All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's tri board meeting. Today is November 24th. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic
for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> In accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law, please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg public
access channel on Facebook Live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg Access YouTube channel 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 results of these
discussions. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open law. You just need to mute that. So, okay. It is 7:09 p.m. and I'm going to
call the select board to order. Everyone is in attendance. Everyone is in the room and on Zoom I see Jean Russell and Mike R. So Mr. Menard, can you call the finance committee to order? >> I will call the finance committee to
order. And we have everyone except for Tanya Dah. >> Okay. And Mr. Skullbury, >> I'm going to call the school committee to order. And we have everybody except for Emily. Oh, and George. George. Yeah. >> All right. Fantastic. And the only thing on the agenda tonight is a preliminary
budget presentation from the school department. So, uh, Dr. Fortuna, I will pass it over to you. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Good evening, members of the board of staff, the finance committee, and the school. >> Before we begin the presentation, I'd
like to set the stage for our discussion tonight. We are aware that there are outstanding questions regarding the FY25 budget. However, to respect the specific purpose of this trio meeting, we will not be addressing FY25 matters in this specific forum. We remain deeply
committed to transparency with the citizens of Bloomberg. To that end, the school committee chair, the business administrator, and I will be participating in an in-depth interview with the Bloomberg ledger to address those specifics. Following the publication of that article, we are
planning a dedicated public forum to answer community questions directly. Our focus for this meeting is strictly forward-looking. We are here to present the strategic outlook for FY27 as well as our projections for FY28 and FY29.
Shifting our focus to these future years is critical so that we can effectively plan to meet the needs of each and every student moving forward. This tonight we are presenting the fiscal year 2027 budget outlook, a beginning of
a financial plan developed to address the immediate and long-term educational needs of the district. The administration acknowledges that this outlook represents a total allocation that is significantly higher than that of the previous fiscal year. While specific budget drivers, inflationary
pressures, and fiscal assumptions are detailed in subsequent sections of this report, it is imperative to first establish the strategic context of this request. The core of this proposal is not expansion, but restoration. The personnel requisitions included in this
budget are identified strictly as needed positions rather than discretionary enhancements. This proposal serves as the foundation of the year of a strategic three-year process aimed at systemic system systematically restoring the necessary roles and functions that
were eliminated during the FY26 budget cycle. The district's primary goal for this investment is clear bridging the gap to return to essential service levels. By prioritizing these restorations, the district aims to stabilize class sizes, reinstate
critical support services, and ensure that the educational environment meets the requisite standards for student success. This outlook is built on our best current knowledge and realistic assumptions. However, we know that circumstances can change. We remain
flexible and prepared to make necessary line item transfers within our eventual allocation to ensure we are always meeting the evolving needs of our students. With that, I'm going to turn the floor over to Mamera. >> Good evening. So, for tonight's presentation, first we're going to start
off with the staffing contracts for the Lunberg Public Schools. The Lunberg Education Association contract runs from 2024 to 2027. The custodial contract runs from 2023 to 2026. Parent professionals contract runs from
2025 to 2028. The secretar's contract runs from 2025 to 2028. And the cafeteria contract runs from 2023 to 2026. For tonight's meeting, we made some budget assumptions. The first one being enrollment. And as you can see,
enrollment has remained relatively flat since FY7, which directly impacts revenue. And as you all know, enrollment directly affects chapter 70 funding in Massachusetts because because it is the primary factor in calculating a
district's foundation budget. The next assumption we made are salary increases that are contractual. For teachers, they're getting a 3.5% raise. Paraprofessionals, 3%. Secretaries, 4%. In cafeteria and
custodial contracts are both up for renewal. The next budget assumption we made tonight was for health insurance costs was a projected 20% increase for FY 27 through 29. As you can see from FY23,
our actuals were about roughly $3 million. And if you go to FY29 with a projected 20% increase each year, it's going to reach $6.395 million. The next budget assumption is utility
costs. Currently, the costs for electricity and heating are currently under review to understand the heating increases in the past few years and define cost savings on electricity. Currently, we run through a third provider, EDG
Energy. And as you will see, our electricity has gone from FY23 at 170,889, and it's projected to be in FY29, $4182, $418,241.
Heating costs have gone down and that's why they're under review. But we're projecting for FY27 148,320. FY28 152,769
and FY29 157,352. The next budget assumption we made is transportation which is contractual with the bus which runs from July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2028 and those are the actual budgeted costs
for a contractual agreement with debing >> Mr. Yeah, go first. >> So, when you look at the budget assumptions that Chris has just walked us through, all of them are contractual or beyond our control like we have to have health insurance, we have to have
heating. The only one that is in theory subject to the free market is the bus contract, but and I believe this is correct, the last three bids that we put out, we bid in multi-year increments. We have not had any bids other than debus.
So while this is not uh mandatory because of a contract or because of state law or controlled by market forces, this one is essentially the same. We cannot change this. We've tried. There are no alternatives. >> Yeah.
>> So you have budgeted for FY26 2728. Is that a contract? >> That's a contractual >> wouldn't expect that. So, I actually believe for FY26 it was under budgeted by over $10,000. Um, >> even though it's under contract.
>> Yes, it was under budgeted. >> It means you'll be seeing on subsequent school committee meeting a line item transfer. >> Yeah. I mean, is that I can understand special education maybe. Is that the line that was under? >> No, it was in the general education
transportation line that was under the contract. We didn't put the FY26 budget together. >> I know. I know what I'm saying. So, so your FY27 and 28 contract >> contract.
The next budget assumption is high need students. Our percentage of high need students has steadily increased since 2019 to 2020 school year. The state classifies a student as high needs if they belong to one or more of the following groups. Students with
disabilities, English language learners, and/or low-inccome students. Next, school choice. As you can see, the outgoing trend has decreased steadily since FY17, which means students are staying in our district and stabilizing the foundation enrollment, which helps
with our foundation budget. The next budget assumption is technology. After speaking with our network administrator and our IT consultant, they have both predicted a 3% increase in online subscriptions along with an 8%
increase in tech and equipment. And I believe the last budget assumption was supplies. So during our budget process, the school principles were an integral part of the budget planning process for their anticipated supply needs. Each principal prepared a spreadsheet for the upcoming three years
with different categories of expenses they anticipated. To these amounts, we added estimated shipping costs and a 12% tariff. >> How did you get that 12% tariff? >> That was just that was just from research we had done online and just seeing over the news.
Um, so yeah, there really hasn't been a book written on the tariffs yet, but um, that's just we we saw between 12 and 15% for the tariffs for everything that's coming overseas. >> It was written it was written in pencil.
>> Does that include the Chromebook? >> I believe so. >> Yes, that was built in. I think that was 8%. >> Yeah, we definitely that did impact our Chromebook purchases. I can look into that and get back to what it was for. >> I'm just wondering because the slide just says 8% increase in tax and
equipment if that's an increase in count. >> I believe it has been. >> Right. As we go into, you know, the fincom meetings, we'll have to I want to see something that >> Yeah, >> cuz inflation's actually lower than it
has been over the last >> I don't think they're passing on the tariffs as much as people want to think they are. So, as we move into the data portion of the presentation, I want to pause and explain exactly why we are asking you to
focus your attention and our district's resources on literacy this year. The why is simple but critical. Active citizenship. We believe that every student should leave us confident in their ability to read, understand text, and make informed decisions about the
world. Literacy isn't just the subject. It's the tool that allows students to choose their own path in life. Unfortunately, our current reality is that about half of our students are not yet demonstrating the achievement levels necessary to guarantee that
independence. That 50% gap is the driving force behind some of our budget requests that you'll see this evening. So first this first slide is our early literacy screener. It's called MCL class. We give this screener to all
students in K through four with some students in um grade five also taking this test. You can see as the district um we have 45% of our students are
currently below or well below the expected grade level standard for this time in the school year. That increases I feel dramatically with our kindergarten students where 39% are well below and 22% are below.
>> When is this test given? >> This test is given in the fall when students come. So it's how the students are coming into us. Um for grade one it is again we're back to 45% of our students being well below
low and then that drops to 42% um in grade two. For our grade three students, our well below is 18% and our below is
25%. For our grade four students, our well below is 13% and our below is 18%. And our for our fifth grade, 29% of our students are well below where they're
expected to be at the beginning of fifth grade and 21% are below. So we have grade concerns about reading. This test primarily looks at the foundational skills needed for reading. So it looks at phonics, word um segmentation,
syllication, things like that. There's also um a comprehension component where students have to show that they understand the material by filling in missing words. Um so that is that test.
I'd like to now change >> what are we comparing? Is this statewide? >> National national. Yeah. >> Dr. Forun, I just want to make sure that the everybody on the the track board meeting is aware. grade five was the cohort that was in kindergarten uh during
>> CO. >> So that's why that number looks weak. >> And our kindergarten students were the children that were born during >> CO. >> So I think that's why we're seeing these books there.
>> How long do you have this data for? You have this from like past 10 years. >> Uh no, I can get it for you, but past three. >> Three. >> Three. Yeah, >> you put your looking at it. >> That's how far we've been using this. >> Yes. >> All right. Now, on
>> Can I just ask I'm sorry, one more follow-up question. Um, has there been do we think that this is a index or result of CO has there been nationwide slips or do we think that there might be a little bit something special going on here as well?
There have been national slips, but in most places, this is above the 45 to 50% level range. So, it was concerning to me as I look at this data to see that we
were so high. >> Do you know how we compare the state at the state level for this test? It's not for this assessment. It's not given to every student, but our MCAST's data does do that and we'll see that we're
performing above the state in most areas. However, my concern with that is when you take into account what the largest gateway districts are in the state, those scores are also counted in here, which is a different learn. having
worked in the largest school district in the state is a very different learning experience and student profile than our students in Lunberg. And so I don't always love the state averages to compare to because it's not
comparing apples to apples. So for our grade three data um what we're focusing on next slide what we're focusing on now are really English language arts. So how are students doing
in reading and writing um comprehension being able to write to text. So this is a more complex assessment than the initial assessment results that we showed you for third grade. What you'll
see here is that 54% of our students are only partially meeting or not meeting expectations. This was at the end of third grade last year. That compares to the state average. Um, as you can see,
we're slightly above the state average where it was 36% and 19% that were not meeting the state average. I mean, not meeting um expectations and partially meeting expectations. So, 54%
of our third graders were not demonstrating literacy skills to the grade level standard at the end of last year. 64% of our fourth grade students were not demonstrating literacy skills at grade level standards last year. You'll
see that 54% were partially meeting standards and 10% were not meeting expectations at all. >> And just to this is the group that is the fifth grade data for that is the fifth grade. >> Yes. So that's I just for me as well.
This is fourth grade. They took this test at the end of last year. My child just happens to be in this grade, you know, and then but now he's in fifth grade. So he took the dibbles this year. Correct. >> Okay. Cool. Here
you'll see that 57% of our fifth grade students, these are our current sixth graders, were not demonstrating literacy skills to the grade level standard. The story gets a little bit better in middle school where only 43% of our
sixth grade students were not demonstrating literacy skills to grade level standards. 49% of our seventh grade current eighth grade students were not demonstrating literacy skills to the seventh grade um standard expectations.
44% of our eighth grade students were not demonstrating literacy skills at the eighth grade level. And this last slide is showing you the increase from 2021 to 2025 and the
amount of English language learners that our district is servicing. This doesn't include former English language learners. These are currently students that need to learn English. And you'll see why this is important later in the presentation. um one point we've grown
from 1.1% of our total student population being um English language learners to 3.5% of our students. Now 3.5% amounts to approximately 55 students and we'll talk
about that in a little bit. >> Can can you speak to the grade distribution of those? >> I can't speak to that. They're dist they're dist distributed I can speak distributed across um all four schools
and we have two teachers that are currently servicing all four campuses and I could provide more informative data around what level of coming in like the primary
>> how many languages are there native languages >> our primary language language is Spanish, but we also have some students that are learning Portuguese as well, but by far Spanish is our primary language.
So our justification for the academic interventionist position is grounded in our data that we just saw. First the data we are we are consistently seeing that approximately half of our students are not meeting grade level standards in ELA and reading. Our current classroom
teachers are working incredibly hard, but the volume of students needing support requires dedicated reinforcement and you can see that in the level of high need students as they increase and we're seeing that play out in our classrooms every day. Second, the
research. We know that reading skills are cumulative. Early proficiency builds momentum while early struggles can compound over time, creating a gap that gets harder to close as students get older. By adding an academic, we can provide targeted
acceleration to students now when they're young, ensuring that they have the foundational skills necessary to succeed in every subject area moving forward. And so now we're going to go into a
series of staff restorations that we are seeking. Um the first is a 1.0 interventionist to address early literacy and math gaps. That comes at a cost of approximately $72,441.
