was one of the things that we thought might might be a bit of a compromise yeah um I like that where the kids would be in on Monday half day Tuesday all everybody leaves early but those kids have been in school they've had a chance to see their counselors if they need to they could be leaving with with food to take home um but yet everybody's sort of getting off to Vacation a little bit earlier than they would um you know that was just a thought that some of us at the um the district leadership thought might might be a compromis right um believe me I know that most of the teachers would would like like to have the shutdown and have a lengthy break I I I understand that oh as a parent I absolutely I'm like two weeks let's do it but just do B do we know in like have you surveyed your peers and surrounding communities about the decision we came to a year ago relative to their decisions are there any twoe blocks that are happening this year in the surrounding area yeah I'm pretty sure that there are I do believe um as an example Clinton uh is closed for the two weeks this year um I'm sure that there are others in the area too because again you know how often do did these things line up that you could potentially close for two weeks and so I my my reason for asking is we do have a little bit of time on this and I would like to get some informal feedback through your channels maybe in January about how is this actually playing out um you know particularly in towns of you know similar size in demographics like Clinton um I would be curious um I I I swing the other way I I'm for coming to school in 22nd and 23rd and you know 11 days or 12 days should be sufficient I and I I just that's where but oh yeah I I think as school committee we should do the the the 22nd and the 23rd that seems to be the right way to go as a parent I would look at that and go yeah two weeks but the the correct thing to do would be the 22nd and the 23rd also we should keep in mind the graduation date issue with the graduation in the 12 days when we took a look at that um I think I think the way things mapped out we we should still be okay to proceed with um graduation on the first Saturday in June assuming snow days snow days in excess it's been a few years since we've had a monstrous snow year so Mr skull I don't know much uranium I don't know other than FL attempting the weather God so we're going to get a BL this year the woolly bears this year yeah and the acorns if I mean we're essentially trying to stay open to combat learning loss and to make sure that kids that receive stability from school have it have it um so like what's the downside in the half day plan I mean other than logistics for parents I I think I think teachers would argue that a week that's only a day and a half long is not worth having right um they're not going to learn a lot but that's not necessarily why we're staying open right I think that I think honestly for the teachers at the table um I think that there's a difference when we were having this conversation for this year's calendar returning two days post holiday and the quality of the learning that could occur two days returning post holiday compared to two days preh holiday not the same level of learning yeah which one is more um I think after the holiday people better have shifted past the holiday I think pre holiday you especially little ones right like they're a little wound up and I think even teachers and other staff with you know Hanukkah and Christmas and people are rush rush rush busy busy busy so even teachers I think um you know there there's a difference I think mindset coming in days before the holiday verus coming in 2 days after the holiday break at the relative to the quality of the instruction so it would be very cool to make the 23rd a PD day well I will tell you this that the first year I was here the 23rd was an early release PD day and I thought no who does that eaner Scrooge I like at that so we stopped doing that because that's not the best kind of Engagement that you would get from staff right on that day so I mean I I think there's an argument to make that the two days heading into a break not exactly apples with the two days coming out and returning from Break um but I do I I do think potentially there's still a there's still a potential for some better quality those two days than two days on June 17th and 18th right when it's hot and kids are kind of done and we're at the end right that's my concern too is that the the June dates are just adding up the more December day you take off uh I was looking at even just the calendar and it it does happen it was uh year 2014 15 and from from where I work it was we definitely worked that Monday Tuesday I didn't I couldn't find the lunberg calendar from 14:15 but I think it's very typical I think this the Clinton probably cases are rare where they take the multiple days off because again you're just adding it to the December break I think getting through two days or even a day and a half I'd support the half day or the full day doesn't matter but I think getting through those two days is not that bad of a stretch just to get through two days and get get you that much sooner out in June so I would support the the dismissal on the 23rd I I would like to hear with the advisory committee you oh and I think the collaboration from I I think you know you and I agree on this and I'm very my principal concern is those those students that are living on the margins and that we need to you know do whatever we can to take