good evening today is Tuesday March 25th i called the school committee meeting to order at 7:30 i would like to remind everyone that we are taped live and streamed on WMCTV everyone is here tonight which is great so welcome except for Earl but everyone's present who's here so there will be no roll calls
which is great so thank you all for being here much appreciated so having said that I call the meeting to order and we will um rise for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all righty thank you very much we will jump down to the superintendence
report miss Mary Murphy thank you Mayor bless you um earlier today I met with Judy Crocker from Safe Routts to School um at that
time she shared um the Marorrow student um route maps which are maps that they've identified as roots to safely walk to school um for each of the schools and um that is one presentation
that I would like to do at the next school committee meeting and each individual school received a student radius map where she mapped out all of the expected students for next year in their school so we can see um where all
those students are and identify safe walking routes to each school um it's very funny because in on for most of the schools the roots that she has identified and the safe routes are the same as the initial planning for the
principles but I've asked for them to meet with me prior to the next meeting just so that we can have the first public presentation and start the discussion in the city about what it would look like um she's also recommended a couple of extra um
crosswalks um not as many as the elementary principles so we'd like to compare that information and we'll share both with during their presentation at the next meeting um I've also um wanted to update the committee about the good
now um principal elementary principal search um as we know Good Now principal Amy Malcaren has accepted a position in another district um and her last day in Marbor will be June 30th 2025 we are beginning a search process
for a new GoodNow principal people at Good Now we're really anxious to get the search um moving the updated job description is attached to my report i will also be sending out this week um
looking for parents and staff volunteers to um serve on an interview committee and my proposed timeline is the first round of interviews the week of April 14th
finalist having site visits and superintendent interview the week of April 28th and an appointment announcement at the May 13th school committee meeting um so any questions
yes I go directly to you i know shocker yeah so um thank you for the information uh relative to the um school walking zones and the safety information definitely looking forward to to reviewing that information um couple
questions traffic commission meeting is tomorrow morning um and I'm sorry i think it's Friday oh then then that's gotten moved and correct not advised so thank you i think an email went out i think the agenda went out and I think it is on Friday
yeah i guess I even though I had been warned about the meeting on Wednesday I had not gotten the followup that it's now on Friday police chief is not in he's not available so he's away i'm going to confirm that please continue
your question so on that note I will not be able to be there on that meeting now on Friday because I am out of town um so I'm just curious if we wanted to go into that meeting at least giving them a heads up so that hopefully we could be
on the agenda for the next meeting um to really better discuss some of the crosswalk needs and things like that that were suggest being suggested i think the next meeting asking to be on the agenda for the next meeting is much more reasonable exactly um because then
we can compare our requests to what um Safe Roots has suggested they've also suggested a few locations where if the DPW did some targeted work could expand the walking zones and they have suggestions on what that would look like
but that's a future project that is not an immediate project great and then the other question is um with a number of the new apartment complexes that are going up where we've had some um conversation because a number of them
have um two or three bedroomedroom uh apartment situations um have those areas also been factored in um just to make sure that we're thinking about how they're going to fit into what we
currently are designating for the district like I the ones in French Hill would seem to me that those possibly would be open i don't know i'm not exactly sure on there are three schools that send from that area of the city so it depends
on what elementary school is and um in the past because of overcrowding issues we have identified certain complexes to go to another school so prior to having some more details I
would be hesitant to say about that one the um route 20 one we've McGee farm um we've talked a lot about that because potentially we'll have to change schools
be because those they go to jar now they would they would be designated for jarrick and jar cannot take a number of students from that area or anymore um Kane potentially could especially if
they have a reduction after this Yeah so thank you that's really what I was getting to is that um if it's possible Mayor Christian for you to try and spearhead on getting some of the information around um specifics of when
they think some of those um apartments may be opening you know that may help us on kind of back backing out um the idea of um where kids may either need to head if there has to be any form of
redistricting or if we need to take into consideration around the the walking areas um and I'm not trying to like hop too far ahead but I think we we probably need to have these conversations knowing when the
approximate open times are going to be because also supposed to open in April they're leasing no they they're already advertising and they're and they're taking applications so yes I I get it i also am remembering a conversation that
we had around the table a couple years ago when some of these were um being discussed and we were told that there would not be any children moving into two and three bedrooms so there's definitely going to be children i'm kind of thinking they're going to be children considering they're two or three bedrooms and that's why I'm asking if we
can try and start having that conversation my understanding also that the McGee farm um units have a walking path built in that potentially or the plan is a walking path to go to Kane school right the complication is that um
safe roots have identified a number of threeseason paths right in Marro so that would be something that we would need to know if it's a threeseason or a four season exactly because and they've put
some of those paths on our map so at least we're aware of that okay thank you that those were just a number of the points that I wanted to make sure we were kind of starting to flesh it out so thank you just to confirm traffic commission is on Friday at 10:00 a.m
awesome thank you i appreciate you updating my calendar thank you don't want you to waste your time by going to a meeting that doesn't exist sounds good does it make sense for someone else to go in your place are you on the traffic commission or you've just been attending no I've been attending to support
superintendent Murphy and I believe Patel is on Friday correct because I potentially could go if because the char school crosswalks that's the reason so thank you i really appreciate you letting me know
like where do they meet city Hall yep memorial Memorial Hall third floor fingers sure oh yeah couple of Yeah the the lift does not work to get into Memorial Hall it's like It is three stairs it's like
three steps yeah I could bring my crutches thank you thank you for looking up for me any other questions on what superintendent's report yes can you tell me what changes if any you made in the updated we ch specifically the format
um it should be attached but we tried to organize um the responsibilities in a format that was more user friendly um and I believe um some of the um requirements about MCCAST
because that would is changing even though we're still requiring all students okay thanks okay anything else moving on did she not thank you Mr mayor first
item on my report is 2025 MCCAST testing spring MCAST testing is set to begin it actually did begin today um in the months of March and April Marorrow High School test proctors ran their infrastructure test last Thursday March
20th and Marorrow High School actually begun its testing in ELA today on Tuesday March 25th the infrastructure tests for grades three through eight uh meaning infrastructure testing the system making sure that uh the network
is ready to hold that amount of students testing at the same time that infrastructure test for grades 3 through 8 is scheduled for Tuesday April 1st with testing to begin the week of April 7th administrators and test proctors have been trained on how to utilize the new Lighthouse testing platform and are
prepared to administer the MCCAST test this season thank you to Chris Henry and Michael Lassert for preparing our administrators with the new testing logistics moving down to Investigating History Grant Award very excited to report and announce that we have been
awarded grant funding to support the continued implementation of the Investigating History curriculum in grades 3 through 7 this past school year we have piloted the curriculum in select grade five classrooms and launched year one of implementation in grades six and
seven additionally we have been awarded grant funding for the democratic knowledge project civics curriculum in grade eight that funding will provide us with professional development to continue the second straight year of implementation in grade 8 the grant convening for these awards is on April
14th the elementary principles and Dr reyes will be joining me to accept these awards citywide art show and wellness night is coming very soon we have combined our citywide art show and wellness night on the same night at Wickholm on April 3rd starting at 5:30
p.m our art show exhibits will be open for display uh for anyone who's attending please enter at the rear entrance by the registration office and then shortly thereafter at 6 pm we will start the wellness night uh we will begin our wellness night festivities and please
enter at the front door by the Witcom main Whitcom office and then finally on my report the spring council of administrators for compensatory education otherwise known as case conference on April 9th and 10th principal house Mr chris Henry and our