The assumption that we made here when um doing the salary is that we'd be ma hiring at a master's a teacher with a master's degree that has five years of experience. So this is master's um five
on the teacher um scale and then we're going to do some kindergarten support restructuring. And I'd like to thank Mrs. Squire and her staff for actually coming up with the creative way to do this. It was very important to us that
we were able to staff our kindergarten classrooms with paraprofessionals which had been a cut several years ago. So what we're adding it here is a 1.0 kindergarten paraprofessional. The cost
of that is about $22,25. That's based on Chris correct me if I'm wrong par with a teaching license with a bachelor's degree. not a teacher's license, just a bachelor's degree. And that'll be funded
by the primary school through reductions in um general supplies. And then they currently have an intervention par um what you're familiar being um called an MTSS par. We're trying to get away from
that nomenclature because MTSS is a system. It's not a person. So that's why you're seeing this interventionist language. These are the MTSS teachers that were cut last year that we're trying to replace.
>> First, thanks for calling out the insurance and the salary. Um, you call in addition to literacy gaps, math gaps. Yes, there are math gaps though our primary focus is really
on that literacy and getting every student reading by third grade reading at the grade level standard by third grade. So whether there's testing for math as well >> there is and below >> yes though in fourth grade we made great
progress this year um through some creative things that Mrs. Resnik was doing with teachers and supporting them to understand the tier one materials as part of our student opportunity act grant. The state actually called us
because of the growth that we were demonstrating in fourth grade and improvement. >> Yeah. And wanted to interview us. So math is chugging along and going well. >> So Dr. I just want to add two things to what you just said. Number one, the
change in the way that math is taught means that literacy is the key to math as well as the key to >> exams. You're not seeing giant pages of 64 plus 31. It's all reading. And so if
you can develop the skills for reading, it will have an increase in your math scores as well. And then the second thing I wanted to point out is about the intervention the interventionist request in the primary school. Um because of things that happened in the kindergarten
class. Uh principal Squire was not just the principal. This is like hair club for men. She was also a kindergarten teacher for a while. So I think that a lot of these uh insights about the needs for a kindergarten pair professional aren't just like high-minded ideas. It
is something that she saw firsthand and Kindergarten's crazy in operation. >> Yes. And I just want to say Dr. Bookis put together a great memo for the school committee that outlined all of this information. This is just a um a snapshot, but I'm sure we could get it to anyone on the committee who wanted to
know with the like the MCAST data that included math, some of the math stuff um for the younger kids and everything. And I wanted to add too uh my oldest went through kind was a kindergartener 10 years ago and they had paras in the
classrooms. We have been steadily losing things in the school as costs have increased and we have had to reallocate resources in different places. Um so this would bring us not even up to where we were 10 years ago. And I can tell you
that having three kids spread out over a few years, the experiences are very different in Lunberg public schools right now than they were 10 years ago. >> In my experience, a kindergarten class size of 23 without a par is almost unheard of um in any other district.
>> Is that our average? >> Yes. 22 to 23. Correct. >> A question. >> Um the 22,000 for the kindergarten pair professional, >> is that the that you're talking about funding with cost of general supplies. Yes. >> Are you going to talk about what's being cut there?
>> We aren't this evening. Um that's a TPD. >> Okay. >> Um the insurance costs for this too are um the assumption behind those is the highest tier plan, the family rate. Y >> um we figured we would be safe and go
with that as our assumption. Next slide. >> Just one question on 22,000. That's 6 hours a day, 180 days a year. >> It's 6 and a half hours a day, 180 days a year. 183 because we have professional development.
>> Are we going to actually find pars that are willing to >> That's one of the reasons you're seeing par professionals get the increase that they are. We're having a very difficult time filling our par profofessional positions because our rate of pay is not competitive
>> despite the new contract. I mean, I was going to say if this is full-time, does it even meet minimum wage? >> It does. >> It does. Just about. >> What does that work out to an hour? >> Is that 180 school?
>> 1836. >> Yeah. So, >> I mean that's fairly minimal. >> Dunkin Donuts is higher. It's higher than higher rate anywhere in the city. I think it's 525 or 57 1525 or 1575
right now. >> The pair of professionals >> we we in contract negotiations last year we wanted to bring it up to better salary and because of the budget constraints
>> um we were extremely limited in what we can do. >> Yeah, I was at the primary school today or um the primary school student. I don't know what the group is called. >> The council >> the council. Sorry, I've been to too many meetings this week. Um, and she said she has four openings currently.
So, hopefully to hopefully going to not more than four. >> One week or three offers out. >> She has three offers out. So, I mean, so it's not that they're not trying to fill them, but I'm just saying, you know, they're not easy jobs to fill, I guess, is what I'm >> And then we have people that start and
realize that for the salary they're making, the amount and intensity of the work that we're asking them to do, it just doesn't equate. Um our parents are really our teachers right hand and are managing some difficult behaviors um
right now are as well as trying to provide that remediation um remedial and acceleration support that we're talking about. >> Paris are one position that you can get grants. There's a one.
>> We can um have them on our 240 grant. We um we just have special education. >> I'm just wondering how does the pay on the grant compared to what you're >> they we have to pay the same contractual rate. >> Oh, so it's still >> Yes.
>> One final point. You said bachelor's required. >> Not prefer required. Um, no. No. Bachelor's is preferred our position. Okay. We budgeted at the bachelor's level. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> Okay. >> There's a level lower than this.
>> Actually, there's two levels lower. >> Is this model sustainable? I mean, >> I No, no, but I mean like maybe we don't need Paris. Maybe we need something else. Um, say we need parrots, but I we need to
have an increase in funds to pay them. >> Um, the work that they do is invaluable um to the district. >> Chris, if I could just respond to something. I I I have never been in uh
some of the classrooms, and I think that very few people have ever been in some of the classrooms, especially for that have serious needs and I don't know how else we could staff them without using parents unless we wanted to spend you
know half a million dollars on one classroom. Um the the some of the services that are provided are so essential and so basic and just keeping people safe. Um when Dr. Fortuna
>> inside the building >> when Dr. Before Tuna and I went, one of the things that happened was we had people that were trying to, you know, show us how to open the doors and the doors had security on them so that you couldn't sneak out. I mean, that that's
just like really really basic stuff. And it would be great if we could have four teachers and and five students, but I think that um without overt taxing the budget, pars are the way to go. uh you kind of think of them
as like the you know the uh non-commissioned officers for classrooms. They we just need somebody who has lots of experience and knows what to do on those kind of you know basic tactical questions like should
this kid be trying to open this door or should this kid you know be sitting over here by himself or should this kid you know how do you calm this kid down like those are some of the things that parents are doing and so it is I would love there to be a different model and I
I think that you know if there was some way to bring ideas to the table that would be great but I think that until then the the the best choice we have are the parents and I do think that like some of them bring skills that you don't teach a class right they can sit down
and calm somebody down because that's who they are as a person right they just like I'm not that person so I don't know what that means but like they they can calm you down by putting their hand on your shoulder and sometimes that's all the kids need Yeah, the pairs are the
backbone are one of the essential backbones of the school system and aside from replacing them with certified teachers at a extreme expense I don't know what other model there is and this is how I think school systems the
country why handle these needs >> do we have open positions currently for pair professionals now >> we do these are Um there we have three offers out. Um
there's one unfilled position at the primary school. There are zero unfilled positions at Turkey Hill and there's I believe three unfilled positions at the middle high school.
>> And is the turnover rate higher for this particular type of job? >> It is. Um, one of the problems we've had at primary school is we've had people start and quit within a week. >> Yeah, >> it's a hard job. Um, like I'm I could
not do it. It requires patience and it it's a very difficult job >> and it's hard there. You don't pay them very much >> and from what I hear it's a very important position. So the question is
it's not even the budget issue. It's a question of >> we could have 20 pair professionals if we can't hire them. Sorry, >> we're not going to pay them. So, it's it's it's a question of
I think Chris was mentioning, you know, is this the right model? I mean, yeah, we could give them 50 grand a year instead of 22. Okay, then how many can we afford? We can't afford as many. It's how do you what do we do? And
I and I I'm not I don't have an answer because that's my expertise, but and I don't know if anybody has an answer, but it's >> it's not a budget issue to me. It's more about this this is broken and it needs to be fixed. >> It's not an answer. The math works out
to about four pairs for one teacher. And I mean like to be clear there is another model right and we all know what that model is and it's called academy or pubsics academy and you have a class
size of 10 kids you don't have an obligation to educate kids with special needs and then you can afford to eliminate pair pair of professional positions because those schools they don't have it but they also have eight kids that have been handpicked to be the
best and the brightest and require nothing other than uh you know to be wound up at the beginning of the day and then they just go and do everything you ever want them to do. And so that that is another model. It's just it's not one that the law allows public education to use. >> How about parent models that are
different than >> they do have to accept all of those. >> Yeah, I think they do also use some assistance. Can I ask what is the role like if there's any role for parents volunteer to volunteer in classrooms? >> We love having parent volunteers
>> and and like what are what are the roles allowed for parents to volunteer in the classroom? >> Well, one of the things to be honest with you that we need to get better at is training our parent volunteers so that they can help with intervention.
But some of the more behavioral focused um issues are not shouldn't be handled by a parent who doesn't have the specialized training that some of our parents have. >> Um what is the training for a par
professional? Um the training for PAR professional is um many of our par professionals are trained in specific deescalation strategies for students. Um many of them
are trained by the teacher they work with to do small intervention groups with students to help shore up academic skills. Um to offer that to a parent in a parent group is that we can certainly
explore. However, what we would need is we need a consistent time commitment from parents. It could just be I'm going to drop in for an hour this week. >> We would need the capacity, our teachers to have the capacity to train the
parents, which we they currently don't have given all we have on their plate right now. Um, so that's not a viable option for replacing bars, but it is a way to enhance classroom support
>> because um, can I just sorry I I can see um, and I know for your staff, you guys are pretty slim, you know, very you don't have a lot of redundancy in your office um, and the teachers, but I can see if we start a program of training
parents. Um I have been part of schools that you know the parents had a committed number of hours in the classroom and that was you know like each day a different parent would come. It could have been but if we start a
program where someone can train a group of parents and those parents will then you know they start a kindergarten they then therefore are trained all the way into the older grades and every year will start with something. It may be a
heavier lift on the beginning, but it might be something that I I seem to be successful. >> Respectfully, I think models like that are based on families that have mothers that stay home, which is just not the reality anymore. >> Yeah. I'm not thrilled about relying on
the labor of women to perform essential education tasks in public school. >> Well, I didn't say women, I said parents. >> Okay. Um, two, I the the model that I I was friends, I was in public schools in
Somerville. So, you know, it is doable. Um, and and in fact, I I remember when I first volunteered in Lunberg Public School when my son was in third grade, you know, someone questioned me, "Well, you work full-time." And I'm like, all
the parents in Somerville work full-time and we found, you know, ways to volunteer and it was my husband and I volunteered here. So, it it's doable, you know, and it's a question, you know. Anyway, so the only thing I was going to add just about
paras, and I'm not an educator, so I would rely on Dr. fortuna to to help me with this. But my understanding is par profofessionals also help in keeping kids in district. Um and so if these children can't get what they need
in district at $22,000 a year in individual par a parah with it uh with individual students >> then they you know we have to educate them which we should and they may instead access an out of district placement which can cost anywhere from half a million to a million dollars a
year. So, I think that's part of, you know, the the role of a pair professional. I don't mean to speak for our other school committee member, Emily, but she has a child with a disability who does have a par full-time. She has physical disabilities that she, you know, her par she relies
on her parah very um very much. Um, and you know, I would let Emily, if she was here, speak to that more as she knows, but she has said to me before and I, you know, um, and said in public that that, you know, that's so vital to her role in school and her being able to be in school. So,
I don't think we're going to solve this problem with a pair of professionals or this to me it's just a question of they're fairly inexpensive but we're also hard to get and adding more that we
don't have isn't really going to help us get there budget wise we can budget for it but as we've seen in the past doesn't actually and we have people that and I understand
you get a job where I used to work somebody get a job somewhere else and all of a sudden put nine months of training to that person they were just getting where you wanted to go and then they say I'm leaving to go work at PJs at the baking shop oh my god that's
that's that's life you get the same problem here >> so I think it's a having staff is So getting staff is is another issue. >> And I had mouth to Lara, but she can't
read my lips. I believe I believe that this is the first year of this contract. Right. Right. So any any adjustments to wages that might be discussed. This is a three-year contract and we're in only a first year of it. Just to kind of put
that point on that. >> Okay. Moving on to the next slide for Turkey Hill Elementary School. Um you may recall last year we merged two positions. We emerged a special educator and an interventionist position. So we
have one person doing both roles. What we found after doing that is that this is not an effective model for delivering instruction to our students. the special education side in order to
be in compliance and give the students what they require on their IEPs. That leaves her very little time to do the intervention. We have tried to backfill with some central office folks taking
small intervention groups. Um that has not been sufficient to do this. So at Turkey Hill, we are looking for the restoration of that 1.0 interventionist. Norm would also love two paras, but he
realized he could only have one at this one position at this point. >> Just so everybody's aware, the Turkey Hill is where the third places are. >> Correct.