care of them I did actually ask the PTO if they would take that up at their next um meeting in early December to to get some feedback from another parent group um but I did convey the the couple of key concerns that we had about a lengthy closure um were really about student need not not so much the is a December 22nd day the same quality instruction as a you know January uh June 17th people don't connect that those two days off also add two days to your June school days all right so work in progress more information coming in that will all contribute to uh the development of a draft that will that we'll bring back and we'll be able to share the input that that we received from a variety of of groups all right okay so next item of the agenda is a discussion on topics for the delegation so I had put this in I think we had some Initial Ideas we had kind of thrown out um so I had reached out to the delegation uh the two representatives and the senator um Margaret Scarsdale uh representative Scarsdale reached out she said she would like to have the delegation do a private meeting to start uh before we did a public meeting they thought they could get more done uh have more Frank conversations about uh different options or potential options uh constraints and insights and give some advice and more of a private setting so I invited the the chair of the select board as well as well as uh Mandy who's been involved in a lot of the the interactions too with Miss uh with representative Scarsdale so they'll also be attending um but I want to get them out of an agenda ahead of time so they can kind of brainstorm um their thoughts and then I can bring back and the superintendent can bring back um how the meeting went my two senses I would I would advise against that I I think that there have been plenty of Invitation Only meetings and I I think that a public meeting is necessary to talk about in particular Chapter 70 funding what's been done what's the plan and how are we going to get there yeah so I did talk with representative Scarsdale about that and she said there probably not going to be that much that they're going to be able to do this year but there's some potential other avenues to to get us more funding is that said this year or last year yeah I mean let's have the discussion in public was that because it's not your job to no as uh as I was trying to prepare I I I open it up to a public meeting and gave them the next three meetings which one they would like to to meet they reach back saying they would prefer a private meeting to start okay just are they aware of like open meeting that's that's exactly their concern they they're worried about the open meeting law and no but we're different so oh it wouldn't be all of us yeah exactly yeah I don't think you should participate I mean I mean my my view is you've already been invited to a multiple participant invitation only meeting and the the answer that we got at that time was that they would be more than happy to meet with us following the election here we are so we're going to Kick the Can or not I I don't think we're kicking the can we're just having a private meeting instead of a public meeting I I don't I mean personally I think that you should take any opportunity you can to talk to the people who control State money and have an integral role in providing funding for the schools if it's not useful I mean a lot of stuff in politics is not useful so like but if you have the chance I mean that's the important part I think we should take it if I was going to put something on the agenda I think that they need to consider a discrete fix to the busing cost increase problem there is an there are a bazillion Solutions and there is a clear problem and no one has done anything to address the problem and the problem ultimately comes down to the fact that if we only have 2 and a half% increase on residential property taxes and the rate of increase for busing out strips 2 and a half% like everything else right now it's just a place where we're always was going to fall behind the difference with the busing thing is there are discreet targeted ways to fix the problem so I want I would love to have all three of them Focus for five minutes and say you need to give us some indication that you will fix this problem before it makes it impossible for us to to function I mean like it's not my favorite thing or the most glamorous thing that we spend money on but if we don't have a way to get the kids here CU busting is too expensive it it is you know it is a what is it a necessary but not sufficient condition of Education you have to have them here and it is getting more expensive really for no reason like we're not we're not like upgrading to like limo buses or something it's just they're charging us more because they can because they know they have no competition so that would be one thing I would love to have them just say put on the record we will we will work to address this whatever their solution is I don't care but just something that puts some forward momentum on this problem thank you B um I I would say I agree with Tony in that meeting with the delegation any way you can is is fine but I also agree with Peter they need to come here at some point and talk to us because I know I spoke with each of them individually last fall um and didn't get anywhere but I did um but I think they need to come here and speak to us but my laundry list is the same as everybody else's I'm sure they got to straighten out the Chapter 70 funding we need they