elementary principles will participate in the 2025 case conference the conference is designed as a strategic working opportunity for district teams preliminary ideas for our 202425 MPS roadmap came from last year's
conference workshops the team is charged with identifying the initial ideas for the continuation of instructional priorities for next school year as a point of mention this conf conference is funded through the title one grant
any questions yes Miss Michelle um R.J are the um the investigating history grant and the civics grant are they desi grants where what who it's an organization called the 18 foundation so
it's its own I believe nonprofit organization don't quote me on that but it's separate from DESIE they it was a competitive grant so we were one of many districts who applied and each elementary school applied individually we were lucky that each elementary
school principal was willing to take on uh that uh responsibility and endeavor as well as principal house on behalf of Wickcom school and then we were very fortunate to be awarded the grant at all four elementaryaries and at Wickcom uh it is
um a grant that comes with professional development that's the primary use of the grant funds is to uh provide us with the professional development to educators to make sure that they are wellprepared to uh implement the
curriculum the curriculum itself is primarily digitally housed there are workbooks that you can purchase too but a lot of it is housed in a Google platform how I mean for equity purposes how would they give it to like one elementary school and not the other elementary
school well I I think it's still kind of in a pilot phase is the way I I interpret it so you can start at one elementary and then branch out from there again we were fortunate that each elementary teacher said "Nope we're ready let's take this on." Now they are
starting in grade four and the 18 Foundation has informed us that there is an opportunity to experiment a little bit with an additional layer of piloting in grade four um and Principal Patel has already reached out and said she'd be willing to do that specifically
great thanks just for clarification so if you want to go to the citywide art show you go in the rear door at 5:30 but the wellness you go in the front door at Yes and you they don't have to they can traverse throughout the building so if you're at the art show you've seen some of the exhibits in the artwork you can
just walk up the stairs and head to the wellness night which is in what I consider to be the front of the building um and vice versa if you come a little later at to the wellness night and you want to go and see the artwork you can just walk down the hallway okay and down the stairs thank Can you clarify like
what happens at the wellness night thank you for asking i was thinking I should probably clarify this the art show i know so it's title three funded and title one has recently joined um in the effort so wellness is kind of a broad term for this event there are a variety of vendors that show up so we're talking
about wellness with um physical activity wellness with hygiene we have uh a local dentist that comes um there are there's representation from Marbor Hospital i believe we have some of the local
Marorrow based martial arts and um like uh physical activity organizations that come to promote just like you know uh health and well-being we also have a presenter that comes to present on the
topic of social emotional health and well-being when it comes to combating um our students and quite frankly our some of our adults use of technology cell phones primarily so that
presentation is specifically around how to mitigate some of the use of technology on the home front so it doesn't become more of an addiction than it currently is so there are a variety of things there's food there too it's a great night it's all grant funded there's a raffle at the end of it come
one come all and uh So do they do it like in the cafeteria they have the vendors set up in the blue cafeteria I believe in both cafeterias blue and yellow and then the presentation will be in the auditorium there is also child care um for families that want to come
it's actually encouraged that you bring children with you we have child care uh that we're providing in the Wickcomhome Commons and for those people who have children in the district and get things like notices this is people know about this
yes they should know there's been Oh so it is primarily the tool no it's primarily because of the grant funding in association with title one in particular targeted toward our elementary and middle school families
okay that's why the uh marketing if you will at the secondary level at the high school wasn't there but I bet those babysitters were coming from the high school babysitters are actually staff um we have staff members that um they get compensated through the
grant at an hourly rate to provide child care so any family that falls within that scope of elementary middle school age uh student can come and bring a younger um child with them excellent excellent sounds like a great
night should be fun thank you thank you any other questions for Dr scaza nope okay moving on director of Finance and Operations fiscally 26 budget presentation Mr wells yes thank you
connecting now excellent uh thank you so uh the FY26 superintendent's budget request uh being presented right now um the FY26 budget request is $84,224,398 that's an 11.1% increase
over the FY25 budget or an increase of 8,448524 um funding for this uh first we're going to look at the the net school spending um as you can see here the the green dotted line represents the required net school spending and the dark line represents our actual net school
spending um as we look at this chart it's interesting to see the the past couple of years that our required net school spending has grown and our actual is starting to look like it's going to converge with that line um it's certainly a topic that we need to be very aware of um that we're about to hit
minimum required spending within the schools um so we have to make sure that we're staying focused on that as we're building this budget we need to fill that back up to make sure that we're staying above our net school spending matt yes can I just for the public because school finance is a very
complicated animal and we use a lot of terms that even we who understand it sort of still don't understand all those terms can you just define net school spending like these the different types of Yes
can you explain those chapter 70 is the money that the that the um it flows in from the federal government and it's and the state provides funding to all the school districts that's your chapter 70 funding so the chapter 70 formula um is based upon the needs of the district uh and the ability for the district to be
able to fund education um so different school districts get different uh funding levels from chapter 70 net school spending is is part of this formula where the state has they they run the formula based upon the ability of the school the the municipality the
town to be able to support education and they run their formulas and this is the minimum required spending that you would have for your town municipality on your on your school district to support education as a closer that's so that's kind of the simplest explanation of it um so the state provides that that
minimum required net school spending and tells us you know you need to be here most school districts are as you can see you look at um you know uh even all the way back from FY1 up through 23 we had a nice gap there we were staying well above our net
school spending requirement we we were certainly making sure we're investing within our schools make sure we're giving enough money there uh inflation has come along um we also are a district that does have need we we've received money from S SOA the Student Opportunity Act um that money was intended for
specific um uses for the school district because we do have that need within our schools um the way that the state set up that funding model it it wasn't set up as sort of a grant that was given directly to the schools which would have been the most appropriate way for that money to get to the school to make sure
that those dollars were going directly to those students we were not given that opportunity because the state took that model and what it really became is simply just a reorganization of chapter 7 so by making it a reorganization of chapter 70 it is simply at this point called chapter 70 so we still refer to
it as S SOA because that we have to report how we're spending that money that we're not really kind of receiving so like when we get a grant we know that grant we we say how that grant's going to get spent we have all this data around it and we reported directly how that money is spent this is a little
less defined because it flows in as just as the the the state's chapter 70 funding so um can I just clarify i'm sorry to interrupt again but just for clarification chapter 70 funds which are designated to the schools to meet the
needs of the specific students that we have in our district that money does not come to the school it goes to the city that's correct and then we are appropriated money through the process of the mayor then the city council yeah
so the city council ultimately gets to decide how much money we get regardless of what the state says we need that is correct yep so the money flows in as revenue within into the the municipality and then the funding model we're a
department of the of the city that receives a budget um as that goes it does not flow directly to the schools thank you just wanted to clarify um thank you i actually it wasn't part of my presentation but I always like to you know try to talk about chapter 70 it is
it's a hard concept to to communicate it's a the formulas are are exceedingly complicated and how it flows that money into school districts um and trying to make it digestible is is sometimes hard and um it is good to kind of try and
help people to understand it a little bit um the next set of charts are are per our per pupil expenditures so this is the um the cost per pupil for what we spend within the school district from 2019 through 2023 um and 2023 is the last published date at this point in
time fy24 has been submitted as the end of your report by all the districts but it has not been processed yet by DESIE to to flow into the the charts so we picked uh we have some comparable districts here hudson North Burough South Burough we have the state average as well framingham Clinton Maynard