>> And then even realize that early intervention is more successful. We have students that have needs now at the middle school and it would be unwise of us to not have an
interventionist in place at the middle school to try to accelerate their learning to close those gaps. We don't want to just give up and not do anything to address the gaps that our students have. So, Mr. Santry at the middle
school is looking for um an interventionist as well. So, you'll see that that's why I gave you the big justification at the beginning for the interventionist positions. This is really where our need is and we're being
strategic about how we replace positions that we've lost to best impact student achievement and student outcomes for our town. It's It's unacceptable to me and I would hope to others that only 50% of
our students are meeting expectations when it comes to literacy skills. A literate public is the best thing that we can have. And if our students are behind as early as kindergarten, those skills compound year over year and those
deficits get bigger and bigger. And so that's the heavy reason for um investment in the interventionists at um primary Cherokee Hill and the middle school.
>> So an interventionist isn't assigned to a specific grade. They're assigned to a school. Okay. Can you speak to how many how many students one interventionist can can work with can impact? >> Question. Well, if you think that
there's six and a half hours of the day, a half hour of or 20 minutes of that is lunch time. Um, and >> 20 minutes of lunch >> for the interventionist 20 minutes. >> That's all that's required by our teacher contract.
>> Look at it. >> Um, and you think each group lasts about an hour and shouldn't have more than four students in it. It would be about 24 students. So four at a time >> and and but not every day the same
student every day, right? And so if you know 54% of students are below grade level, we do not have the staff right now to meet the needs of all those students, which is very heartbreaking because there are some students that
with a little bit of help could get above the line and get where they need to be and build that confidence and build those reading skills. But right now, we're just trying to do what we can for everyone. And we don't have the resources to address every one
of those 54 students with extra interventionist work. And we realize that the town doesn't have the resources to give us the one interventionist per grade level. That would be the ideal model, which is why we're trying to be
very strategic in how we add physicians back in. And why seeing a 27 through FY27 through FY29 plan and forecast to um hopefully get us back to minimal
staffing levels um in a responsible way. >> I just want to pull on I didn't quite understand the answer to Rene's question. So, >> one interventionist at a school can positively impact how many children? >> About 24
>> a day. >> A day. No, I mean in total. >> In total, it depends. >> In a grade year, like in a grade year, I mean, >> I would say no more than 48. Like if they took a group, if they had a group that needed intervention Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, and had a group that needed intervention Tuesday, Thursday. Um, I would say no more than 48. So, and a school has 350 kids. About >> there's about 100 kids.
>> So, you need about seven for this model and half or below. So, you need about four for this model to work. >> We do. We need one for each grade level. >> No, I think you need Oh, one per grade level. >> One per grade level. >> Is that what you're building towards?
>> That is what we're building towards. You answered one of the it's not the same group of students every day. >> It doesn't have to be. We can work with scheduling because not every student is going to have the same intensity of need. So you saw those students that were well below the grade level and then
students that were just below. So we can um increase the schedule. Um we can shorten the intervention times. You know that's just really a round number that I gave you. Um there's more flexibility in there depending on the needs of the
school >> and I know contracts probably get in the way but is there any model that has like after school sessions kind of like after school tutoring you know >> so we applied for a grant this year to
have um the company is called Ignite Tutoring and what it is is it's a virtual tutor for our first grade students that has excellent research outcomes and raising um the skill level of those students.
>> It's it's virtual with a real person. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Neither am I. But unfortunately, >> it's the way of the world. >> Can we work with like NHS students who would volunteer to do tutoring hours
even just as an additional resource for the younger students? >> We could do that. The problem is the timing. right? When they're done with school, it would be at the very end of the school day. So, there would be some
time available on that. Um, but there there wouldn't be sufficient time um with using high school students during the elementary school day. But that's an excellent suggestion. >> So, a couple more questions. What um do
these fall under the teachers union or >> they do? >> Okay. And then just comment wise, I mean we're marching towards about 1.4 million for to include this into our budgets. >> Yeah. >> So we need to recognize that. >> Yes. >> And then one other question is um I was
surprised with the kindergarten which basically means you know before any schooling >> yet we have a library that is like I went there today because I was off and there's a lot of kids that kind of run around there and it it seems like
something needs to be done entering school and I wonder if there's some other kind of we're behind to begin with it seems like. Right. That's what that data showed me. >> There's no prek. >> No.
We have >> it's just >> so not every but we do offer prek. Um we are partnering with the library um to help
with those story times. I my working hypothesis with kindergarten is because they were born the year of co their parents kept them close and they didn't have that early language and vocabulary development that is actually a crucial
reading skill. So schools are going to have to start thinking differently about how we make up for that deficit in the background that students are arriving to us with. universal prek would be one of
those ways um that we could do that. We really want to be mindful of not creating more inequalities for families that can't afford um to send the child to prek. >> Is our prek still watery?
>> It is, but we don't have enough enrollment right now. So, anybody that signed up for prek got a prek slot. We have 62 kids that are enrolled in preK right now. >> Wow. >> I feel like it was always used to be a wait list.
>> Yeah. My understanding is the hours are kind of terrible if you're a working parent. >> It's a half day. So if you >> I mean honestly, right? I mean I'm new on the school committee when when we brought it up the other I was like who can drop their kid off at whatever time and pick them up, right? I I'm not trying to be it's just >> that's exactly what it is. >> It's it's not because parents I don't
think would take the resources. It's that the hours are like >> not conducive to >> having a working parent. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I know it's but it's it's hard. >> It's developmentally appropriate for children that age. It's just not can be
developmentally appropriate. >> Absolutely. You can structure the um learning in a way that's purposeful play and so you're not losing that play element for students and you're actually able to increase it. about trying to hit
the academic pieces. We still want to work on that kindergarten. >> Any other questions before we move on to the high school? >> I think we're good to go. >> Okay. The first request at the high school is to add a 1.0 world language
teacher. And this request is driven by two factors. high graduation requirements and effectively managing class sizes. If we fail to add this position, we will be forced to make a choice between two detrimental options. We would either have to delay the start
of world language instruction for all students until 9th grade. And this is because our rising seventh grade class is a bubble class. It's actually very large and we currently don't have enough teachers to serve them um in eighth
grade. or we would be forced to eliminate our Latin program entirely. And to put that in perspective, cutting Latin would displace 85 students who are currently enrolled in that course of study. The position is necessary to prevent that
reduction in service. If we delay language instruction until 9th grade, that will be impacting about approximately 55 students. >> How many uh world languages are we offering? offering Spanish, French and Latin.
>> Question on the slide it list one language teacher for 72k but the position cost >> we'll see it on the next slide. >> Yes. >> High school positions continue. >> Wait. So this is part of this is to address that bubble year.
>> Yes. Um after this bubble year moves through, would you see the same needs here that it would be a choice between or would you rejust the >> One of the things we would do is readjust. What's happening now in some classes is we have one teacher teaching
three levels of the language. Um, and we'd like to get away from that model if at all possible, but that wasn't enough for us to force this choice to have this position included. >> This this bubble class will be in the
high school for the next five years, >> right? So, >> well, they'll be high school. >> They'll be utilizing because they're in seventh grade now. So, they'll be utilizing the languages for 5 years.
Are they all getting registered? >> Yes. Let's go to the next. >> The other um one other position um the high school has a slightly bigger ask is the restoration of a point4 music teacher. And the strategic value of this
is about maximizing the student experience and making sure every hour of the school day is used effectively. By restoring this position, we can directly expand our program of studies to offer more electives and performing arts opportunities, areas that we know keep students engaged and connected to
school. The alternative is simple but problematic. If we do not add this position, we will not have enough course sections to fill student schedules. This will result in students being underschedled, leaving them with empty blocks or excessive study halls instead of productive learning time.
>> Is that happening right now? How does that change? >> It is happening right now. >> We have far too many students in study hall and we are barely meeting the state's time on
learning um recommendations because of it. Can you talk a little bit about how you would fill a point4 music teacher? >> We currently have a 6 music teacher. We would just make that music teacher full time. >> Okay. Question is about the insurance.
>> So, um, okay. Turkey Hill, the one interventionist has insurance cost of that 312K. The high school has two positions, but the insurance cost is still 31.6 6 teacher probably.
>> Yeah. >> If they're at 19 and a half hours a week already, they're already >> they're already getting health. >> So, it's two positions being added, but only one >> only one has health insurance. I just want to make sure >> No, you're already paying it, right? >> Yes. And I just want to add that I
thought um Mr. Santry was very um eloquent last year talking about the lack of choices our high school students have because of many of the cuts. This obviously doesn't go it doesn't go too far, but the fact that there's kids who really have not a lot of options when it
comes to what their high school career is looking like. >> I think when we talk about retention, it's providing those opportunities so they stay because it just gets worse as students leave to go to different schools. >> Yeah. So, I I want to I I value that.
>> Um, my daughter wanted to stay in band in high school and stay in advanced math. She had to do a whole year of math during the summer because we only offer one class, >> right? >> Um, but I also want to So, I get it. I'm
not agreeing. But I I also want to us to not forget that we voted to be a small school district and we are not going to have a lot of offerings. It's going to always be limited. So just as a point of like
let's not forget that and that you know Lunberg will always be a small school district with very limited offerings. >> So >> I can reply to that. Um, the time on learning requirement I'm very concerned about given the amount of
time that students are spending in study halls and are under scheduled for academics. Um, I know there's been great debate in the community, people thinking that students need study halls because they're stressed out. Um, but being a
small district, we still are held to the same standards. >> I I don't disagree. It's just, you know, and and by the way, >> the uh music used to be huge when my kids were in school and they used to have their home room had to be the auditorium because I had, you know,
close to 60 kids. So, I get it. It's just the conversation of the meeting the basic need versus, you know, adding a lot more offerings because now we're just spreading us too thin when you add too many offerings and
not enough of everything and not having enough students. We're not really serving the students too fast when we try to expand their offerings too much. >> We we offer dual enrollment with Fitchburg State or how many take that up? I can get back to you on that.
>> Do we push that >> students? We do. >> Okay. >> SEM there. >> I know for sure there's others. I know. >> All right. I'm excited. Now you're seeing how we're getting up
to 167,000 for the high school. Um we last year um cut the bridge program at the high school which is a transitional program for students that are having school adjustment issues that result in
acting out behaviors um in the high school. Again, it's something that we thought we would try for a year to not have this program. It's something that we realized this year was a mistake. Um not you have
this program. So the restoration of these positions are not just nice to have. They are critical infrastructure for our indistrict programming. They specifically serve students who require significant social, emotional or transitional support. The financial reality we face is binary. We either
build the capacity to serve these students here in district, their home community, or we are legally required to fund their education elsewhere. The consequence of not restoring these positions is that the district and town be forced to fund additional out of district placements. Historically, the
cost of tuition and transportation for these external placements far exceeds the cost of hiring internal staff. This request is a proactive measure to control this cost while providing better local support for our students. >> How many students were certified? You
know, I'm sure it would fluctuate. >> I can go back and look. Um, right now I think we're at about 16 students that could use it >> and that that keeps students in the district and >> at a human level it keeps students in
their school community >> that's 16 across all 12 13 grades. >> No, just program >> just behaviors correct. >> That's right. And just to give you an example, this
number nearly knocked me out of my shoes. The other day I was talking to Mrs. Hans and to add one van with a monitor to a transportation route that we can't regionalize. Say two students weren't going to the same place. The
cost of that to the district is $70,000. Transportation alone is $70,000. for something that's worse for students. >> So this is for teacher and apparel. Was it correct? Was this called something else? I don't remember bridge. We
referred to it as something else in the cuts. >> Did you refer to it as a TLC program in the cuts >> at the high school level? I think we just called it interventionist. We did not refer to it as the bridge program in the cut. That's what it was. was very nervous about this cut because
this is a very important program that keeps students in district. >> Yeah. And one of the things Mr. Santry spoke to us about at one of our meetings about his strategic goals is keeping kids in the classroom. It's a it's an issue that has happened all across the
country and across Massachusetts. Um but chronic absenteeism and I'm you know that kids not coming to school. Um, and some of that is this program, you know. >> So, there's one for the high school.