voted actually one one part either the senate or the house voted on a financial literacy mandate and the other one didn't but if it had gone through they weren't funding it right so they don't they can't give us more stuff to do that they don't fund they're and we've said that to them before but I say it again and um if they could do anything to help either through the schools or through communities on getting kids mental health support yes in a faster manner I mean if if you want to give the uh schools more counselors that would be helpful if you want to give community centers more counselors that would be helpful I don't know maybe these people don't exist if you can figure out how to manufacture them that would be helpful but that that's a major to me a very major thing along with the food and security and once again it it's Paramount that school lunch stays free yes and it it obviously isn't going to be free at the federal level anymore and it hasn't been this year I don't think they're going back there and um it's very important that it remains free and anything else they can do throughout the Commonwealth to give people food that needed whether it's through schools or through food banks or that and the last thing was this health insurance stuff I can't imagine what they could do about that but if if they have any ideas that's ridiculous M brazowski um so a lot of the bus infrastructure things that the state legislature has been focusing on seems to be very Electric bus focused which isn't that's not helping us that's not where we're bleeding like that's great that's that's fantastic for the future but like we're bleeding now we need help now sort of thing um the Chapter 70 inflation adjustment issue where uh inflation is the inflation is limited and the state legislature last year declined to go back and fix it uh if they could look into that and maybe fix it this year that would be fantastic um I have um I can't remember what the other thing was um oh and I I know that representative Scarsdale had put a lot of effort into the the regionalized school support and I understand why I I totally understand why what is it five out of six of her towns are regionalized but we could really use the help too because the money that she was bringing in for the Regionals was not going to come to us or help us last year um not that it came to fruition anyways um so just if you could remind her to please keep in mind we are not a Regional School um and I know we're just one very small component of her electorate but we're not regionalized thank you Mr beardmore did you have anything else to add I don't disagree with anything that's been said here I I think we need to apply pressure and and we're not we're continuing to play the game and in three months we're going to be back in that Auditorium with a crowd full of people yelling at us about what have we done and who have we held accountable and what are we doing and this is the night that we should be doing that and we should be putting on our agenda from now until town meeting legislative delegation and if they show up they show up and if they don't they don't but they have an open invitation to come here I will reach out to each of them individually by email following this meeting tonight and try to understand their individual intentions but starting next week next meeting I'm going on full blast on this because I do not want to be in the same situation where we are getting a uous answers from just just for to remind everybody right if you recall the last time we had a public meeting with our legislators it was a joint meeting of the finance committee the select board and the school committee and I think we got maybe about 10 minutes of air time in that meeting and we were told by one of the legislators that he was asked by the chair of another board not to meet with us yeah so we deserve better than this so just to be clear I just I I feel like being told that there's more to do before we meet with you no there's no more to do before they meet with us just to meeting is not like a a collaboration of all the different committees that was the last time right so this is going to be a a school committee meeting that I am inviting the the select board chair because I want him to hear the concerns of the schools as well we also got the message last year you should have asked sooner you should have talked to us sooner why didn't you talk to us sooner we didn't know you were having problems which everyone was having problems so we're trying to talk to them the private meetings I think it's great but it's it's just you and then a few select community members who are supporters of the electorates who who are meeting and it's just it feels like an open meeting I understand we're Bound by open meeting law so we can't have a private meeting with everyone but it it seems like it would be beneficial if we could all meet because I'm not sure what's it would be beneficial Mr skull one thing that I I wanted to ask them and I know that there's not a whole lot they can do to this but if you look at some of the information about what is proposed for the upcoming US Department of Education there are two things that I I would want to get their opinions on and the first is what happens if the Department of Education seeks the legislative repeal of title one because that would have delerious impacts on us on our kids on the school district it would be really really bad the other thing is what would happen if they seek the repeal the legislative repeal