Milford and Fitsburg a number of these are S SOE districts as well just like ours and some of them are close as a local and share borders with us as you can see as we flow through um inflation over the same time period was about 19.8% um Malro's increase in their per
people expenditure was 8.8% the lowest increase of all the comparables and lower than the state average um most of these districts they're in I mean all the districts are within double digit digits as far as what their increase was over that time a good portion of them are in the 20 percentile
um 20 20 to 25th percentile which is the state average so they're keeping in line with the state average we have not done so um the next chart will kind of show you very visually what's going on here so if we look back we are the dotted black line and the state average is the dotted red line all the other lines
represent the other comparable districts in 2019 we were right at the state average which is pretty good to where you want to be as far as funding your school district we have flattened out um we have only increased about 8.8% and as we previously showed the state went up about 25% in the state average during
that time period so you can see a huge gap has grown and we're now near the bottom almost at the bottom of our comparable districts that we're looking at um only Clinton is slightly smaller with about I think $70 less than what we spend on a per pupil can I just say one
thing to this also when you're looking at this chart which is an interesting thing so if you look at Hudson who is in a precarious position of their budget this year okay they're I mean they have to go for a Prop Two and a half override
they've continued that growth and we are nowhere near our tax levy and will never be near our tax levy and it makes you curious shall we say as to why we
have flatlined or even decreased over that time yeah yeah yeah it's not good to be flat with that it's you certainly we want to make sure that we're we're funding on a per people's basis needs have increased and and the money is just not going as far as it used to um and
inflation is a big driver on this and and we just have not moles has not kept up with the rate of inflation which that 19.8 is a is a one of the conservative numbers um there are a number of different um uh inflationary factors that you can pull in and some of them are as high as 40% for the same 5 years
depending on what you're looking at if it's you know building materials if it's you know um labor all different pieces so the 19.8 was one of the conservative numbers that was out there um sorry one more thing to add on this slide before we leave it which or the next or the one
before um per pupil if we actually look back uh on the um 2018 we were actually above the state average and that was the last year we
were above it because that was 16,311 um.39 as opposed to their 15,952 right to be fair in 19 we that's the first time we ticked just below the state average we were we were close to it but ticked just below it so So you
know I I just have to say that you know for many many years in this community we have kind of always prided ourselves that our community and our our municipal side has supported the schools above and beyond what they were required to do and
that has kind of been a talking point for you know sit I've been sitting in the sea for 20 years now that was kind of the mantra like that's what we do here in Malro and it's kind of shocking to see that in fact that's absolutely
not what is happening and even though the state and the federal government are giving us more and more and more money to meet the needs of our students we are not getting that from our municipality any longer uh moving on so uh looking at the budget
analysis uh we are in line with a lot of other school districts uh we are 83% of our expenditures are on salary uh it's it's the biggest part of our our expenditure that we have um and 17% runs through non- salary um the breakout of those salary numbers is also in line
with a lot of other districts we're seeing 85% of our our funding is spent on instructional services directly um with 7% of district leadership and then uh smaller amounts for other school services operations and administrative support um so what does that kind of
look at as far as our drivers that are going into the budget the biggest portion of this is a it's inflation that's really driving our budget um and inflation over the past 3 to 5 years has really pushed this so when we had our collective bargaining agreements and our
our our staff you know uh took 012 for their increases over the the the three years leading up to now we also had 20% inflation over that that time period so you know it is we have to support salary which is the biggest part of uh what we we do here so collective baring
agreement settled for our largest unions at a fair rate when compared to inflation and the largest part of our increase is about almost $5 million for salary alone uh the new transportation contract came in and settled lower than was anticipated due to change in service delivery so we have to note very clearly
that it came in lower than what we anticipated but we are going to be running 25 buses versus 33 we run 33 buses right now of yellow buses we are only planning to run 25 next year so we have reduced the service delivery which kept that cost more in line with what we expected otherwise it would have been
about $650 higher which is almost a full point would have been added to the budget $650,000 my my did that earlier too $650,000 if we had done a level service um contract with the bus company would
have been 40% over what we were paying yeah yeah the actual per chose to re to change the way we're doing business to bring those costs down so we actually did a reduction initially prior to reduction ourselves so the savings has
already we've already saved $650,000 by by making that move um and but transportation did go up yes on a perunit basis we went up you know almost 40% on on a per bus basis but we we did change the delivery model so um we also
did have a special education transportation costs have increased as well um out of district is uh this in district increase and out of district out of district is certainly um that's a cost has been increasing for a number of years now um we have seen um I remember
back in the days when it was $125 per day was fantastic um we we're not going to see that any anytime soon again so um I think uh the one of the last quotes I saw for a route that we had to run was close to $450 per day so you know that that is growing pretty substantially as
well um and our out of district tuitions have grown as well um the Massachusetts Operation Services Divi division or OSD sets our tuition rates and then we have to pay those we we have no say in that we can lobby and certainly our groups do lobby to try and keep that number low
but we have seen almost 23% growth in that over the past three years uh three years ago it was a 14% increase um and we've been seeing close to 5% of the past couple of years and I would anticipate seeing 5% moving forward um we're not going to see those low increases any longer because it does cost more money to actually do these
services god bless you you um so that has grown considerably as well we also do have some new placements that are in there that are help that are causing that number to grow even further uh contracted services mirrors the uh tuition growth rate um they they're similar services they're all growing for
the same reasons the costs are just going up so we had an increase in our contracted services and then we did put a a a small monetary maintenance increase in for supplies maintenance and and materials um it was 3% where it was increased uh just to maintain we haven't
increased we increased it I think last year but we hadn't seen an increase in a few years before that so we're just trying to keep up with the the the small amount of inflation that we're seeing uh that goes on with those discretionary spendings um couple of new items that not really new um the high school credit
recovery program is now has to be supported by appropriations and that's due to a grant having ended there was a grant that supported that program um that grant is no longer available so we have to support that with with appropriations is a a critical part of our our education and curriculum and
then the other piece is a new curriculum a new math curriculum and some curriculum consumables um this is on schedule as a replacement uh we do have regular replacements of curriculum that that are scheduled out um this is just a year that one's coming in and it's a half a million dollars for the new math
curriculum which is curriculum has changed considerably um over the past 5 to 10 years um and the prices are are following in Can I just add something to this this is not something that is
optional um the way curriculum is um changing adopted these these days is on a either a three a five a sixyear cycle and then it expires so without this cost
for the next there's no consumables there's no mass hard coverver books anymore it's online in consumables so this is something that we have to have it's elementary it's K through five and
we also have to make sure that we're aligned with the requirement from Desi for high quality instructional materials as well that is correct thank you um so that brings us uh to a total budget of 11.1% um so funding projections well
projections are a little hard right now there's so many things that are changing inflation is is out of control um it's up it's down we're not quite sure what the number is we were happy when it was at 2 and a half% now it's 3.2 we don't quite know where it's going to land out at um so we projected forward basically
we carried forward our our level services budget for our our staff at the top line uh we had some of these positions that were built in FY27 and we just kept them in FY27 we are going to have to have conversations about those as we move into the into that budget year we're not even talking about that yet we're still in 26 um we did put in
now that we know what transportation is we put the projected increase for transportation over the next three years we also did add in the 5% uh expected increase for tuitions into each of the years and contracted services at 5% as well because that is following along uh so as we look out we're looking at some