>> Yes. >> And we have TLC programs at all of our schools. So, we have programs for students with this challenge at all of our schools, but we cut the program at the high school last year. And >> so, it's currently zero.
>> Yeah. >> All right. The next one is a district request. And you'll remember that I showed you the data about the number of English language learners increasing. I can get
you more information about their primary languages and where they're currently enrolled. But currently, the addition of this specific position is driven by necessity and compliance. Our English language learner program consists of
just two teachers who are stretched across all four of our schools. Meredith Weiss, for example, goes to all four schools in one day, catching kids as she can. She has to say no to teachers at the high school who want to have her
come in and co-e and shelter the students English development because she simply doesn't have time to do that. and we know that's a best practice for teaching. This level of staffing is no longer sufficient. This new position is required simply to meet the minimal
service levels that each level of English language development requires. The consequence of not approving this hire is clear. We will be unable to meet the suggested service levels prescribed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. And this is about ensuring we remain compliant with state
guidelines, but more importantly that we provide the basic level of service for English language learners to succeed. Okay. One of the reductions that we made last year is we created a position where one
of our high school assistant principles is a halftime high school assistant principal and a half-time athletic director. Lunberg Middle School faces a critical operational deficit. With a principal currently stretched across two distinct
school cultures and over 250 athletes competing in a single season, our leadership capacity has reached its limit. The staffing reductions in last year have not resulted in true savings. Instead, the cost has been transferred to our staff and students in the form of
administrative burnout, diminished program quality, and most concerningly, increased liability regarding student safety. Restoring the full-time athletic director and assistant principal positions is essential to close these gaps. We cannot continue to compromise on oversight. This restoration is a
necessary investment to ensure a safe, stable and successful environment for the university. >> I do have a question on this one. So currently the person in the position is fulfilling the role of part-time assistant principal. So what would be
the guesstimated salary of the AD not also so we just have already in place. So what would be guesstimated salary for the ad without having that? >> If we go with a full-time ad and there's some discussion whether it's we could
may do with a halftime ad but if we go with a full-time AD I would say in the low 90s high 80s. So, I I I very much struggled with the full-time AD idea. Um, we we we h we
didn't have an AD when we had more students. Uh, it was always a part-time. Um, and I know we added the middle school sports. I I understand that. But we used to have a part-time AD
and then we used to have a part-time secretary. And the idea of the secretary was that she would support that part-time position. And then we went on to a full-time ID and we still kept the the halftime secretary.
And and we have less students than we ever did. And then I hear that middle school sports only cost $6,000 extra year. I'm like, these stories are just not mashing up. you know, you got to have a straight um and and we go back
to, you know, what I said a moment earlier, like we are a small school district. Um I think the uh Minutemen vocational school, the you know, they're bigger school than us. They don't have a full-time AD. So,
I I do support the idea of, you know, I I think this building and two schools are too much for, you know, the principles that you don't have. But the full-time ID, it's it's a nice to have. And that's my personal opinion. And I
cannot wrap my head around how we went from having fewer students and and you know, and much more staff. Um and and on top of that, we have added an athletic trainer that also and I
understand there's requirements all that. It's just a lot of adding that I you know does not enrich the academic experience of the kids and that's what we are here for. >> I guess to just to kind of piggy back on
that one thing that maybe if you haven't explored it comboing the AT-A >> comboing the AT >> that would be a deal. It's sometimes very difficult to find people for
positions, >> but I I know if >> my spouse being an athletic trainer, I will say if if somebody was paying $90,000 to be an athletic trainer in 2025 and you had to be an AD on top, you're going to have a lot of people jumping at that. >> I think there's a lot more to being an
athletic director than it was 20 years ago. It used to be teachers would get a stipen for like $6 to $10,000 and it was an easy gig. It's it's much more complex these days and very complex scheduling. And I I if you I think if you look at the surrounding towns or the comparable
towns of in our in our even our league, I think you're going to find that every district every school district is going to have a full-time AD. It's not that you can get away with having a part-time AD or a teacher doing it. So, in 2019,
we were paying the athletic director um 45 uh about $50,000 as a stipen. So, it was not a six $6,000 stipen. Um all the the towns that
Lunberg are original, so they're all bigger than us. And you know, it's not a it's it's a question of need again. like this is not enriching the can the you know our students learning ability
like let's have the sports but do I I just cannot wrap my head around how you can justify the increasing staff when you have 200 less students s on the district and by the way my kids were
here we used to have part-time by the way we used to have the part-time ad not 20 years ago It wasn't until FY20, which is just 5 years ago. So that's a big difference between 20 years ago and now. It's three five years ago and it used to
be part time. I I I just don't it's hard to explain this to the voters, especially when we are trying we have asked for an override and now you know we have other bigger asks. is really, you know, if you're if you're an athlete in Lunberg
and if you want to be, you know, in the big leagues, you're not going to be in Lunberg. And that has been proven by kids that are top performing in the state. And they moved out of the out of the Lunberg district so they can be in a larger district. But I'll tell you also
in the year, you know, that my kids were here, uh, the ski team won the state champs and we had one of the best golfer, female golfers when my son was, you know, in high school on the state. So, you can accomplish that, but it's a
question of, you know, value and what are your priorities? Um um I was going to ask some of this of when we go back to the school committee. I would like to know, you know, a little bit more history of when we had a part-time versus a full-time. I agree.
Adding an athletic trainer to me is an interesting conversation. I'm not but I, you know, I I would like to hear some of that. But I just do want to say that sports are such a fabric of a community. And you know when you go to a football game or you go to a soccer game and you see students you know who are performing
and and and working together on a team and you know I'm not an athlete. My kids are but you know I'm not an athlete. I never was. But it is something about belonging and being a part of a school district and working together and it you
know I didn't go to an Ivy League school. I went to Lunberg. I did fine. Um you know I think some of what we want to do is we want to raise well-rounded kids. you don't have to be, you know, you don't have to go to an Ivy League school to be a success. And so academics are really important, but also being a well-rounded person is really important.
And to me, you know, I think that sports are a part of that whether you participate or not, whether you're, you know, a participant or you're someone who watches. Um, so, so >> we're going to go back to Dr. >> Excuse me. Um, I didn't I didn't say
sports are important. I just I am questioning the need the need of a full-time athletic director. >> Okay. >> And we went and we went from Thank you, Chris. And we went from having a full-time teacher, music teacher to now
having six music teacher to now having an like we got to talk about priorities of the district like we are reducing staff elsewhere and we're increasing staff and a very large number for a very small
it it does not serve a lot of kids, you know. So we just got to put our priorities and pick our priorities and fund the priorities. That's all. And I am not and sports are important. I am not saying otherwise. >> Yeah. And and I just want to say about us being a small district. It's not like
the kids in the school district today voted not to regionalize or they were the ones who decided not to regionalize or whatever it is. It's not like many of the adults who live in this town were the ones who decided at that time that we were going to stay as a small district. So, I just think putting that
on people 10 to 20 years after that happened, it's not really fair to the current population because it wasn't a decision that they made. >> If you were if you have children in this town, you should do your research and say, "Oh, it's Lunberg. This is the school
system. You know, you're buy you're either renting or buying in town." You kind of know what you're going to have. Uh so it's not it should be a surprise that we're not having three of the kids and all sorts of things that a that a a
larger school system would have because we're a small town. So pe people like I guess they come to this town because they like that. Um and if they don't like that, they probably won't come to this town. >> Well, I think smaller towns too, they do co-ops, right? We have a hockey co-op,
we have uh the ski team co-op. So, I think you can get creative with it and if you have enough kids to have a team, you have a team. >> Yeah, surely Lunberg is pretty much, you know, in a bunch of sports and a bunch of other I would think I would think we should try to do more of that.
>> Yeah, we don't want to take away the opportunities because again, it comes back to the beginning where we talked about retention. Kids are going to leave. They'll leave if the there's not the opportunities yet. >> Setting up co-ops requires an athletic director. This is a lot of work involved
in it. that would involve an athletic director doing work to administer. >> Yeah, I would love to see the data on how many schools in the state, even public schools, don't have athletic directors or don't have full-time athletic directors. >> Caesar, can I add one quick point? This
is quick. Um, one of the things that we're looking at and one of the things, by the way, I think you've seen the school committee. >> Yeah. And Tony agrees with you. So, >> you're inviting. TONY AND I HAD THIS CONVERSATION. >> YOU'RE INVITED TO DO WHATEVER they want to yell at me.
>> You're invited. Um, one of the concerns that we have is we're watching what happened in North Middle Sex Regional School. They built that beautiful stadium and now they don't have a football team. It's a co-op football team. We want to make sure that we have somebody and I don't think it
personally I don't think it needs the beautiful done person either but we want to make sure we have somebody to make those re outreaches for co-op like it it is it is unlikely that we will be able to field a high school football team based solely on Lenberg students in five
years given the number of students that play the Bengals the number of influx that we get from other sources. Is it >> true? >> It's going to be really hard. I mean, we're going to be we're going to be at like >> the bare minimum. >> How do you know? >> Well, you look at the numbers going down.
>> Even if that's true, like you would do a co-op. >> So, we we would, you know, like having a co-op is something that we need to have somebody be able to do. I just think that it may or may not need to be a full-time person, but we're going to need to do more co-ops because again,
your point is correct. We are responsible. resource sharing, >> right? >> And and this ski team co-op was developed prior to us having a full-time ad. And I think it was mostly led by parents. >> So, I think any creation of a sports
team is going to be led by parents. There's already parents talking about trying to create a girls volleyball team. >> I think that's a huge group of girls that want to play girls. So when when you when we come back during budget season, just whatever
model you're proposing, let's have the data centered around the decisions that were were um thought through on it. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. And we can also look into the time constraints for the reporting and the requirements from the state as far as
reporting and paperwork and the the legal things that we're being asked to do because that does keep increasing year after year. One thing that we've had this year is we've had excellent budget management in athletics. Just saying >> that we have this year.
>> Yeah. >> Super excited about having numbers. >> Now >> I have a few slides that disappeared from this deck and it all has to do Now you look at your watch, Mr. Manar.
is puzzing >> and it all has to do with central office restructuring. So, I'm going to try to talk you through them without you having the visual for them for what I'm talking about. What we want to do is we want to
eliminate a 1.0 FTE reading coach and we want to transition our 1.0 O math coach to an instructional specialist where 60% of her time would be serving students and working on math skills and 40% would
be coordinating data and coordinating our multi-tered systems of support. Um and we would move her from an administrative contract back to a teachers contract. Um the cost to do that, believe it or not, is approximately $10,000.
There is no cost for insurance because we are already paying insurance to this individual. And the reason for this is while instructional coaching is a proven model in theory, our internal data indicates that the current implementation is not yielding our
projected return on investment. Does not mean that our coaching our coaches are not wonderfully talented, incredibly brilliant people. It means that the model that we're using of coaching cycles is not working for our teachers.
What we're finding more effective is if the coach or this role can work elbowto elbow with the teacher in the classroom and service students at the same time. Um so we're excited about that. It's
this is a strategic pivot. is shifting the focus from indirect support to direct student services to maximize our budget efficiency. Um >> so that is one part of the central office.