of Title 9 or of major parts of Title 9 um I think that the people that will likely be the head of the Department of Education and the audience that she will be acting to Curry favor with are not people that understand how those funding mechanisms work and how those laws work on the ground and so we need to be prepared that if that happens that our our only other protection is the state of Massachusetts and so I don't think they're going to be able to have any policy commitments but I think that they need to be aware that like local towns local school boards are concerned about this and they would need to step into the Gap if that happens because like I don't know how what percentage of our budget comes from ttle one but it would be well between that and the um monies that we receive for special education right it would be it would be devastating yeah so if they would I've already felt and I I know that there is a commitment from people to repeal Title One so um I do have faith in them for that for protections for that I do I do have Dr Burnham did you have anything else to add I do not all right moving on next time in the agenda is reports we just go down the line Mr Kowski it's a long one I'm really sorry um so at the beginning of the month right after last meeting I went to the Massachusetts associ of school committee uh annual conference it's a joint conference with the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents uh which spells out Mas which I really like uh so the school it's school committee members and superintendents across from across the state and I think there were 850 people in attendance uh it was on the cape there was a keynote speech by I went for one day um just on Thursday because that was the only day I could get away for so there was a keynote speech by Tim Shriver was the son of Unis driver uh who talked about dignity the foundation of a new patriotism and if you're interested in it you can Google uh the dignity index it's an eight-point index of communicating of uh rating communication from contempt to dignity starting with uh level one which is phrases where the other side isn't human is othered or we have a moral duty to destroy uh all the way up to level eight where you refuse to hate and honor opposition's views no matter what but um and it was good basic points about respect and dignity and he was try to encourage school systems to adopt it and then someone asked what about hate speech and um it kind of fell apart with the Paradox of intolerance and hate speech uh but it's an interesting way of looking at things so if you're interested you can Google dignity index uh then I went to the school and Municipal collaboration supporting common goals which discussed informal versus formal governments and uh a very long time was spent just discussing how town government works to a bunch of people on a school committee who already understand it um so there was a lot of discussion one town had a budget task force which had a two 122 122 page report we're not doing that yeah um that's uh so in Wellsley the DPW does playgrounds and schools and parks and all all the fields and all Outdoors uh they work closely the school committee Works closely with Planning and Zoning so anything like potential developments and routes to school they they consider all that um hangam their DPW took over mowing plowing and combined with a school to save money I think that was as a result of a budget task force um hangam also saved money by leasing their buses from a company and then they used an existing town bus depot that was already existing and the town hired drivers so that's how they cut their busing cost by using an existing Depot leasing the buses and then hiring the bus drivers as Town employees which I thought was interesting um wellsy school has a substantial special ed stabilization fund for unexpected things so um I definitely wanted to note that down and they sometimes use the special Ed stabilization fund I believe to prepay special ed tuition ahead of time which legally you can do that's amazing yeah so I wanted to note that down because I didn't know that um budgeting starts early as soon as possible we know that uh include in your budgeting the revolving budget so that you always have those numbers and make sure to build up and preserve your revolving budget even in lean times uh and don't be afraid of debt because debt is healthy for municipality which I thought we could all use that reminder cuz I think we're afraid of it sometimes um leadership stability for positive outcomes which was about long-term uh leadership in school superintendents and they had a superintendent there who had been in the role for 19 years which is a really long time um and they talked about collaboration between school committee and superintendent uh how culture is set by the interaction communication relationship and trust and it's a common goal working together and how school committee really needs to support their staff and always have their staff's back especially the superintendent back um the one the superintendent who had been there for 19 years talk about making sure that the school committee has fed as much information as possible not just the bare minimum and the school committee should look to feedback from their superintendent about how they're doing and and the direction that they should be moving in or possible goals School Committee Member talked about the importance of being a committee and not getting invested in personal side projects and working