uh right around 7% increases over the next couple of years we will have to look at that closely and and see what we can do where we can save um but again we the projections are hard right now it's hard to know what's going to happen as we move down the line uh we do have a
certainly a lot of movement at the federal level as to whether we're going to be comfortably funded moving forward um right now we do know that u we're we're hearing about threats to funding i mean obviously uh you know a month or two ago we we had a memo issued to to
stop sending out funds to to the states so you know those fundings that that that are targeted are are part of our budget um and they're they're not even included in this so on the next slide these are our non-appropriation funding items that we that we use to support our
budget which is nearly $5.8 million worth of funding to that also must be supported within the budget um circuit breaker special education circuit breaker is a reimbursement program um that comes from the state and and helps to fund special education expenses um our title grants are on the
lefth hand side title grants are our entitlement grants those are at risk those are certainly some of the the the nonappropriation funding items that are being looked at that possibly may not be funded now we're hearing that FY26 we don't have to worry about but again I
you know I'm not going to take that very far in my pocket um you know certainly we are worried um because there's $3.4 million on our entitled grants $145,000 there on our competitive grants $3.5 million that is not supported within our
appropriation budget if that goes away these things have to be paid for uh IDA uh 240 grant is mainly tuitions um we have our PD built in here and about 8 FTE they're built in as title one as well so we have items that are funded
within this budget that we need for our students these are critical and we're going to have to figure out a way to fund them if that funding does go away and it does not exist within our budget right now we have produced two years of pretty lean budgets um and we simply don't have the sw the the flexibility to be able to absorb $3.5 million if that
does happen to fail um technology capital uh is uh we got four years here FY26 that's $869,000 we are pushing right up against a million with technology capital now this is just a standardized replacement schedule of the technology we have we're
looking at uh Chromebooks iPads um iPads for communication our smart panels which um we just had a conversation last week about smart panels at Goodn Now so GoodNow is now at the age where those panels are starting to fail they're at the end of their useful life so we have
panels in every single classroom right now we have two panels that failed we can certainly figure out how to fix two panels but if that failure rate starts to rise and it rises fast at this point 30% failure rate we're going to have to replace a lot of panels in a new school
let alone replacing the panels that exist in other schools so that's one I think that you know sometimes gets deferred because it you know we we figure out how to limp along a little bit further um we're not going to be able to limp pretty soon here um so all of this adds up and and this a lot of
this technology capital was supported with efficiency savings at the end of the fiscal year so you know during past in the past five and probably further long years at the end of each year we would have efficiencies built in into the budget hiring efficiencies uh you
know holding back on some purchases and we would free up this money to be able to purchase this it doesn't exist anymore it's just not within our budget nor is it within the budget's means to be able to flex up to absorb a million dollars worth of expenditures like it has in the past um so this has to be moved forward in a in a more traditional
technology capital plan um as I've seen in many of the districts I've been almost all the districts I've been in before uh technology was moved forward as a capital just like facilities capital um it has done so on the city side uh it's moved forward as a as a capital plan and it's it's outside of
the budgets of each of the departments with the schools we've had it within our department we need to start moving that forward as a as a capital plan as well as part of the total technology capital purchase for the city um and now here we are with the rest of our budget calendar today is
right there um April 8th will be our public hearing on the proposed budget and a vote for a budget in regular session and April 29th will be the school committee uh the FY26 budget is sent to the mayor and the city council any questions well I
exc I can only ask and you may not have the answer may your question but is this do you know if you and the council and the city are are considering um putting technology back as a capital
plan for the city as opposed to how it's been separated because we we were fortunate enough in the last couple years we had lots of holes in our budget as far as as hiring now we don't have that um and we've absorbed it because we
were able to but the reality is is that it really it's a city project totally you know the city owns everything um and they have needs as well and replacement needs and it's you know so I'm just curious if if there has been conversation regarding it i have not
received a capital improvement project plan from it as of yet okay thank you i I'm just hoping it's on your radar thank you okay well because I believe in our conversation last week in the workshop
also was the talk of the IT people and that's also a very important conversation yes staff staff so how it's shared or not shared or so on so any other questions regarding the budget
presentation Mrs hennessy would like to say something yes or no yes I will once again thank you all um thank you for the presentation and I guess I would say thank you for the workshop that we were able to have um it
really allowed us to um have a lot of deeper discussions around um this presentation um I will say that I'm wondering with the um DPW capital plan were you able to
receive any comments back from DPW about some of the questions that I had raised uh not yet but I do know that the um the the smaller increases those are um annual adjustments just to say we continue to
move this forward we know that material that inflation is causing materials to cost more so those are growth points um that they they just add in a little bit more until they can actually go out to bid and figure out what the pricing is um yeah I have not uh heard back yet from um on the um that generator the
generator thank you the generator generator which Okay and I believe if I'm correct I remember from our conversations that it was a whole building generator as opposed to a generator that only ran small systems for a short period of time i think that was the discussion we were having around the table you know during the workshop
hours or something yeah so then this would create the the whole school as sort of a the whole school would be powered um in the event of an emergency and therefore could be used for shelter purposes as well yeah thank you i mean it just Yes yep same thing yeah trying
to make sure that we're double dutying some of these these large buildings that we have in case of an emergency i think that'd just be helpful to know as we move forward yeah my fault i think I reached out and then I Not your fault you got a lot going on
it's all good just just asking a question um so on the transportation just to reiterate that $650,000 savings was relative to the cut
being made from the 33 buses back down to 25 buses correct so um I do want to kind of hammer that one home because that was um you know all of us sitting around the table having the conversation knowing that we needed to look at whatever
reductions to try and assist us as we move forward towards this budget so um in in my little happy land I'm going to think that we already took a reduction um of a good chunk of change because I think that was being um smart and frugal
on how we handled our logistics so I'm putting that on my list of a check mark of 650 taking off um I do also want to kind of highlight um you definitely mentioned it but the um increase in the special education for out of district
um they actually two years prior to us getting hit with the 14% um that was on an on hold if I remember correctly right we had a 0% because the state actually made them all stay at that same level correct so then there
was a 14% % jump which you can all envision that all of us would be pretty much flipped out by having 14% at one point anyway so then if we just roll that forward I mean it's a pretty large percentage that we've had to take and um
you know we call that 10% since then yeah we kind of often call that our snow and ice because we have no control over that that's just kind of handed to us well it also was a pretty you know that 14% was devastating for school districts because the previous 10-year average was
like 1.7% yep so it was out of the blue we were not prepared for it and it came in the middle of the year after the budget was already set it was Yeah it was not a great letter to receive um so I just want to clarify so uh we had the 14% that year and then the year after
was 4.65% prior to that any other year in my 18 years was under 3% and none of that was reflected that 14% was not reflected in our budget it
was picked it's been picked up in we've been relying over relying on our circuit breaker reimbursement so to the point where we don't have contingencies for a student who moves in so um I just want to clarify that the large increase
predominantly is due to us not having built that in over the last couple of years and it's not due to a high increase in the number of students who are being outplaced we have had an un
unanticipated uh residential placement but other than that like our our number of students place in placements has been consistent it's just that we haven't actually reflected it in the budget that we've put forward to the city exactly and just Yeah and to just clarify for
those watching the money that we're talking about specifically pays for students whose needs are more than we can handle in district so we have to pay all school districts pay for those
students to leave our district and go to specialized schools that meet their needs for some of these students they're day programs so we're paying for transportation for them to get there spend their days there and then come back home for other students who may
