##VIDEO ID:CUldSoids1o## according to my walk here it is 6:31 I'm calling the meeting to order here I'm banging my gavl it's my gavl yep it just takes a minute for them to all come in so be with me one minute oh yeah okay right bring everybody hey is that it Julia all set great uh I would like a motion to adopt remote participation as written in the agenda please one was okay very good um roll call vote pam pam nurse act in yes Sarah mon Arlington yes Linda Lind is next Linda Heron Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Charlene is next sorry Charlene cabraal Lancaster yes Sharon Musto Lexington yes Jeff Stan Eden yes Alis Lucas Joe yes very good uh Julia do we have any public comments last I heard it was none we do none very good okay before we take a vote on the consent agenda I was I think I know the answer to this but if there's somebody who could just give a one second explanation of the um Grant there's one a couple words there that was a little bit ambiguous I think I know what it means though so is there anybody who can do that for us of the what Jeff the grant it's one of the items on the consent agenda the um list of monthly grants was one of them which was um let's see where I got it it was uh the idea teachers PD and transportation idea Ida yep so that's um an amendment to our special education grant what is the benefits in mtrs under that is that like professional development on that benefits at mtrs it says uh no that's uh regular benefits in mtrs that go with salaries um okay Heidi I can chime in and and help with that if you'd like oh sure thank you Nikki um if there is a teacher um that's charged to a Federal grant they do require um a 9% um contribution to mtrs from that Grant so that is what the mtrs is referring to but it covers that teacher um Care Professionals their benefits and that um mtrs charge okay I did not know that that that some of that their money goes to their to the retirement that's very interesting okay so uh I haven't heard any other comments or questions or the minutes so the consent agenda is the draft minutes of December 10th approval of the list of monthly grants and approval of the list of monthly donations all which were your packet could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda if there is no objection to it so moved second any discussion on the consent agenda very well then uh bring him to a vote Pam Hamner actt yes Sarah montue Arlington yes Linda Heron Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes johab Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff SPM yes Alice to Lucas do yes very good chair's report uh the chair does have a few comments on scheduling uh but first I think that we have uh two items under here and one is from Alice Luca so we'll go with Alis then Charlene uh just to note that up following the last U meeting we there were three of us who went to the Board of Education meeting in Essex that was Charlene cabal Linda herbison and me and um we stayed there for the discussion on admissions um um we were we were very fortunate to ride up in the elevator with the chair of the Board of Education um who then mentioned that we were there at the meeting and uh you know pointed us out to the general all assembled and um I I think it's worthwhile if anybody wants to go to the next one I will go to that one as well um I don't I don't mind driving to it and um it's very interesting it's kind of being in the room where it happens right so um I I'd encourage other people to come and I'd also encourage people if they have a minute to write a letter to the Board of Education about the admissions policy because those people um like to hear from constituents and voters not just from heads of organizations in my experience that is what they want uh they want lots of communication and that's all I have to say good uh obviously that's an issue that's not going away and we will be discussing a little bit further this evening and Charlene did you have a item for for the good of the organization yes I do Jeff um before I actually got to that item I just wanted to give a little shout out to the girls basketball team I heard they had a really big win against notra Dame so I wanted to give a shout out to them um and the matter that that I wanted to discuss was um related to the welding Department I was at Minuteman a couple weeks ago and saw a really amazing uh work that the the um welding Department did it was a huge Blossom and I know someone has um a picture of this um on their system that I think they can post up it's a huge Blossom it was a gift honoring the Freshman Class the Minuteman class of 2028 and it was very very cool um each of the pedals had the names of the Freshman students in it so I wanted to give a shout out to the welding Department LED who which led this project this project was led by Dean Malone with the assistance of Jean Boyd and um I think you'll all find this pretty amazing Blossom I I call it a blossom I don't know if it's a dandelion I don't know exactly what it is but it's pretty cool I hope some day that when the class of 2028 gets to graduate this might be on their stage you know amazing what you can do with the blowtorch no Kidd H zoom in a little further so you can actually see the names the minute man is there the class of 2028 and each of the pedals have the names or nicknames of the students CU I noticed some were nicknames that's pretty cool very cool all right that was quite a um um um a demonstration of um respect from one class to another and skill SK a lot of skill it's quite beautiful yeah great anything else for for the good of the organization Steve Leo yeah I I just wanted to uh mention that I was approached uh by a conquered resident who's on the board of directors at the North Bennett Street scho school in Boston and they do a whole bunch of stuff uh woodworking historic restoration musical instrument um construction and he's kind of exploring whether there's an opportunity for us and and North Bennett to um uh maybe uh um join and have a partnership of some sort so Heidi was on the call with with me as well so uh we're going to be visiting them they're going to be visiting us in the in the future just to see where that may lead but um they do a lot of cool things and um they do you know Woodworking and I think