as a unified team towards your goals and definitely not those side projects uh each school committee need member needs meaningful work meaning subcommittees so when they have new members come on they find out what their passions are and what's important to them and then they do subcommittee assignments I think they have a lot more subcommittees than we do and then they do subcommittee assignments so that person feels invested and isn't just attending the big um the big meetings and don't micromanage and understand board management uh and the mass the superintendent said communication is key Constant Contact never surprises and talked about how they email members every Friday with everything that happened that week who they met with a brief synopsis in the meeting Staffing changes or issues or any Union grievances that might be coming up or uh pending and potential issues and another one talked about tail tailoring weekly communication which I I think is a lot of work for the superintendent um to the board's preferences for their check-ins uh and talked about how some board members prefer text so we text and some prefer calls so we calls and some prefers meetings so we meetings but that sounds my Lord a lot of work and I think they had a seveners board and I'm like that's a lot of time um but intra board they also talked about intra board Communications even if the finance committee is scary um I have a feeling a lot of school committees are terrified of the finance committee um there was a lot of mention of scary Finance committees um and maintaining communication between boards especially around budget season and no surprises then uh the school budgeting school committee I went to another one and I didn't take notes because uh there wasn't I didn't get much out of that one uh then there was school budgeting school committee Authority and fiscal responsibility um for the financial reports that a quarterly um forarts the adopted budget amount the expended amount projections for the end of the fiscal year and the projections are not are the full picture not just encumbrances and then a narrative for the projection um they talked about stuff we're already doing that I got a feeling a lot of people in the room were not already doing like waren um and line item transfers um so and doing line item transfers quarterly and they talked about some other stuff that we're already doing great so I didn't take notes on that so good job uh grants the school committee by law needs to accept all grants and donations including entitlement grants according to the slide like including the entitlement grants which I'm not are we doing that we don't have an official vote to accept so technically part of the budget technically it's Revenue in the budget according I didn't she didn't write down the statute she said see the newsletter and then I saw the newsletter and it didn't have it either we're supposed to vote on all grants and donations no matter the number even the entitlement grants um and we're also supposed to vote as school committee because there of the things that we do we are required to vote on there's not that many one of them is new job descriptions which require a vote of approval positions added or changed or whenever a job description changes at all we should be voting on that to make sure that it aligns with our goals and vision for the future uh General stuff from talking to people informally and informal discussions because it was really great meeting other school committee members and seeing how they do it um I wanted to say I really appreciate Dr Gilson thank you for hiring Dr Gilson we are in a really good place because there are a ton of people out there trying to hire a finance director right now it's even worse I think than when we were trying to hire and we are very lucky because she is very competent and capable so not just that we have a finance director but we have one who is so capable and on top of things so shout out to Dr Kelson was not allowed to go anywhere yeah yeah somebody asked me her name and I was like I forget cover in the name tag like don't look her up um uh although I did run into a few people who knew her and loved her like her old superintendent like she's just yeah people love her uh and and I also wanted to take a moment to appreciate our sro's because in talking to other districts I didn't realize uh how blessed we are to have the specific SRO we have it's a really fine line to walk and it looks like the success of that Pro of that program comes down to two things which is the culture of a Town's Police Department um which I think uh Chief gaml really said that culture and I think that also comes down to the individual officers that is a super fine line to walk and I think we are incredibly blessed and I'm not talking about Hank I'm specifically talking about officer mne and now officer Monroe um so I I really wanted to appreciate that cuz talking to other people without saying what other issues are I think we are very lucky to have the officers the specific officers we do um there were a lot of budget task force task forces across the state they all had they all had different names um but they were all all the same basic thing some were huge some were tiny um one of them had a town manager but didn't allow him to speak he had to just observe and could be asked questions directly but was wasn't allowed to participate um we've lost some problems yeah uh so there were lots of budget task forces across the state nobody had any big Solutions