need a higher level of need these are residential programs that cost roughly $300,000 a year for one student and if one student moves into our district and has that level of need we have to find
that $300,000 in order to send them to these programs and the way the circuit breaker works is it's pays for things that happened a year ago and reimbures us for
it so it's not like we get the bill for the school and we send it and pay for it through chapter through circuit breaker we have to find the money meet the needs of these students and then after a certain percentage because it's not 100%
reimbursement we get reimbursed partially a year later for the cost of educating these students and that's where that 14% came in so you know our our internal staff that work with
special education students work really hard to keep kids in what we call least restrictive settings as much and as possible we like to keep them in district providing them with that care we don't get this kind of reimbursement
money for those students this only kicks in if student we do get other reimbursement through federal grants but th this particular pot of money only pays for last year's special education
students who go out of district that's correct and and the model itself and when we talk about a reimbursement model I want to make sure that everyone understands it's not a reimbursement of every penny that we spend so we are responsible for the first approximately $50,000 of the cost per student for for
the special education expenditures after that the money that's greater than $50,000 we can receive up to 75% reimbursement for that from the from the state for those expenditures it's not always 75% sometimes it's 67 some it's been 40 and
the problem that we're having now is we're finding out what that reimbursement number is in like October well after we built the budget well after we're operating inside of the year so it is it's not a onetoone reimbursement it is it's a much smaller reimbursement and that number looks big
that $2 you know $2 million that we have listed in in the presentation but it's much smaller than what we act than the $8 million that we're spending on out of district tuitions or the the you know the million dollars we spend on transportation for for special education all of that um we're we're only getting
a fraction of that in a reimbursement and as you said in a rears so interiors so my whole point was actually kudos because the special education group has been working very tirelessly to make
sure that we have as much as we can here in district to meet those needs to keep those kids supported here in district um because if we can keep everyone here in district and meet their needs appropriately by having the appropriate
staff and support services it is normally at a uh more controlled manner where we understand what those operating costs may be where when we have to send any students out of district we really
have no say in what those costs may be because we just simply must meet their needs so that was you know that's a huge amount that we have to take on and and it it fluctuates and we have no way of
monitoring this because it has not been reflective of anything prior to co let's put it that way it has not um moving forward about the math curriculum absolutely correct in fact I
just was seeing an artic article where it was highlighting down in Louisiana how they've actually made huge strides because they moved their whole state there was uh a push for highquality curriculum and they've actually made
huge types of improvement because of having the um curriculum that met the specific needs so when you're talking about meeting the needs of um the high uh high quality sorry high quality curriculum that DESIE is pushing out
that's a have to that's not a that's not a wish list that's a must um and you know I I really look back on that um well I guess before I go back to that one I
also want to say you put up the um funding that's the title one idea and all of that and the question mark well luckily our wonderful DOE Ma'am Linda McMahon um said on the
media this week that don't worry this year none of that money was going to get taken away that IDA and Title One don't worry it's all going to be there so we'll see but she certainly was promoting that that wasn't going to
happen but the DOE is all getting dismantled so who the heck knows um but I would certainly hope that at minimum it's going to stay intact now the discussions that we were having um at
MASC was the concern is is actually for next year 26 budget but for 27 budget so um bluntly I think we need to do all we can to make sure that we appropriately
fund for our students now because we don't know what's coming so I'm not waiting for a rainy day so with that I want to take us back to and if you could do me a favor I'm going back to that per pupil slide it's a favorite one of me
mine that comparison you like the Yeah that one i I I think it's really important that we take a look at this because we weren't above state average until 2018 was when we were
above state average on the expenditure and we have continued to decrease across the board so while I definitely feel that Maro has done
what we can on uh funding our students and this district i would be remiss if I didn't say from 21 at minimum we've flatlined and I am quite concerned that the money that was
coming in from the state and the feds have not reached its designation which was here in the public schools and our students have not received the money that they needed and we are at a crux right here
because We have worked for years exceptionally collaboratively with the mayor and the city council many years as you had pointed out it was 0% increase in
22 a 4.24% increase in 23 a 3.62% in 24 and a 5.25 in 25 that was because of every single person working collaboratively that means all of our staff the
contracts that we set and everybody was working handinand together we now need to work hand in hand together to make sure that our students are receiving the equity that they deserve so we need to get this back up
and uh I have really wrestled with this and I recognize that we are definitely asking for a good amount and a higher percentage than was forecast but I can't in all good consciousness not ask for the full
request of the 11.1% because we've got to get things back on track and back on track means funding which means the free cash that is there we've got to hopefully have that conversation it is a huge request
and I I know it is but I think it's time that we need to do all we can to try and get the money back in place so that we can make sure we're meeting the needs of the students so thank you
any other questions we all set move on moving on acceptance of minutes minutes of the February 25th 2025 school committee meeting motion to approve is that the one that has the
11th okay march 11th this Sorry there's there has to be ghosted one motion to approve motion to approve is on the table and seconded any questions comments concerns i I just noted a couple of small corrections um for the
February 25th minutes on number 11 members forum hold on I got to find it my page is so small um it's where referred to officer Marorrow it's M O R O oh it is you're right i wasn't and the Malboro
Junior Women's Club it's in women's it's an A not an I know i didn't type it sorry i know I just you know those little things uh that's all for that one so I amend my motion to amended minutes
and seconded questions comments concerns on the amended minute approval seeing none all in favor motion carries six to zero thank you and on the motion to accept uh amended minutes
there this was our little problems with technology um so next thing on the agenda is the minutes from March 11th march 11th 2025 school committee yeah motion to accept the amended minutes of
March 11th 2025 whatever it is can we share what those amended are so in on number 12 we were Mrs bonhinger and I were both remote and I heard Mrs bowdenhinger vote in favor
of adjouring but you guys didn't because of it got garbled it was frozen so I just need to fix that so it's if you look at the vote it says that it's a 61 right but I'm not listed at all so okay
so either has to be 600 or add me as the So you just want to be represented i just want to be represented got it okay thank you i I have another small correction and this one's a little funny sure um on item
actually I think it's in a couple spots um on number nine under B actually all of number nine where you're listed as Matthews it's only one T on A and B
and a couple times under B sometimes it's one sometimes it's two actually that whole minutes just double check all the Matthews have two T's okay on on on the 11th one or the 25th on the 11th 11
on the 11th on on B it is it's written in the same thing one with two T's and one with one T that's weird although it's Yeah how do you spell your name two T's okay
okay i I'll correct that too that looks like it may have been like a copy and paste and all the Matthews are That is so weird okay I will make that correction so motion and to approve the amended i didn't I didn't catch that
okay motion's on the table to amend the minutes and seconded questions comments concerns on the March 11th amended minutes seeing none all in favor motion carries 6 thank you all righty my
favorite part public comment is there any public comment public comment is there any public comment going twice seeing none public comment is there any public comment going three
times seeing none we'll close public comment thank you action items and reports request to submit the FY26 budget for public hearing uh we do request um Oops i don't
have I have it 84 million$84 million 224,398 I'll make that move I I move to support the superintendent's budget and move it for legal notice for public
hearing okay I second question comments concerns regarding the FY26 budget for public hearing seeing none all in favor motion carries 6 superintendent search firm
thank you um so we went out and did the procurement um as requested for a superintendent search firm we solicited quotes from the three firms that we were asked NASDAQ MASC and the Colin Center uh MASC chose not to supply a quote uh
stating that they felt there was a conflict of interest and they did not want to breach that um so the three quotes that were the two quotes that were received from NASDAQ was 13,760 and from the Colin Center was $16,000 uh we have provided in the
packet the scope that was used um with the the firms to uh provide to them what we our expectations were in addition to the written scope I did have a phone conversation with each of the firms to make sure that all questions were answered prior to them uh providing us with a quote um so everybody was on the