>> The position again I >> the new position is um instructional specialist. >> No, what was the old position? >> Um math coach and literacy coach. So, we'd eliminate the literacy coach alto together because we're adding all these interventionists
and we would transition the math coach back to the teachers contract. So it' be one less administrator that we had in the district and she would be providing 60% direct services to students and 40% um support elbow to elbow with the
teacher in the classroom on implementing um the first layer of instructional support. >> And the cost for that would be >> it's approximately $10,000. It's not a savings. Um believe it or not, she would make more as a teacher than she does as an administrator.
that math coach, Hunt math coach, seems to have switched every year I've been on Finn. Um, if I remember back, I think my first year they were introducing it and then it couldn't get filled, so they went with a different model and then they went to it or something. It just
>> Yes. >> No, I remember math specifically. >> Amy Resnick's been in the position for a while, I think, since it inception. I just remember the debate because I being an engineer, I'm particularly interested in STEM
>> and I was surprised at how difficult teaching math was for for many teachers, which is how that was kind of sold to us that year. >> Um, so it just seems like we haven't gotten our arms around
how to how to deal with that. It just seems that we're >> No, this isn't a capriccious whim. This is Oh, I don't think it is. >> This is really looking at our our data and what our data and what our teachers are telling us. Our teachers have had um
major input into what I'm presenting tonight. And our teachers have said that this restructuring is something that would work better for them. And we are already doing it in some ways um with um
the math coach that we have now. This would just increase the amount of direct service that she'd be providing to students. >> Okay. >> The next part of central office restructuring is we want to reduce our
data reporting manager to a 0.5 position. That will save us approximately $35,000. And we want to create a 1.0 0 assistant business manager position which would cost about $4,000 for a net savings of
$31,000. So the challenge that we have right now is we have some operational vulnerability. The current data reporting manager role has gone grown way beyond its original design. The role currently balances high stakes financial
duties, accounts payable, warrant preparation with critical state reporting and student information system management, which most of our state funding is based on. The risk is this dilution of focus. It's creating significant operational vulnerability.
We are, in my experience, from the spring to the fall of data reporting cycles, we are chronically late because this person just has so much on their plate.
Um, so and Chris actually worked works way more than 40 hours and it creates a vulnerability there because if Chris is not available for an extended period of time, say he wanted to take a vacation
or a day off, um, not having some redundancy there in that office and some class training would really be detrimental to to us. It has been detrimental to us as you've seen in years past in growing this position.
So, we want to create an assistant business manager position who would be responsible for warrants um would be responsible for our accounts payable and should we have a shift in
payroll responsibilities that would also land in the business office. And it looks like that's coming for us um given some of the town transitions that are happening and given the size of our
payroll um for the community. Um and then what we would do is we take those data compliance responsibilities that's not a full-time job. We would take that and create a halftime position for that. >> Can I ask a question about that?
>> Those duties that you just talked about kind of align a lot with what our admins and our clerical union are doing for across our I mean I know it's a different volume for the school district but you see that more as a managerial or
assistant manager type position versus an administrative assistant type position >> the assistant business manager you just talked about >> AP it's talking if you're talking about AP and um you know payroll rents things like that you think that's >> yes >> more managial
>> yes because we're off that those that our administrative um assistants are doing comes up to my office and then there's like 20 more steps that have to get processed um before that. So it's
very what's happening in buildings in the buildings they're more collecting the data we're processing the data preparing the data transmitting the data to the town excuse me verifying contracts and all yes >> so it's like
it's it's instead of it coming through each department it's kind of where it sits when it comes over to me for like processing racks I It's more of that like >> are there tools or systems that could be
put in place to help with this? >> Not in the way that the town is currently functioning. We there's definitely room for modernization. Um we still I was signing our payroll warrants today which the
school needs to sign um at our next meeting. But I was signing our payroll warrants today and they're all still paper time sheets. >> So this seems like maybe there is tools and systems. >> There are tools and systems. I think we
wouldn't realize a net savings if we went in that direction. It wouldn't eliminate a position. Somebody would still have to do do the work um with those systems. It could never be fully automated. I think, you know, something that I just
heard today, we have some meetings next week just on payroll specifically, but one of the things that I heard today is the way that our payroll person for the town was able to accomplish some of these things is she was taking them home after the workday and doing them in
front of the TV. And so some of the reality here is probably the same in the school that things are getting done, but because people are bringing home their stuff, they're bringing it home and processing stuff at home because they can't get it done in the workday.
>> Mr. Chair, could I respond to Mr. Um, one of the things that we tried to do in regard to updating systems was we had tried to propose a cashless policy that would went over like the Hinderberg. And so there are many tools
that we could use and we have tried many times and go different ways but we need uh an array of thoughtful responses in opposition that is sometimes surprising. uh the you know the cashless uh policy
would have streamlined exactly what some of what you were talking about with receipts being still on paper and then you're like we get the receipt we scan the receipt then we send the scan so like it's just it's kind of crazy. So we are definitely exploring those options.
We had put forward policy. Public opposition was too much and so we had to go back to the drawing board. But yes, >> there are systems. But you're right. We will get opposition to that and it's something that would have to be done town timewide. This wouldn't just be a school project. It would have to be done
in collaboration with the town. >> Payroll. We're still transitioning at some point to employee self-service, I would imagine. And that is school and town >> part of the conversation next Monday. >> That might modernize it a lot. >> It it should at least create some
efficiencies that will take less time and be able to allow people to look and audit things pretty quickly. >> And I don't know if you you've looked at our individual warrants. It is a large number of qulorants from a very diverse
number of places. Um, sometimes it is just a handwritten form. It's it's a little bit harder to simply automate. Someone needs to look at everything and it's such a large variety of bills of different formats of receipts taped to
pieces of paper of parents submitting forms for reimbursement. It's it's such a large number and some of them only happen once. So it's not we are looking into automating it. Um like
the automation part hates printing paper. >> No better. >> Um but it's not that simple. It is definitely there are a lot of >> I'm more optimistic. I think we can do this and I think that that you're you're
correct. I just offer the cashless policy as an example of like this was not a technological problem. This was not an implementation problem. This was uh people in town didn't like it. >> Large number of users who use things in different ways. >> Sure.
>> Any change management is going to have opposition. Just because it's changed, but that doesn't mean you don't do it. >> Representative, >> right? I Mr. Manard, I couldn't agree with you more. I just don't think that this is a next year. >> That's fine. It was just a question. >> Yeah.
>> And I do think that it would require the town manager and I to work very closely together with all of you um to make it happen for me. So that's it for my central office restructuring plans. Any other
questions? >> Oh yeah, I know. Oh, the total cost is $95,000 and the insurance cost would >> assistant principal. >> Oh, that was for the assistant principal.
>> The total cost, please. For the central office restructuring, I'm going to do the big number in a minute. um for the central office restructuring is we would gain back $31,000 and the insurance cost would be $31,281
>> net even. >> Yeah. >> Drum roll, please. Chris, >> I think I lost that. >> You lost that, too? >> Oh my goodness. >> This has been happening to us all day. Each time we go into it, we're missing spots. I I swear they were there this
morning when I don't >> that just keeps happening. >> You should print the paper roll. >> I can't anchor the chair of the school. >> That was well done. Well done. Um the estimated total cost of all these
restored positions and restructuring assuming hiring level and all positions take the highest level insurance is $979,842 which I realize is a huge ask 979842 >> and that's over FY26 current
>> 979 what I'm sorry842 that's including terms Mhm. >> That's your Hold on. But to be clear, that's the positional changes. That's not your plus overall health insurance. It's just the health insurance for these positions. Yes. Okay.
>> Yeah. >> So, you gave us that number though at school committee the other night. >> You did the and I have been working on this for a while. >> No, you gave us the total including everything. I thought >> Oh, we're going to get to that. Oh, okay.
>> Sorry, I'm rushing now. >> That's just the first >> Yeah, we It was 1.4, wasn't it? >> Yes. >> But actually, it was longer than I thought it was going to be. >> Cuts that were made last year. >> Oh, that's going to be a three-year
process. >> Yeah. This does not fully restore us to where we were last year. >> No. So, I'm gonna give it back to Chris and he's going to do some year over years and some um
summations for you. So, for FY25, I won't get into all every single number for you, but I will say that the available budget as of today was $556,136 or 97.8% 8% used
and that was wrapped by 25. >> Chris, what are the the negative transfer? >> I'm actually looking into that. I couldn't wrap my head around that this morning. Um I'm not sure if they were transfers out into grants or whatnot, but I'm currently looking into that
right now. And I knew that was going to come up tonight. >> Did you? We'll get back to you on that. For FY26, the total budget, including the $500,000 in free cash, was 26,287,474
with salaries totaling 17,110 $10,394 and expenses totaling $9,177,080. Chris, yes. About the negative transfers. Um I learned last year that when once they put a budget in, if they
need to make an adjustment to the budget, >> it doesn't you can't. So it looks like a transfer out. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the next two slides are a three-year comparison that we have for
FY27 through FY29. And I'll get into the numbers for FY27 first. So for the FY27 budget, the salaries are projected to be 17,376,41 and that is doesn't include adding any
of those requested positions. >> That does not include the 900. >> Yes, it doesn't include it. >> So this is added. So this is level basically level staffing. >> Level staffing >> is the 17. >> Yeah. >> Does it include any assumptions around
the two contracts that you're negotiating or does it have them at the FY26? >> It has them at the FY26 range. >> Thank you. So for the projections for so the teachers contract is up in FY27
and for FY28 and 29 I gave steps to the teachers based off of the previous year contract but I didn't give them a cost of living adjustment just because that's >> it has to be negotiated Mhm.
>> For expenses for FY27, we're projecting 9,875,772 for a total FY27 budget of 27,252,173. >> Does that include the new positions? That 27 >> what? >> Oh, but the 27 number the 27252
>> doesn't include >> 173 include >> doesn't include >> the cuts adjusted. >> No, not >> projections for the FY28 budget.
Salaries total 17,767,838. Expenses for FY28 are projected to be 10,695,991. And one of the reasons that the expenses have gone up dramatically is due to health insurance, increasing special ed
costs. Um just to name a few >> I just want to jump in um here on health insurance when I presented on health insurance a while back maybe in October it was I had said that we were told to budget for the same 14.8%.
You will hear that Chris has budgeted for 20 and the reason is that we were told in our meeting with our insurance advisor that that's what we should be and with the insurance company that that's what we should be budgeting for. So, um, we are hoping for that number to be less when we find out what the actual
number is in January for the whole average of the pool and then we'll find out our specific number sometimes in in February, but we're hopefully safe at 20, but you can see it's getting really I mean, we used to be thankful for a 6%.
>> Did they say 20% over the all three years? >> No, they said 20% for the first year. >> Okay. Because you're 20 over three years. >> Yeah. Oh, so it wouldn't be going down in future years. It might just be worse. >> It could be 20.
>> We don't We don't know what the second >> No, I'm just saying what's in here. What's >> So what's in there is >> Right. And but our advisers did not give us anything. >> They they will not ever go more than Right. >> So if I can
and when we look at the FY27 budget, that number 27,253,173. That is in effect our level service budget. >> We cannot sustain any more cuts in
personnel. I can't emphasize that enough. We cannot sustain one more cut in personnel. Our achievement scores are showing us that the needs of our students are increasing. We are running
as lean as we can. A class of 23, 22 to 23 kindergarteners without a par. Classes of 25 and 26 at Turkey Hill, we can't we're having trouble fitting kids in classrooms. Um, so
I just wanted to emphasize that point that that is the crucial thing about this budget. We cannot sustain any more personnel. >> So you said the achievement scores. You didn't show the achievement scores.
>> Yeah, I showed you the reading scores. I didn't show you the math scores, >> but we didn't show it over time and how that's being affected over time versus the I can one of the things that I >> I'm not doubting you. Yeah.
>> I just like to see the data associated with that. >> Do that. >> Can certainly look that up and if you want to do it before I get it to you, you can go in the department of elementary and education website and they'll allow you to go back as many years as you want.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> So, Dr. for tuna. If I take that FY27 budget of 27.2 and add the number you gave us 979 842 that's our need. >> Okay.
>> So that already has the expenses budget. >> Okay. Okay. >> Did we get to the total yet for increase for FY27 >> percentage increase?
>> The amount because you talked about the 979842 being for staff only. >> Um what is the total for >> the total for 26 to 27? >> Yeah, that number is the level services.
>> The 27 to right. Am I >> correct? The 272521 173 is level services. That's a million bout over last year >> and that's with a 20% >> increase in health insurance costs. >> What is the amount? So it would be the
difference. >> It's about $600,000 I believe. >> So I I think so so it's the presentation then like I don't want to >> I was just going to do it without you. >> Oh no, go ahead. I'll I'll hold off. But
I think Anna's point is that we had the 2752, we add in the 979842, >> but we haven't dealt with the non salary level service changes. >> The expenses are all level service. >> Yeah, they're just level
>> with the assumptions that we gave you before. >> Okay. And lastly for FY29, salaries are projected to be 17,881,874 and expenses are projected to be 12,39,94 with a total FY29 budget of 30,60,551.