nobody came to any great giant Solutions um there was a ton of merging DP W services with school services that seemed to be the main takeaway especially plowing um and there was a bit of athletic fields and playgrounds merging with Parks or DPW um or like all athletic fields falling under one so it wasn't Parks DPW and uh schools a lot of people reported attempts by towns to merge it where tons of people came and said why don't we merge it departments uh so a lot of school committees across the state spent a lot of time having to explain why that wouldn't work um and I didn't hear of anyone who actually merged departments uh busing was a really hot topic everyone is suffering from busing issues everyone is suffering from the price increases um but there was only one panel on it and it was at 7:45 on Thursday morning and I drove here from here to the cape uh so I didn't make it in time I was I was late to that one uh I did not make it there for 7:45 I didn't get there till 85 um so that wasn't even a panel on busing it was a panel on the alternative fuel School transport uh and electric buses basically um and nobody seemed to have a solution and I did try to find some of the cape uh people because the they have a busing collaborative on Cape Cod because Cape Cod is more spread out and they have more regionalized uh but I didn't manage to find anyone to ask them about their collaborative so um um it was nice to hear from other districts about what we have in common and see we're not alone in the big issues uh it was really nice to see that under Dr Bam's leadership there are a lot of issues that we have managed to avoid so thank you there's a lot of things that I just sat there going oh no yeah good we're we're we're good there um and it is really interesting to see the differences in some of the issues facing the other towns like the ones in Boston have far different issues than we do and then the ones in the birk Shear have much different issues in a different way so it was it was interesting to see um and I know the budget's tight but it might it might be worth thinking about adding the conference back in the budget again masc actually caught me a day pass this year because it's it's 500 bucks to go and I didn't want to pay 500 bucks to go for one day so they were nice enough to C me for the day um and then I just drove to the cape and back but like we get new members who want to go I can't see asking them to pay um to attend but it might be really beneficial to them however uh you know the budget but I know we used to have that as a line item in the budget and no one was using it and that's part of why I got taken out but um it it would be nice if I could go and not have to pay uh and I also did the masc summer Institute which was $60 and I did that out of my own pocket but it would be nice not to have to pay to volunteer so yeah yeah that was it and then I drove home home really late at night sounds like a good day it was really nice out was a day that was like 68 degrees and I didn't get to see the beach at all Mr be one uh Capital planning committee has not met since we have last met um their chairman did not realize that um Veterans Day was a holiday despite being a veteran and was unable to uh post a meeting in time so uh we will be meeting on December 2nd uh and um we'll be considering all of the proposals that uh have been made to all of the Departments um one topic that I did bring up with the superintendent prior to this meeting tonight uh is that I'm going to recommend to the capital planning committee that we remove the items that have been funded by arpa um some of you may recall that in previous years arpa funed items like an ambulance and another heavy equipment a couple couple of those trucks were included in the town manager's Capital plan with arpa as a funding source um but given the timing of the arpa deadline relative to town meeting it seems to me that it it's would be better just to completely separate those uh those items um I will have a discussion with it um and Carter is will be at the meeting on December 2nd so we'll probably be having at least one discussion with him in advance of that and then another discussion at the town meeting but um my preference would be to remove the the truck and plow and the the window film for uh this building from from that discussion so if anybody has any objection what was let me know the purpose of leaving them on Capital plan it's really procedural more than anything else the idea would be you know if for some reason for example um we were not able to contract it by the deadline at the end of the year or there some snafu or something it's part of you know of a prior prioritization that could be funded through Capital funds as a backup right so it's largely procedural I don't anticipate that happening with the arpa funds given the current level of attention that that's getting from the town manager and the select board but you never know um so that's capital planning uh Turkey Hill uh excuse me not Turkey Hill Town manager that's a different acronym Town manager selection committee um met uh in executive session on Monday night of this week uh and we will be um meeting on December 11th and 12th uh to conduct interviews of candidates and hopefully report out uh finalists for consideration by the select Port awesome that's it thank you m AR um the only one I have is the master oops is the master um planning steering committee and they met on November 14th and I was unable to attend but um and there was the