same page uh with with this so under the rule for award uh the contract is to be rewarded to the responsible vendor offering the lowest price for the services listed in the scope and that would be NASDAQ uh so NASDAQ's proposal has been supplied as well in your packet
um it's a very um comprehensive uh proposal uh runs through uh all of the duties that they're going to supply for us um so in this uh this would be NASDAQ doing a superintendent's search for the permanent superintendent i do have to note that um
in conversation with each of these firms they all noted that we are we are far too late in the year to be able to hire a permanent superintendent that could start for July 1st um so they all said that the best course of action would be to go with an interim MASC um as part of
your membership with MASC you receive free interimm search services from them um there's no cost to the district they they provide the entire service for free um so I would suggest in addition to awarding to NASDAQ for the permanent search for the superintendent that we
also um have MASC do an interimm search for us for July 1 i have a question regarding that so I'm let's say we do go down the road of asking MASC to provide an interim search
for us and we contract with NASDAQ if we find an interim and don't go through that process with NASDAQ because we've chosen to make that
interim a permanent um where where do we stand with NZDC if we if we don't utilize their services if but we've contracted with them good question um
can I ask something on that yeah so the question though is that if um if these companies don't feel like they could proceed with doing this until essentially next school year we would
not be able to even sign a contract because we would need to wait until we had money appropriated for next year for next year okay so I I hear where you're going but I don't think we can move forward on hiring a search firm if
they're not complet so So it kind of puts it into a moot category at this point that we we can't proceed with either of these quotes currently at least that's my read of the situation and and maybe I'm wrong
i I agree with it yeah i mean we not knowing what the appropriation is for next year that's correct because we do have to have an appropriation in order to award um you could vote and have a letter of intent um and if you don't get the appropriation then um we could
certainly we'll check into that before we actually do it but we could move down that path um and have somebody have them on hand ready to go um certainly you know the quote process could remain valid i I can reach out to NASDAQ and ask how long they can hold that price
firm for us um I imagine it doesn't look a lot different from what I've seen in the past over the you know the past five or six years um the price hasn't shifted too much um oddly with inflation touching everything else hasn't seem to touch this type of service so
okay so or we can just choose to put it on hold for now go through our process for an interim and then sometime next year when we yeah revisit how things are going with the
interim we can choose to go out for bid again could we just at least ask Mr wells to reach out to NASDAQ to see how long this bid could at minimum stay in place so that at least we would have that awareness of understanding yeah happy to
do it even though we would put it on hold but if you could gather that information for us can you repeat that um if we could ask Mr wells to contact NASDAQ and to understand how long will they hold this price this quoted price
so that way then we would at least know if they'll hold it for say six months nine months whatever it is so at least we have an awareness of of the price point um and then we could put we could you know table this situation for now right and there also might be
municipality rules under the bid process of how long it can Yeah yeah and and again that um we have we have the scope we have everything all together we have the firms again so um you know we we could the next time around if we had to go back out and do
this quote again in July it's going to be quicker because we don't have to actually write all that up so um it it's all the files ready to go i'll just copy it over and we'll move forward um and I'll just tell the firms this time that they really do only have 24 hours to get back to us um we did have some some
delays and I think it may have been because people were not in the office who were there that needed to actually do the quote so um but I can certainly be happy to push harder next time as well trying to play nice in the sandbox any other questions comments or
concerns regarding these super yes Mr d i'm just curious where this would put us in terms of going through the search process how far away are we from actually doing a search seems like this is going to delay us an awful long time on which search the on the actual the
full search so your your idea so the search generally if you started it in August you started your process and started pulling up your surveys and and reaching out to all the the parent groups and teachers and everyone and creating your portrait of a candidate you would be ready to be advertising the
the the um the job in October or November easily u without much question um so you would be at the forefront of the kind of the the new search process for next year um so it won't delay you by much you you certainly do have time
to be able to hold back and and have these conversations um it's uh usually a superintendent search process run by a firm it's generally about a four 3 to four month process with collection of the data and everything um contracting
takes a little bit longer because you got to negotiate back and forth that can take a couple months but actually getting a candidate you want to work with about 3 to four months though um we just don't have quite enough time this year to get it done successfully and then also go into negotiations afterwards but certainly we'd be able to hit the ground running in you know next
year in August and be able to be at the forefront of all the jobs that are getting posted when you say next year are you talking fiscal or fiscal yeah so August of 25 yeah just a couple of months yeah after July one yep then you maybe you're just being a little bit
music teacher here but you have to explain to me a little bit so what's the what's the reason for doing this again explain to me why we're doing that what would that help waiting there's not enough time to do it this year the search the search companies
have actually said that they do not recommend us moving forward right now in doing a search they feel that we would not necessarily receive or have the best opportunity for the most qualified
candidates and so that's why they're asking they're they're suggesting that being the case to move it out where it would hit a better cycle if you will I guess so the so the general timeline for actually going out for a superintendent search with a search firm is would
follow like this if you were toward tonight and we were to start tomorrow you would spend the month of April collecting your survey information so by May 1st you're probably ready to they would have a job description based upon the information they collected may 1st you're releasing that job to the street
through the month of May you're going to keep it open for a month because you want to give the ability for people to actually apply to it so you're looking at early June before you're even looking at at the the applications to see who you want to interview so let's say you're you're you're uh you're going high speed on this and you're jumping
right into it that first week of June you're going to look at the applications maybe set up uh interviews for the second week of June you don't even have time at that point because our last day of school is the 17th you don't have time for on-site visits if you're choosing three to five candidates to come in where you actually have students
on site so you you may not get the full interview you're even looking for at that point and even if you did you're now at the end of June and saying "Okay I like this candidate and we want to move forward with that person." They probably have more the average is a 90-day out clause within their current contract so you're looking at 90 days
before they'd be able to leave and probably most people who are leaving the position would not come here before October 1st anyway because they would be obligated to get their new district started um plus you would have all the negotiation it's about it can take a month or two to get the negotiation done as far as uh getting the contract
settled what the price is the sock costs all of that so we just don't simp we just don't have the time to get somebody on board for July 1st um and if we're if we're going to delay that long we might as well delay just a little bit further and get um a lot of people you know assistant superintendents or
superintendents who are deciding not to renew make that decision within the Septemberish time frame so you'd be hitting really early in the market of everyone who's deciding I am going to go out and see what I what's available for me within the market so you would be early in that very early in the candidate pool um which would give you
the best opportunity to see all the candidates that are out there um it's very frustrating to run a search and you know as you're saying oh these are my three finalists one saying oh no I just accepted here and they start to drop as you're kind of moving forward um that that's that's frustrating just to go through that um Norwood did it last year
it was um they lost I think two candidates during during the process and they weren't even that late in their start they were pretty pretty early on so one so so the alternative to this Oh go ahead one more thing for the music
teacher where where is the interim coming into this that's what I was just going to Okay just interim pro interim process is certainly much shorter um so with the intern process MASC has a whole bunch of candidates that they they have available
it's just they have their network that it's a new cottage industry i know yeah and they know that they're they know they're they're hiring for a temporary position generally a one year one-year placement um but you know that person could come in and absolutely wow us and we could say you know we don't want to go with anything else that's also a possibility but you know it becomes like