And I just wanted to note one thing about the FY27 budget to FY26 budget. Today we calculated the percentage increase not including free cash that the town gave us for a one time
purpose. It was about 5.6%. So just that's just a fact that we know >> for the level service. For the level service does that include the health insurance or No, >> it does. So the So if we took the health insurance out,
what percentage of an increase? You don't know that off the top of your head. I'm just thinking that would be a number that would be interesting, right? Because we've talked about how the health insurance is built in to our budget versus all the other departments. So I would just be interested, you know, it's a 5% increase for us this year, but
that includes our health insurance increase. When the other departments came in front of us, they would give a percentage increase, but they're not including their health insurance. So, right. So, I would just want to make sure I have more apples to apples in that sense. It's less than pie. >> On the chart where it said FY26 budget
summary and it said salaries, expenses includes 500k in free cash. All that free cash was in salaries. Is that right? >> I believe 44 about 443,000 were salaries and the remainder were in
expenses. So if my math is right, the needs based FY27 over the FY26 budget. I guess you might have this number already. >> No, 1,944,51.
>> Sounds about right. >> But but that's.95. >> But that's that's.95. >> What's that? not counting the 500 that you that you have, right? >> I would have to do the math. I'm not sure of the exact figure off the top of my head right now.
>> So, because if I subtract 27,252 and change minus >> the 25 >> the Well, if I subtract the 26 287, >> yeah, >> is only 964,000.
So it's definitely with the >> that that increase is with is not counting the 500 >> that you have. >> Correct. >> So just to clarify the total FY27
needsbased budget is 28,232,15. >> Is that right? need based or >> so that's need >> need based so the need-based budget to say it again is 28,232,15 and that's the level service budget plus the
979842 >> correct >> okay and the number we're comparing it against right is the budget for this year which includes the free cash >> correct >> well but When Chris did the percentages, he took the free cash out. >> Okay.
>> Because we knew that was a one time cost. >> Okay. >> One time. Yeah. >> So, one thing that I think So, I I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm scarred from from previous
years of school budgeting. I don't participate like you guys, but I watch I watch your meetings. >> You're not invited to all the athletic director discussions. I send you an email. someone I'm fighting with Tony. >> No, it so >> I'm just kidding.
>> I you know um one thing I would love if we could have a conversation is to really isolate the the the health insurance increase that you have. And I'll tell you why. Because when we started talking
about the override, what was discussed in January, why we need an override and the built conversation until we had the override and we passed how we used the money, it was not how it was told that we're going
to be using the money in January. So, for example, the health insurance was one that in January there was started with almost $700,000 in increase and ended up being $368,000 by the time all said and done because we
didn't have the increase. So, I I think by isolating that number to the number that we expect will allow us to because but if this it's not just the school, it's the town as well, right? we're going to have to cross that bridge together, liking or not. And and and I
so then we can really focus on the needs for that we have for the staff, you know, in order to service the kids. And when we finally get that number in February, we'll be able to make the adjustments to the townwide budget related to insurance. But really isolate
that number so that we don't start in January with we need 1.4 and run with that. But then it comes to the end, you know, the insurance was really not 700, maybe it was 300,000 and and offiscate what the kids really need
because that's what I want. It's really like what is that we need to deliver for the kids. So, you know, I at the end of the day, I don't care which bucket it is. It's all one big bucket, you know, the way I see. So it's just if we could
really call out the the number that we expecting for insurance and if that number goes away, you know, we don't have to do with it or not as much. So we can really focus on the kids and what the kids need. I think to piggyback on that, I think what would be helpful is if you have your sheet available as we
get closer to like your roster, not with names, but your roster of X people on this plan family, X people on this plan individual D all the way through. And then we're holding these assumptions because one of the things that we may want to do which
is where we get crazy with budgeting sometimes is that if we're we've talked about what was it four instructional folks >> adding on four. So let's say we're adding four yes for budgeting purposes. It's one thing that you want to assume that they're coming in at the highest,
but if we're holding four family plans, we may not want to put a we may or may not want to put a 20% increase on four family plans because not for they're not all coming in taking four family plans, right? So, just to be able to have that
because that's something that I did for mine, too, so that we can because it's such a big cost driver that we can really be a little more surgical in dialing up or dialing down the health insurance. >> That's a good question. Um, I'm not sure. >> So, I looked I looked at the last bill
that we received for health insurance and I believe was 166 staff members currently are enrolled in some form of health insurance for the district. Excuse me. So, that's just um fact.
So, so that's about >> what percent of staff >> about 50 60%. >> 60%. >> Yep. >> Um, you know, another something else that's not was not part of your presentation that I would be remiss to
not bring it up, but I have brought it up via emails is really the our school our avail schools available to our district. are. So here's something else that on
all of these funding conversation we have not talked about five five to six years ago part of our cherry sheet was we had about $500,000 in kids that were coming to Lunberg that
that's now around a h 100,000 the town like as a as a budgeting thing we have had to absorb that $400,000 right we We we had to absorb that and this is a school committee decision that
has affected our budget on on on top of like I just did a calculation between FY24 and FY26 the town has funded this Lumberbury school district uh not you know just directly 15.8%.
So the time is showing up. So I think you know the school committee needs to all know that this is something they make a decision and we have less kids than we ever had before. We should be making Lindberg
public schools available throughout our district. >> So isn't there a cost associated with that's more than we get sometimes? >> Oh definitely. We get $5,000 for each student we accept. Our per pupil right now is around 13,400.
>> So why would we want to accept more kids that costs us 13 grand back? >> It's not a per kid. We have an infrastructure that you know right now let's say I'm just going to use >> I'm not very familiar. I I'm only so familiar with this being brand new. So I
you know I >> No, I I I hear. So we have an infrastructure that you know can educate 1500 kids or 1,600 kids and that's the you know you're getting added with the same infrastructure.
>> So I think strategic >> so I think you have to be strategic. So for example my nephew is in a class in the fourth grade. He has 28 kids in his class. So I would not be supporting any fourth graders coming to this school because I mean my nephew already has 28 kids in his class. I I
>> um my my son is in second grade and I know we've been letting second grade kids in because I he has reported back to me that there are three or four new friends in his grade. So I do know that strategically we have been cuz I think the second grade just happens to be a grade that's not as big. I I would defer
to you but um >> yeah we made that decision last year. We looked at the smallest class sizes and open >> fill all the slots. Do enough people want >> Yes, we did for second grade. We filled all the slots. But what we did not take into consideration, and this is why second grade is large,
>> is we have moveins. >> Yep. >> So there's a town that closed a school nearby and people have left that town, moved to Lunenburgg. So yes, we had a select number of school choice spots open. However, we also had
six moveins in addition to school choice. So now our numbers are exceeding what we thought of when we allowed school choice. >> And I I the primary school right now is 401 students in the primary building.
Last year I had 384. So when we're talking about numbers going down maybe overall in the district, but not at the early levels. They keep on showing up and they keep on coming and we can't close our doors. So, I think we need to be really strategic when we think about
this. We're working with less staff than we've had. There's been cuts over the years. Everyone's valuable. I I welcome anyone to come down to the primary school. Um, it is interesting. Tony's been down to see it.
>> It's bananas. I >> actually You guys would like I I >> So, so, you know, come volunteer in the school. So I was not you know I I I have looked quite a bit on this subject. So for
example Hudson I actually sent them an email and asked you know we lose about 20% of our between 8th grade and our ninth grade we lose about 20% of our of our students like the class size decreases and I think some goes into you
know Monty and stuff. So, you know, Hudson, for example, they have a policy that they always have space in the high school. So, you know, like I'm just thinking of possibilities because it's important to over time kind of have a
policy how we handle these things. But you know it it it's just take the responsibility and please just I'm asking you to consider that that now the town is observe the town side of the budget is absorbing an extra 400,000 that 5 years ago we did not have to.
>> Can I clarify the Hudson piece before you go on Anna? They open up rooms in ninth and 10th grade only. They don't accept people in grades 11 and 12. I so I >> unless things have changed but they've also lost over a thousand students in
the past 10 years. >> I think Lunberg historically has always offered the high school. It's more of people don't want to come high school. They want to come at the elementary level. >> Typically thinking of the empty slots we had at the high school for >> we don't fill the high school slots. Yeah. One other thing that I think for
for staff in particular that I know Westford does this which is if you work in the town and if you work in the school district you can school choice your kid in and that and Westford being a top tiered school district there are a
lot of staff that choose to work in in Westford. Westford's not known for to pay well, but a lot of people choose to come into Westford so that they can bring their kids into the school. Um, and and that's, you know, I can see a pirate professional who's living in
Limster might want to bring their kids to Lindberg. >> Did you explain? >> Can I can I make one? Um, one of the thing I all the things you said resonate with me. uh we we voted to increase the number of school
choice seats last year over the previous year. I think that we had some spots that were vacant. The one thing that I I want to make sure and I hope and I think presentation did a good job of this is that while attendance has gone down,
it's got not gone down like a ton. And by and large, our cost drivers are not like an additional 30 students. Our cost drivers are really tied up in health insurance, increase in special
education costs, increase in transportation costs, and then increase in utilities. So like those are our big drivers. Um like Michael Ray Jeff when he was on select board used to say this all the time and it's like the the days in which
school districts had cost drivers based on you know finely tuned students. That's largely over to one with one exception and this is really important. This is one of the things that we've been talking about with the chapter 70 funding because Lunberg is so small.
When students move in or students move out, it can have like two or three students away, especially when you're on the line can have a huge impact on the budget. So my first year on school committee, we crossed the and Brian, you were on there before I was. We crossed
the threshold by adding two students in one year. It like went from we were in one one group of funding to another group of funding. And so like while there is some relationship between the number of students and costs, it's
largely things that are sort of independent of you know 100 students either way except for the chapter 70 funding. And so like the problem is the formula doesn't favor a community like ours, right? And so the place where one
or two students does have an impact is a place where we are losing out to other school districts with different demographics. And >> I just did a quick check of our enrollment. In two 2015 we were at 1553
or 55 students I forget. We are currently at 1563. So, we haven't lost a large cohort of students over the past 10 years, at least from where we were 10 years ago.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And and when you look at I missed part of that. Sorry, Mike. You needed a good night text. Um but when you look at actually the places around us, we have fared remarkably well. I mean, North Middle Sex, a lot of their finance
issues are because of diving enrollment. Um I mean, when you look at the chapter 70 formula, It's it snowballs like one affects the other. >> Exactly. Because as enrollment goes down, you get more less money, you can offer less, more kids leave. It just it right. It just makes it worse.
>> And our birth rate in Massachusetts is not going up. So the fact that we are having essentially low or slightly increased enrollment means that we are doing and this is based on the number of moveins, right? And the moveins have a lot of risk as we talked about at time.
So like it may be that like we're seeing these bumps, but it's not our budget is not impacted by 10 or 20 or 30 kids. And so I think that looking at the cost drivers like Chris and Dr. Fortuna outline, we can see that they're really
sort of things that we don't have much control over. >> And again, it's a ask and and I'm pointing out numbers that, you know, was part of our cherry sheet and no longer is and is in your control. Yeah. >> And I'm asking to please, you know, have
a consideration. >> Absolutely. >> Chris, can you hop back to an early slide that you had on utilities? I had a question about that. Um, as soon as the chair said utilities, it made me think of >> Okay.
>> So, I have a question about FY26 budgeted versus the actuals. >> Yeah. Are you just thinking that between electricity and heat you'll get a wash there? Because the actual the actual on
electric FY25 is so high. I'm wondering why you're budgeting lower and then vice versa. Heating is so much lower than budgeted. Are you just hoping that they're going to watch? >> So >> I know you didn't budget this.
>> So I know that we're locked in for a rate with I believe it's EG energy it's.177 watt >> sure >> I believe and >> that you know that scares me >> I know right
>> you never >> so I would have to look at the contract when it ends but I don't foresee electricity going down but I I am looking into the heating cost just because When I look into the general
budget in the unit, it showed that it did go down. So, I'm hoping it washes. >> The other thing, too, is pay attention through the winter heating season with those green community upgrades that you had to see if that you can get some actual usage savings. >> Okay.