agenda was somewhat vague and they weren't recorded and there aren't any minutes so I'm not quite sure what happened but I will get on that but one of the things that did happen is I got this spreadsheet thing from the consultant stating that I was to put what I thought were critical needs for the community and what was important to the community on this my personal beliefs and send it back in well we've been working a lot of those things if you've been to any of the master planning meetings that's what it's all about um they are having a public meeting on December 4th and I believe this will be the discussion I am not comfortable with the school section just putting in my thoughts because I represent the school committee so um I talked to the superintendent and she very nicely offered to send this out to everybody and if you could just fill back in what you feel is important and not important um so that I can turn it in by the 2nd of December then I would feel better about that I don't think I should answer those things some of the things that are suggested well let me backtrack this group in general is not concerned with how things will be financed so um there there's a lot I mean and that is the the way this works apparently it's it's with the direction the pie in the sky in an ideal world where do you want to be that's what this is so some of these things couldn't possibly um be funded um and some of these things we probably would say we can't do you know one example would be um to open the school Greenhouse to the larger Community well we could do that that's on the questionnaire that they sent out yeah well yeah this is the same thing yeah so um you know things like that we would be all over because we can have people w ing around this building so you know there are some things that um I'm not sure everybody understands the um what could happen if if these things came through but anyways to make a a long story which too long already short if you could send this back to the superintendent and she can give it to me so I can get it to them in a timely manner then um I will feel better I can fill out the rest of the stuff that's set my whim but I don't feel that is and that's all I have thank you Mr skull and breedy uh budget task force met uh at we we gave a very brief less than three minutes I had the person from the town time me there's 21 seconds left it was under three minute presentation at the special town meeting about ideas that we have on the table for recommendations to other Town committees and a request for help we then met on Monday and we discussed a bunch of different solutions we went through basically the punch list that we had generated for the pro throughout the process uh in anticipation of writing a very brief not 122 page executive summary of the budget task force findings and our recommendations um one of the things that we considered and we talked about extensively was uh Community preservation act funding and we talked about it before but like there was this concern about it being not that valuable and at the same time not that uh fine-tuned an instrument but Research into how Townsen does it and towns in passing it or renewing it this past election gave us new insights on what it would look like and so we have a flex meeting scheduled as our second to the last meeting and that Flex meeting will now be focused on getting information about affordable housing in lunenberg and this is because part of the funding requirements or part of the spending requirements for CPA funds is that at least 10% has to go towards affordable housing and so before we make the recommendation that we should put a CPA on the agenda for town meeting in may we wanted to figure out would we even be able to do this uh and meet the 10% spending requirement so the last meeting before we have our final meeting where we wrap everything up is going to be focused on uh affordable housing stock and ways in which you could spend the affordable housing 10% in lunberg so hopefully we'll have some ideas I think that like the problem that we have is that prop two and a half has locked locked us into a funding death spiral in an age of inflation and we as a town because of state tax laws have very few levers to turn and the CPA might be one of them so I hope that we can find some consensus on that in the next meeting but again if anybody has any ideas please please come and share them yeah I'll forward you a contact I have from Shirley but Shirley also passed that recent like before Townson did excellent they have a little bit more experience excellent we need some ideas uh lunberg missp Municipal Building design committee presented at the fall town meeting special town meeting uh we also had a meeting Monday to go over questions that we wanted to ask in our interview of the the one candidate and then we had that uh interview tonight before this meeting and it went really well and I think we'll again continue to to proceed on that timeline uh the primary school will meet on Monday that's all I had next item of the agenda is public comment uh open up to public comment from the public just raise your virtual hand or unmute yourself all right uh I'll open up to public comment from the committee seeing none uh next item of the agenda is topics for future discussion any addition topics feel free to reach out to me or at Dr Barum if you think of anything after otherwise I'll look for a motion to adjourn at 9:31 p.m. motion to adjourn second second all in favor I meeting is adjourned thank you