a working interview almost at that point but they can do it much faster it this the the process that you're looking you're not looking for who's my next 3 to seven years you're looking at who's my next 12 months is really what you're doing with that so they'll bring forward candidates that are uh qualified maybe
folks that um might be retired and want to come back and work a year or maybe people that are just available in the market um giving Mary the evil eye yeah I know i've been throwing numbers at her for a while but she's not biting um yeah and so it's it's a it's a much shorter time frame a month or two to to
get on an interim on board um and then of course they're going to have you know their own contract they have to work through as well but with an interim you know that there's people out there who are available on July 1 so yeah so and when you're looking at an interim it could be someone like a
retired superintendent that wants to work for an extra year would be pretty much like a placeholder for us or there are people and I I know that there are people that have been reaching out to both the district and to some of
us who are interested in looking at an interim placement year with the potential that they could be our next superintendent that they are actively working right now they're not retired superintendent and so it is possible
that we could find an interim that would start you know July 1st and we'd have a practice year with that person to see if they liked us if we liked them if it worked out or whatever and if that were to work out then we could just appoint
that person and not have to go through a search anyways and a non require a waiver correct so somebody who's just taking a job doesn't require that whole process of getting a waiver like the retired superintendent who only
get them for six months now anyways so so that leads me to a question if we do go the interim route when would we need to decide whether or not we're going to pursue the external search like what's like their
like I know you suggested like getting ahead of it but what would be like when would we have to know whether or not we want to pursue the existing candidate or that's my same question because again we like the candidate and then we want to hire them and we started the search
we're wasting the money to do the search when we already have a candidate so like that I've worked with a number of interims um been so lucky and I was one twice um it was kind fun uh so you know generally you know pretty quickly if if if they're making the
grade that you want or not um I mean just think about your own careers you know when you work with people you know within a couple of months is this person going to be someone that I want to work with is this or are we 90 danging this person right now yeah so you know you know pretty quickly and you you'll feel that pretty quickly here as well you
you'll start to get that whole sense of it if that person is in here as the interim and they're really kind of hitting strides you'll feel that you're you're going to hear it um you're not gonna you're not going to miss it i mean you guys are are too connected to the schools anyways to not hear and feel that as it's moving through so um I I
have no I have no fear that you're not going to know exactly where you stand within a couple of months and if they start July 1st and we know by let's say you know October that like maybe not yes then we start the search yep and then
you and then you're you're writing your timeline right there we're in the timeline go ahead and speak all right please don't take this the wrong way but it feels like we're just wanting to take an inch for a test drive more than look for a superintendent and that's what I'm concerned about i'm not sure what our
intention is what's wrong with that the I mean I don't know that that's actually the case but even if it was the case what would be wrong with that i I I I see where you're coming from but I think the whoever the candidate is knows going in because of the interm so like it's
it's complete transparency it's not like oh you're going to be a new superintendent for years to come it's an intern like they know that it's they're applying as an intern they know what the what they're applying for yeah I can see your point cuz that Yeah it's And I
would also say about the market um you know I the the first superintendent search I did was back in 2012 um that superintendent search we had 90 candidates apply what year was this this 20 2012 we had 90 apply i would say 40
were qualified and we trimmed it down to 20 for interviews and then there were 11 for second interviews and then they brought five in so right that was the market now the last one I did we had uh 16 come in seven of them right off the
bat were like you don't even have the license like you're not qualified in any way shape or form so you're down to seven candidates that you're kind of looking at you're like "Yeah we're interviewing everybody." Cuz you know you Last time we did a national search we didn't even have those kind of numbers right we did a national search
we did a national search and we had the candidate pool's not there no just two of them were from out of state two of two of the uh Yeah Denims was the same way a lot of ours were Colorado California Florida um Well the money's
good in Massachusetts i get it but but the qualifications are hard too was from Massachusetts so we spent all this money on this intergalactic search just to hire somebody from up the road intergalactic it was ridiculous i love when she says interact
wow i like to see those candidates interact wow any further discussion dam has Keep going together so are we asking Masc to look for an interim for us well I think we have to have that
conversation do we want to like where do we stand mrs hennessy has requested that we at least find out how long the this bid would be good for just so we have that information yep so that's keeping
that Yep in the wings we have to decide if you know I think do we have to vote to say we are going to entertain we are going to hire someone inter in the interim well we would need to actually suspend the rules to actually add that
item of course I'm just laying out where we go here i just wanted to make sure because it's not on the agenda right so but we're still in the midst of the same conversation right so that's one thing we would have to
host the job as an interim and then we'd have to you know come up with our process from then we could choose to use MASC to get more candidates i know that there are there's
I I people are sending resumes people are already asking about this um so I think we we would not do the city a disservice if we didn't utilize all possible avenues i'm just saying like there are people out there that are interested and MASC can facilitate that
just for disclosure the reason MASC would not quote us is because I sit on the board of directors and they felt it was a conflict of interest for us to pay them um but for this part of it it's a free service that they offer so it's not conflict i disagreed and I did argue it
but I could not get through also and I argued but it was just conversation to try um convincing someone to pay them money yeah right yeah right please i don't think it's a conflict but it's either way it's not there's no payment involved
and it's part of the service they provide as members you already pay for it as a member we already paid for it so yeah 100% i think we should engage all ways of getting candidates does that answer your question all ways of getting candidates
for the interim for the interim okay just making sure my ducks on the same role yours are in okay but Tennessee so with that if we are going to continue this conversation about looking for an interim I guess my question would
be do we need to then um create an ad hoc small group of the school committee to at least start reviewing things because otherwise we're waiting every two weeks every two weeks every two weeks kind of thing and I'm thinking we
probably want to try and work with MASC to try and speed that up some um so I'm just putting that out on the table too i agree as well i was going to bring up the same thing it would be you know if we're going to move forward in this direction it would at least it'd be great to have at least one
representative who um can work we can work I can work together with so we can kind of move down the path and keep things moving forward so that when we're coming back every two weeks we have a lot of ducks in in the row that that we can bring forward so um I'd also like a a partner to help carry the backpack
right exactly miss Matthews uh so I would like to um make a motion to sus to suspend the rules to add an agenda item of the to make a
determination now or to vote on pursuing a search for an interim superintendent so first is the the suspension of the rules motion on the table and seconded regarding to suspend the rules to discuss city vote for a superintendent
in term search questions comments concerns to suspend the rules seeing none all in favor motion carries six to zero then I would like to make a motion that um we move forward with hiring
MASC to help us with an interim superintendent search and that we create either three people again or one person or two people for the let's just start with voting on tax okay
okay yeah that's fine yeah so second okay motion is on the table first motion is on the table to open up an interimm search for superintendent in utilizing MASC to get all the intergalactic candidates we possibly can
for a an interim search correct for an interimm superintendent questions comments concerns regarding that motion seeing none all in favor motion carries so six to zero
okay i would assume that we can start that search and then we can figure out the ad hoc committee during our next or do we want to do that now i don't know what the leeway or time frame is i I would ask that we could consider actually creating an ad hoc now so that
we can support Mr wells okay um because I feel like otherwise it puts if he just has a conversation with one of us it puts one of us in kind of in an awkward position of speaking on behalf of the committee when we really don't you know like agreed yes exactly what she's
saying people should be on this ad hoc committee i would like to be on it do we have to pull names again three three i think three is good because it's not a quorum so we can Notice so we can have