>> So, the presentation went through like a strategy, tactics, measures, actions, you know, that kind of approach, which I like. Happy you did that. but it focused on the the literacy portion of it. Is there anything related to math or other
subjects? And when are they outside of this three-year planning window? >> As we add more interventionists, we'll be able to address our math needs, but our literacy needs are greater right now. So, part of the strategy is to
prioritize literacy. But do you see that like three years from now you're going to start attacking math? So that I'm kind of looking towards you know what might be our um challenges leading into this budget season you know and it may be around
what did you say 3 million? >> Well if if I just do a loose back of the napkin guesstimate here we have about 2 million here half million on fire department and half million elsewhere. So we're looking at baseline without this is all back in the napkin. We're
looking at >> very loose 3 million >> right now. >> Um and so my question would be and I you know I asked to look at it that's 27 is that also then we can live within our 2
and a half override of 28 29 but then you're going to come in with kind of another step up basis in services. I'll just call them services, additional services such that we're looking at a future override or that
>> or future challenge at least or you know what I'm getting at like the math portion of this or other portions are going to come in down the line. >> I want to take this long view of things especially in this meeting with the three of three groups here. I my best
answer to that question is that our population of high needs students is increasing. As that increases, our requirements for staff will increase. Hopefully not at the same rate as the
high needs students. But the alternative piece is we hope that the addition and the restoration that we've talked about over the next three years, we hope that that starts to close achievement gaps so we won't have the same needs three years
from now that we have now because our students are achieving at higher levels. >> Does that answer your question? >> Um maybe. Do you view them as utility players so that you'll be able to pivot
them like okay we've got our literacy kind of more now we can pivot them to more 50/50 is that >> yes for one thing that I I wanted to ask I know the answer but I want to make sure um to answer something
my understanding and this happens to be the case in my house is that when my son presented with issues related to math math and reading. Once the reading stuff was worked on, the math stuff followed
in a way that outsides the amount of intervention you receive because in early education, the math is a lot of reading. >> There is a lot of language and reading um based in our math um and our MCAP
scores. I honestly think of the math portion as a reading test. um can kids read the genre of application problems and are they able to do it? So, I do agree with what you're saying. Does that I mean that answers some of it. Like I
I'm really proud of him. Like he he started out having, you know, deficits in both. He got his reading scores up and his math deficit vanished. And it was, you know, like I don't I mean, obviously he's an extraordinary kid, but
it happened in one year. So like I think that what we're seeing in the numbers, especially in the lower grades, is that a lot of what looks like low achievement in math is actually low achievement in reading that's impacting math. And so
when we fix the reading, the math follows without any sort of additional expenditure because like you know >> I also think kids are extraordinary. My kids have struggled with their reading and once they get it it's amazing right so once they get what they need um it
really is incredible like that they can you know Henry my oldest he had benefited from the the MTSS teachers over the last few years and he's really doing great this year. So, but I scared to know where he would be without them. Um, >> I know that too. Where where would this >> Right. And and some of the those
positions are no longer there, right? But um but yeah, no, it really >> poor reading skills have an impact on everything. >> And now we can readational. >> The literacy is foundational to everything else. We can put all the
money we want into math, but without the literacy foundation, the math's not going to come. I don't think anyone's second guessing like that. You've prioritized the right thing here. My only question is that if we're looking out budgets for the next 3 years and
beyond, is there now is this going to start to get us on course and we can stay on course health insurance aside um or you know or is there just something else that's going to come out in three or four years that is kind of simmering
in your mind and you need to have strategies related to it but you're pushing them off. I think Chris, can I try to rephrase what you're saying? I think he's saying like would this $2 million, $3 million, $2 million bump solve problems for years to come or are we going to come back in two years and
need 2 million more? Is that or am I not >> No, no, no. I mean, that's it. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Which No. I mean, I think it's a good question. I think you made a wonderful presentation. I think there's a lot of new positions here. Is this where we want to be? You know, it's not where I want to be, but I also think Dr. Fortuna
has been is trying to be realistic. I know it sounds like a really big number, but I respect that she is trying to not, you know, blow blow the number out of the, you know, >> a very somewhat achievable number. It is not overreaching. We are not even asking
for next year to go back to what we lost the year before, right? >> We're still two steps backward and then one step forward. Um, we're not going to >> I think it's I think it's a good question because I don't know that we can say that I personally can say >> the issues are always,
>> you know, when you look at what this town and every town in Massachusetts deals with is right, >> our resources, our revenue is pretty much defined. >> And we've been lucky in our town in that uh one of the reasons why we haven't had an issue with student population is
we're growing unlike some towns. We're growing pretty fast. >> Yeah, >> we were like the second fastest town state uh small town growth. So, but our students aren't growing. So, there's more houses with less kids than the same number >> same the same number of kids.
>> So, we went through a period of the last few years of higher inflation, higher than we've had in a lot of years. And that and health insurance being one, but others drove all our costs up. revenue two and a half to say oh but if
inflation's 4% no we don't we don't have that now they might change the rules on us and how they calculate and other things we're talking about it but if this so then so over the next few years if inflation our inflation with health insurance and all
that is two two and a half% then we'll find that we'll be doing better you know we'll say oh aren't we great this not really So what we've done the last few years is we've had one override but we've also
had to make some drastic cuts. Why? Because we couldn't pay for all the things. And that's still the case we are here today. >> I saw all these things all these things that uh everything was was good things
for the kids for uh the fire department for everybody. The the question is can we afford it? >> Yep. And if we can't then the decisions that we make about what we value and that's you know and do we want to do
another another over those are the you know revenue and and the resources and I think uh I think for not only uh the various boards but also for the department heads and the town manager and for the school committee and for the
uh finance people and the superintendent is to is to think about various different options and plans. Okay, we got this amount of money this year for the school. Okay, what what do we think is the most important? Because I'll be honest, if it comes to the finance
committee, I don't know. I mean, my kids are all grown up. I have educators in my family and I I ask them all sorts of questions and I get there for 10 teachers. I get 10 different answers. So I am really going to rely on the
profession, the people that the town hires that both and know these things and what is best what is best for the for the for the kids and uh and I think uh and and for the town. So uh that's where I am
going to be uh pushing my my uh my voice over the next six months. >> Appreciate that. So one other Oh, I'm sorry. I just wanted to take another step at Mr. Manard's question. >> Sure. >> I think the district right now is at
rock bottom. I think we cannot go below a level service budget and be able to offer any type of quality education to children. Um, so I'm thinking that you won't have any
big surprises. I'm not planning on lobbying any big grenades other than the fact that I have to tell you we need to maintain at least this level of service and we really need need
not want need the positions that we outlined tonight. >> Yeah. Honestly, like I think it's the surprises that is what no one wants, right? It's you bring the bad news in its totality as soon as possible and then we collectively work towards what
the solution are. >> Just like Tom said with weighing the options, maybe we can't do it all, but we got to make our decisions. >> But it's when the surprises come year after year after year that are anticipated surprises, that's when you kind of get into the the problems.
You're not managing your budget. You're just reacting to it. >> Yeah. If we can maintain the staffing levels with adding that staff, I think we'll be in decent shape. >> So, one last area of the budget that I noticed has grown quite a bit between um
the past few years is the social workers and psychologist services. Um in FY24, social uh social workers and guidance was a 460 for FY25.
The final expenditure was 771. That's a $300,000 increase or 67%. For psychologist, FY24 was 190. FY25 was 287. That's a
90,000 and a 48% increase. I know some of these you know increases came during co we needed to support the kids but you also talked today about high needs students. So is is there any and and
also during this time I know as a district we put a lot of emphasis in supporting the kids on emotional learning. Um is are these two you know groups of staff is this do you
see them us needing to continue them or do you can we go back to some pre-COVID numbers on on these services? >> We need to continue them. >> Okay. >> We are we are at the base of what we can do to function and offer students what
they need. If we did not have those positions we would be losing kids to district placements. Okay. >> Yep. There are IEPs that specifically require school psychologists. >> I I I again I'm not I'm it was a question. Um and is there any of these
services like psychologists um that can be refunded by insurance companies or No, >> we the town does recoup some money through Medicaid um reimbursement currently. I don't because we don't see
it. I don't know how much it is. Um, but the town does recoup some costs through Medicaid reimbursement. We do time studies where they have to kind of report what they're doing every hour and then Medicaid decides what can be built. >> Okay. >> Where's that money to?
>> Probably a general fund. >> Okay. So, that goes back. >> Yes. Um, there was some talk about bringing on BCBAS. No, >> no, theoretically theor >> Yeah, there would is that that's
>> that would depend on how our student needs evolve. We have one BCBA now. >> Um it I think Juliana would love to have two um just given the rise and the
definition of children on with um autism. Can you remind me what BCB stands for? >> Board certified behavior analyst. >> Thank you. >> And we cut one last year. >> Correct.
>> Yes. In the in the budget cuts, we had to cut one. >> And you only have one of the entire district. >> Yes. >> The line item that you were talking about was school psychologists and then social workers. We cut over the last two
years a social worker at Turkey Hill and a social worker at the primary. So currently we are working with one social worker. I I can give the number at the primary. One social worker for 401 students. Um so that position was eliminated
and I believe the primary building was eliminated first and then last year we eliminated at Turkey Hill. also know you only have one and I don't know their numbers off the top of my head. You are correct about that. Um which you knew you were
correct because you're Mrs. Quiet >> social worker service. >> You're also sharing a.5 psychologist school psychologist between both buildings. So um the enrollment in Turkey Hill and given the enrollment at
primary um they're sharing one psychologist right now. >> Can can I just respond to something about that? One of the things that I mentioned when we went to the education forum that uh Mandy helped organize. >> Okay. So, you know, but for the people
that didn't watch, one of the things that I asked the legislators about is whether or not they've considered an amendment to the regulations or statutes regarding outofd district medical related services that are build to the
school. And so, if you look at the regulations for out of district placements, there is a very very small sliver of costs that are borne by private insurance. There is a much larger slice of costs that are borne by the school but are medically related and
then there are educational costs. And so what I had asked and what I'm probably going to end up doing is drafting a revision to regulations or statute to make private insurance pay for services that are medically related. But for traditional reasons and probably a
little bit of uh good lobbying by insurance companies. >> I was going to say it's all about they probably have a much bigger lobby. They have a bigger lobby than all of us combined, but they were able to to shift cost bearing on medically related services. Like one of the examples that's regularly mentioned is a clear
intermittent catheter. And it used to be something that like maybe a school nurse could do, but it's medically related. And in some out of district placements, we pay for that. And it makes no sense. It's a it's a medical procedure. Like I I said at the beginning when I was talking to Renee, the test should not be
whether the insurance companies want to pay for this, but whether you as a person would let a non-medical person do this to you, >> right? And so, you know, like if we could recoup just a small percentage of those costs, even with only 15 out of
district placements, that would be a substantial savings over time. And so, the hope is that we can work on legislative fixes to that just like with the busing. And I'm sure you know this, but we had submitted a revision to the regulation on bus safety inspections
that would require them to show that they've engaged in uh competitive bidding. Um I'm probably going to lose my headlights to somebody, but you know, whatever. The the problem is that right now those two
places are uh places where the statutes do not recognize reality. And until we have competitive bidding among buses and uh payment of medical costs by medical insurance, it's going to be forced to contact traders.
>> And one thing we have not seen um over the years change the subject a little bit is a plan and for or aka a budget for all the grants related and revolving funds we used to see a little bit. So
I'm I'm hoping that as we go into the next budget year that this is going to be part of our part of the conversation and presentation that we'll get from you guys. Um and you know and also clarification on like the cafeteria
workers technically we're getting reimbured from the state um extended day we have staff there who's paying their health insurance. that has never been very clear to me on you know questions that I have had. So I think clarity
around all these things helps us make better decision and support in case you lose some of these funings. >> We'll definitely be able to do revolving funds federal grants right now. It it's a toss up with what's happening. I I
couldn't predict what we're getting back for reimbursement for any of our federal money given the dismantling of the Department of Education and the handing back to the states. So I for
our initial budget presentation when we're in budget season, I still don't think we'll have the answers for that. So I want to set a realistic expectation. Um most of our grants are federal reimbursement grants. Um but those that aren't we can definitely um
provide an update for you on >> I mean even a conversation about this is the plan without the grants and this is the plan with the grants so that there's clarity around those that conver that >> absolutely >> and even just the historicals on on all
those >> the other thing I'm curious to see as we get into budget season is I know you made changes with fees and the bus increase athletic activity the kind of numbers you're seeing come in from that office. I don't know if you're going to continue that next year
or not, but I I don't it's not going to be a fivedigit number. >> Yeah. Banging last I checked in, which was a while ago, um we had collected about 50,000. >> Oh, wow. That's really good. >> Yeah.
>> You know, here's the reality. I'm sorry if I disagree. So, Tony, I disagree with you on this one because I know how you feel about it. >> I agree with you. And then Laura convinced me. >> So at this point I you can see I do math and how many teachers and how many pairs things would pay for and
>> well the the thing about the busing that that I you know if you don't put a fee on it >> I know I >> people are going to overuse day. I know I know you're right. I'm just it's >> I know I know I wish we weren't in that place.
>> You're absolutely right. There's it just I was public defender for 12 years. I I made so little money at the start of my legal career that I qualified for the benefits for the people I was representing. I just can't it like hurts
my heart to charge a kid to come to school. But you're right and it's it's a lot it's substantially more money than we thought we were going to raise and it pays for a teacher and at the end of the day it's about student achievement. >> I don't right >> Mr.
I don't think people stopped riding the bus. So, I don't think people were just >> saying they were using the bus and then not because it was free. But >> I mean, all the decisions are bad. >> Charging. >> Honestly, >> I know. I know. I I I know it's it's hard, you know, and
the you know, I my kids just by the way, my kids just graduated less than 10 years ago. So, it's not I'm not that far out. But you know one other I I you guys are looking to buy two minivan two vans to drive kids to school. >> Oh no to to drive the kids to sports events.
>> Okay. So the ski team that was the state champion the parents drove the kids to the valley. >> Of course. >> So we know this. >> So you know it's like we are providing more services now than we did 10 years ago. >> It's more equitable too. We have more low-income students. I mean, I imagine
there may have been students who didn't get to participate in the championship ski team because their parents were unable to drive them. >> I I I I think I think I think you're you're you're a that's a big assumption there. Um I I think it was a lot of car pooling and
working. My point was we are offering more services now than we did before. And whenever we do that, we're adding to to you know a very tough situation. That's my point. I just think as the former vice president of the ptl, there are not a
lot of parents who are available to help with with this kind of stuff. I mean, I you know, we are a small and mighty group that raised 20 grand last year and we we gave away 20 grand last year. We had raised over a few years. Brian's wife is a part of it. You know, there's there's just not there's not enough
parents who have the time and energy to be able to even participate in that. So asking parents to do more I just think is is hard. It's not >> and and it's going to fail, right? It's >> right. I I mean I mean we have done everything in our power to get more people to join the PTO and it just it's not
>> I I think there's also more families that have two people working now than it was 5 10 years ago too. >> For those that were not able to tune in last week and I know there's probably a lot in the public, there was a little commentary on the forum. Can we just get
like a little brief on the forum or maybe where we can go see it? Is it online? >> Um, yeah, there's a link online. Um, >> I know I looked last week. Yeah. Uh, I posted on my personal Facebook, but I'm happy to send it to the town if they want to post it or whatever. Um, you know, I wish it was a little bit more
well attended, but I think our speakers did amazing. Brian spoke. Um, Shauna Brell who's the president of the PTO and also Mary. Um, there was a child who spoke. she who went to festival who was unbelievable. >> Um like numbers.
>> Yeah. So, you know, I think I think it was a good first step. Um I'm going to do everything in my power to keep pushing on this kind of stuff. Um you know, there's a group of parents and and other people who are really well, you know, want to keep going, but it's a long slog. Um you know, I think
personally my next goal is to get something in front of Governor Healey because I drives me crazy when she's out there talking about education and we're getting, you know, killed. Um, but I I have some ideas. I'm kind of hoping to maybe get some kids to make a video. What do you think about this, Jen? In
your old law, your old political days, right? >> Get them in their face. >> Better that everyone says, "Dear Governor Healey, put those kids in those elevators. >> We're going to have vans to get them to the stadium." >> Just as long as they don't idle.
>> One of the things I I wanted to tell you is the idle cost for the winter track was outrageous. So the hope is that the vans will help abate that. We also have a plan from uh the athletic director to abate the cost even without the vans. So
that was a cost that we immediately identified and uh shouldn't even put something in place. >> That's wonderful. That's great. >> Drove me nuts. >> Oh, it drove me nuts and I wasn't even the school. >> I had a drive there. I had a drive there while the buses were there.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, one of the things John Cronin said, Senator Cronin said during the forum last week that made me absolutely insane is that Lemonster and Fitchburg have got gotten $50 million from the Student Opportunity Act. >> So, I I think that's an important point
to make relative to that forum that it was entirely clear that the the state is at the the root of most of the problems that we've been discussing here. >> It really pits uh citizens against each other that really essentially agree. Everybody here agrees that kids are a
priority and the state is failing in in supporting and funding not only the children. That's that's a a high high uh emotional issue, but they're also failing the this the towns in general in every single community in Massachusetts.
The state is failing. And I think they forget that the 351 communities of Massachusetts make Massachusetts the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. and they are not funding the towns appropriately and everybody knows it and I expressed some um discontent with signing that
last letter because I had said we're telling them stuff that they already know letters we have already sent and it's infuriating and everybody in that form and it's probably why you know I wasn't sure even why I went but I was glad I did it I I learned a little bit about the foundational budget that that
was how how that works was new new to me but every single person in that room understands that the state is the problem and it's also very important for us to understand that the taxpayers of Lunberg are very generous to the schools
in Lunberg and the children in Lunberg. So all these struggles and all these difficult choices that we have to make are the direct result of the lack of funding from the states specifically in this forum schools but in general like the discussions they were having the
other night. A very simple solution while they figure out how you know this one lever changes another lever and causes all these other problems is simply providing the towns back their own tax dollars through unrestricted general government aid. and we can find
out the appropriate place to put that money. We don't need them their complicated formulas in levers. That is that is so frustrating. And when I say they made the formula, I understand it may not be the sitting representatives and senators. I do understand that. But
they are the problem. and and I really want to thank all of you for your willingness to sign on to letters and do things which I know is frustrating but um the only way we're going to get change is to be the biggest pains. How long has
this been how it's it's >> we've got to do it strategically and I do agree >> this hasn't this is this was not an issue on people's radar preco >> I actually have to say that I have seen a lot of articles out there about school
funding and um mass the mass municipal association report they put out. I >> I um I have will always be accused of being a turtle optimist, but I there's if I mean with your Jen and I used to work at the state house together
a long time ago. I mean this is this is the most energy I have seen behind this issue. >> Even starting with the forums out in the spring. >> Yeah, in the spring. So it just wasn't an issue. It did. The math worked for a
long time until it didn't. Nobody complained. There was growth. >> It was the Student Opportunity Act of 2018 >> when they passed it, >> right? >> People slowly figured out that it wasn't working, >> right? But that was 2018, right? The student,
but then you had Esther money, right? We had the Esser money, we had ARPA money. This is the first year that we are really everybody is on their own. Well, what's frustrating about the conversations, and it even happened at that forum, they talk about all these communities that were turning down
Proposition 2 and a half overrides. They identified that as a specific problem. So, what is government's solution going to be is get rid of Proposition 2 and a half. So, you have two contradicting statements right there. People are saying the residents, the voters do not
want to violate uh Proposition 2 and a half. And then they're gonna suggest why don't we just get rid of proposition two and a half. >> So in my it's it's >> in my political opinion the chances two and a half goes away is >> but the fact no but the prime there was definitely prime in the pump with that
report that report >> that report says to me clearly that the problems of two and a half are highlighted because of their lack of funding to the local communities. That is the problem and their solution is going to be you mark my words get rid of
proposition 2 and a2 even though everyone is telling them that the problems with the communities nobody wants to pass a two and a half override. So they want to take that right away from voters. It's it's what's going >> I I don't know that data is proving up I
I just can't imagine the legislature voting for that. Well, we're talking about first of all, I just don't want to go that unchallenged about Levenster and Fitchburg getting a lot of money and they're rolling it and the perception
the uh having uh somebody who works in a very large city with uh a lot of the challenges in that school system is dramatically different and dramatically more expensive than this town has. And I
would agree with that. >> So that this that the state of Massachusetts focuses resources towards those areas is something probably is a good thing in the long run. Now the question is is can the state provide more money to towns
like Lunberg fairly well to do not you know uh the answer is yes I would accept the money however if it's taking away from Fitsburg Lemonster Worcester Boston New Bedford and other towns that have a lot of issues I would not so the
question is going to be is how is the state going to change these things now two and a half was done in 1982 you know all sorts of things have changed since the world has changed since then. Um but it was voted by the people. It was voted by uh the proposition. So the question
is going to be it's going to be very difficult for them to make major changes unless somebody comes up with a new way of doing it. And the goal of two and a half was back then is to keep property taxes down. >> No. No. No. >> It was
>> the goal was always though that that was supposed to be a lever. It was not supposed to be a cap. It was supposed to be an optional >> optional lever. >> I was a voting person in 1982. It was sold to us as schools and and teachers
and everybody who was against Barbara Anderson and all those other people. >> Caesar's neighbor. Fun fact. >> Yeah. All those people were saying they're fat. You know, those school departments, those school committee guys are just raising price. They don't care about our my cost of my And of course,
that wasn't the case. Maybe in some towns, I don't know. But what it was was that that people were sick of it and they put this in two and a half was not about inflation. Inflation was 10 15% in 198. It was about and the state says
we're going to provide you with some money and we're going to help you. And they have for the last 40 years mostly have done an okay job. Not perfect. Nobody's happy about it, but it worked. Okay. So the question is, as I said before, we just went through some
inflation and two and a half wasn't enough. So we're we're angry now. If inflation continues, I mean, our inflation, not CPI and all that stuff, our costs. If it keeps on going up and it's not just us, it's Groten, it's it's
all the other towns that are like us in uh you know uh Townsen and Peril and all those other places, then it's going to be John Cronin and and and Michael and and and all those people are going to hear and and all those people are going to be pushing at the state house to get
something done. And I that's what's going to happen and that's how politics works. However, I hope it's not at the cost of the towns that uh that uh have less resources than we do.
>> Yeah. And I just want to say I agree with you. I 100% agree with you. One of the things I would say though is uh my son in second grade has a friend who just moved to town from Lemonster. He was getting MTSS services in Lminster because they have enough resources. He or whatever they're called now,
interventionist services. and his mom asked if he could get interventionist services here. He's right on the in that yellow, I'm guessing, right? The interventionist services were keeping him up, right? We don't have the resources. He would be better off that same child going to Johnny Apple Seed
than he is here in Lunberg. And that's not a problem. That's nothing with our teachers. That's nothing with anything like that. It's just where he lives, right? And and that's the truth. >> So, I think what I heard it was not that they're Lemon Pitchburg is getting too much.
>> Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's that the the state is not giving us enough and you know the state budget is 60 billion. They're giving to the towns and cities in Massachusetts less than $10 billion.
They need to increase that share. Like it it's it's just insane how government makes government in order to spend money. And that share of money that comes back to the cities and towns need to increase. and and that's it's anyway.
So, I just want to thank you all for continuing to listen to me because and sign things and stuff and I'm going to keep asking you because the only way we get things done in politics is by being raising and I do think that our our reps and senators want to help but they need
to be reminded every day that we exist and that we are a priority, right? Because they are hearing from about a million things that and that's just how politics works. Yeah, I think it's keeping that open communication with the town manager, the superintendent, and all the chairs. >> Absolutely. Everyone >> with our representatives because again,
if chapter 70 doesn't change, we're going to need those supplemental resources and they need to know what we need. >> And the recording is on uh YouTube access. >> Oh, yes. >> Is it the whole thing? Cuz it was cut out. >> It's 2 hours and 15 minutes.
>> I need to correct. I got bad information. Apparently Nancy Oor is watching her. Somebody's reporting to her. She says she never brought anything home to complete in front of the TV. So, >> CORRECT. >> I thought I don't know. I know. She said dedicated. >> We're on Zoom.
>> Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. >> Not great. >> I love our employees. Our people are so dedicated. >> She's retired. She's still watching. >> She's retired. >> He's amazing. I can entertain a motion
to adjourn the finance committee. >> You first. >> I'll second. >> I'll make a motion to adjourn the school. >> Well, let me take a >> do not. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I.
>> We'rejourned. Now I'll make a motion to adjurnn the school. >> So move second. >> All in favor? >> I I'll make a motion to adjourn the select board at 9:52 p.m. Those in
>> favor say I.