conversations and Okay are you superintendent searched now i figured I figured I am not I am not I have no I just have no Heidi wants I'm glad if you want okay no I
I I'm happy Mrs mr caruso why don't you make a motion for the three members and then we can So I'd like to make a motion that along so right Dan Carus and Michelle Bowden Hinger and Captain Hennessy be on the ad hoc um search
committee interm superintendent search committee god excellent second voting okay oh I thought you were going to do noses you know cuz motion's
on the table and seconded questions comments concerns regarding the new ad hoc team that that we just created tonight tool sitting over there going "Oh let's let's graduating this year." He's nice he's got another year no he's only a junior we got him for two years
can we please vote on this so we can move it along okay all in favor motion carries six to zero thank you thank you thank you okay moving on to the release tool i'm sorry moving on to the principal salary range
Miss Heidi uh that is you yes so um we two weeks ago we met right that Yeah it was two weeks ago yes okay so um periodically salary ranges are reviewed
um and we the negotiation subcommittee met with the superintendent and we went over some comparisons of urban districts local districts to us and so on um we did find other than you
just said Hudson went a little higher in their current search they just advertised at 130 to 150 for an elementary right is the document that's embedded here correct that's not what we agreed to this the document that's
embedded here is what we agreed because we kept the bottom numbers the same right yes so you switched that okay i I fixed it yes um and so um what we are
proposing we it was it was 5% right was the number that we decided to go on the on the high end maintaining the the low end of our range but giving a latitude of 5% over the last um approved increase
to and primarily um in our conversation and and I I think what's important to note is that um the range represents the G or gives the the
latitude to the superintendent to hire somebody either as a firsttime principal or as years of experience and um I will say this
publicly I know that we will probably have candidates within our district that um uh may be earning things in that range or maybe
even above depending on how it's structured but it for those roles it would be a firsttime principal role and so yes there's latitude but um it doesn't always mean you're always going to make
more in your new position doesn't sound right but it is it's it it it's a new role it's and it's and we're not as you said Hudson just hired or is just posting at a higher range than they have in the past but they also have a I think
three principles to hire yeah and that's again if their prop two and a half passes so um so what's proposed here is a 5% increase um and I would like to make a motion that we approve this so
that um the superintendent can move forward with posting for good now good now so they don't have it start at 122 does that read they could they could start at 122 it's the range she has yes I can
hire it anywhere in the range yes [Laughter] and this salary represents is reflected in the budget as well yes who else is aware of that salary range for the budget yes
going forward yeah i made a motion there's a motion second question comments yes thank you just a quick question um since you may be in a position as the superintendent needing to hire for multiple roles
um dependent upon that experience is there um an opportunity should the superintendent feel that she needed an additional percentage or two that she's made a reduction elsewhere can she come to the
negotiations committee to have a conversation about it i'm just trying to understand if there's any additional flexibility or it is that specific window i I get what you're saying but I think I I we when we first had the conversation
two weeks ago about we were again being a little bit conservative at first just adding a 3% and I said "No let's add the 5% because it gives us a couple of years worth hopefully of opportunity i mean I get I I guess in any case the
superintendent can come back to the negotiations committee at any time if they feel there they have somebody who's overqualified or or qualified and deserves to receive more um but I I feel that this is a pretty good
range i I I asked that only because I think as we've we've discussed over the years the importance of the the review process and um if somebody is really exceeding very much so and then we have
someone let's say that might be on the lower end I think it might allow the conversation to flow a little bit easier to say hey you know we'd like to entertain an up on this percentage i'm just thinking about if you really
compare it to sometimes in in businesses you slide down on others and you slide up a little bit here or there so I just was curious if that might be something but I going back to you're talking about the the a review or an evaluation if it's an internal person
you might have that gauge as far as what they've done in a different role or if it's an external person and you're going based on recommendations and things like that but I'm not quite sure if you guess I'm thinking more on the internal for like a new hire or was it just No
I'm thinking more from an internal standpoint but that was the discussion that we had at the subcommittee because we do have veteran principles in this district so that was the discussion to
up that minimum like the maximum so that we had more room for growth but like I said at the elementary it's still lower than our neighbors um we we didn't go into that conversation knowing that
right um but um that is the reality so no one's going to join us making I can't imagine starting a contract with anyone making more than our veteran high performing right school leaders right
because like I will argue all day long that they deserve more than the highest there right exactly are there any current principles that Bitcoin 22 no no just just had to ask thank you
there's a motion on the table and I believe it was seconded correct any other further questions comments concerns seeing none all in favor motion carries okay moving on to acceptance of donations and gifts we have Richard PTO
from the to benefit the retro richer elementary school for $500 motion to approve motion to approve on the second questions comments concerns regarding the donation from the Richard PTO seeing none all in favor motion carries thank
you Richard PTO and I believe that is it okay moving on reports of school committee subcommittees anything yes Mr ryan so I guess I can do an update on the school building um committee we did meet
earlier today um it was our kickoff meeting because we have hired our designer which is Lamro Pagaro Pagano Pagaro all the time so they were our designer for the initial GoodNow brothers school um so we are happy to be
working with them again it was a very informative meeting with combined with vertex the OPM so the next stage of the game is we are now in the feasibility study so they will identify um several options for us to hopefully review
probably at the end of like three or four months so that's kind of the the process of where we are at this point systems go so they will be studying everything to clarify so that includes location so yes they will one of the locations they
will look at is the existing richer building and whether or not it will be a renovation or a new build and they will investigate a couple of other properties in town we don't know what those properties are yet um whether it's an existing building or a parcel of land
and they are also part of the feasibility study was also around Kain and the potential renovation you know there's that current modular there and you know whether they can rebuild that one section they they'll be looking at all the options and they will report
back kind of like last time like 5 years ago they came back with here's option A B C D what's your appetite these these are the ramifications this is the cost they'll also lay out the cost of renovation versus cost of new build so
we'll get a full report from them probably after 3 or 4 months thank you thank you excellent thank you any other subcommittee yes Miss Andis thank you um for policy
we have a date of April 9th for our next subcommittee meeting unfortunately we set that date and then five seconds later I heard from Earl that he has a conflict but I think we're going to need to proceed on trying to have that since we've had such a tough time trying to
come up with dates and we'll just need to keep him updated so April 9th policy okay anything else no moving on members forum
i have reviewed and I have signed the warrant tonight okay do you have anything i just needed to apologize because I was in error with the traffic commission i misread and I know know it was normally Wednesdays so that's on me it is normally Wednesdays
you are correct pictures of having uh so from members forum I just wanted to congratulate the cast and crew of the lightning thief the MHS musical that happened this past weekend the Percy Jackson musical
was very fun um and the big news is I would I all of us got the email but um the MHS Jazz Ensemble earned a gold award at the Mass Association for Jazz Education state festival This past weekend in Norwood I
was lucky enough to be able to attend at my old middle school which was so bizarre the back of the pay phone was still there but anyway I digress um but yes I was at um it was in Norwood it was great to actually hear them they were fantastic and I was actually there when
some of the kids found out they got gold and to see these kids so excited together and celebrating together because it was during like the beginning of the before the musical had started it was awesome so congratulations to Jimmy Verdon and his his efforts and getting these kids to be these fantastic
musicians so yay congrats thank you nothing nothing okay you got some hot oh masters of the universe in the robotics world nothing much no okay give it to me motion to adjurnn motion
to adjurnn is on the table and seconded questions comments do you have something did you I woke up early i'm still slow um yeah just quick I think we it's appropriate that we note the passing of of Dander Landers yes teacher assistant superintendent and co-ounder founder of
the Akuna program yes yes it's a huge loss to the city huge loss thank you um yes okay motion is on the table and second to adjourn questions comments concerns seeing none all in favor journey at 909
motion carries 6 to zero thank you everyone have a great night thank you