historic restoration is is is really kind of cool so uh hopefully we'll explore some opportunities to partner with them all right it sounds like an exciting joint partnership there possibility I think that'd be a lot of fun anything else for the good of the organization very well next item is uh retreat planning so the the superintendent has asked for a uh delay of her uh extensive presentation from uh February to March uh and we have been talking about a school committee Retreat for quite a while now the school committee Retreat will probably be a Saturday morning in person uh at the Minuteman campus and I do believe that if her presentation is going to be given in March which is going to uh tell us what she thinks and where we should be going at least to some extent I think April May would be a very good time frame for our um Retreat so what I'm going to do is I'm going to have uh uh uh knowing that um getting everybody together at the same day may be challenging even this far in advance I'm going to have Julia start to set dates and the officers will working with the administration will come up with a uh plan for the retreat which we will present to the full school committee for discussion but we need to nail down the date I think pretty fast so I'm going to ask uh Julia to do that and let's see if we can get everybody together for a fun and productive morning or early afternoon at the school so I'm just this is I brought this up a number of times already since probably almost every month since September now we're really going to do it okay any comments or questions very good now a few notes about um things you may have that especially the newer members may be wondering about in terms of scheduling and procedure so this is going to be a fairly complex agenda today there are lots of important things in it including which is great news for you those of you who love numbers two large substantial Financial presentations one of which is going to be uh the proposed budget the other one is going to be something that I've been waiting for for about 10 years which is going to be a uh a first look at a long-term capital plan for the school um today we are going to get the formal presentation by the administration of the budget but we're not voting on the budget today we don't do that today what today we're going to do is we're going to listen to it we're going to watch it we're going to ask a whole bunch of questions about it if needed our public hearing budget hearing is I believe scheduled for Thursday January 3 30th with a snow day of February 4th an unusual Thursday meeting in which the primary uh objective of that meeting is to have the public hearing on our budget where the administration will be giving this same presentation or very similar and invite the public to attend and to comment on our proposed budget following the public budget presentation the school committee will come into session and we will once again another opportunity to discuss the budget and at that meeting both on the budget and on the preliminary assessments or the assessments so that's how the scheduling of it works now in the interval between now and that meeting if you have a question that comes into mind uh you can send those questions to I guess Julia would be the right person to send them to and she will direct them to the right person probably Nikki or the superintendent to answer your question if you have a questions that something about at the presentation uh you didn't quite come up with your question at this meeting and it stuck in your mind you think about it you look at the presentation which they didn't include in the packet but we will send to you um and then you can send their question and they can respond so you'll be all prepared for the meeting on the 30th okay any questions on um that time frame understanding that time frame okay the other the only other thing I want to mention is uh that the the timing may seem to be a little compact in terms of how early in the year we have to decide in our budget and I wanted the membership to understand that this is uh primarily due to the fact that uh well two facts actually the first fact is that the member towns who are working on on their their budget for their Town meetings like to get our number as early as possible in fact I think they were I were complaining about not having it all the way back in September before we even started our budget process I think at least at least one town complained in September that we didn't have the number for them yet so we have to get those numbers up to the town to do their planning the other thing is that by Statute I don't know if it's by Statute or by our regional agreement we have to have our budget numbers our budget approved by the school committee a certain number of weeks before the first town meeting now I don't know which town meeting is the first one but it means that we need to get our um information to them uh uh pretty soon and that kind of dictates the timing of our budget process and our votes on the budget budget which is earlier than we would like and it's earlier than we would like because as will become apparent during the presentation there are a number of the key numbers in it which are guesstimates because the information is not yet available like for example the amount of money we're going to get from the state for transportation in chapter 78 that's those are pretty big numbers that we speculate on so our budget has a few numbers that are our speculation and we it's very important for us to speculate as close to the accuracy that's going to uh eventually come to the four otherwise if we guess like too low then our budget may not be adequate for what we want to do this year so that's the challenge and that's uh the challenge of having this early a budget and the reason why we have to have it this early okay so and a lot more on this later Nikki Jeff I just wanted to um clarify that it is the regional agreement that states 45 days and it's Lexington that has their town meeting in the middle of March so that's what um really makes it such a tight squeeze I just wanted to clarify that for the school committee excellent so Needum isn't until May right which would give you a lot more time but Lexington is in in March okay great so 45 days before Regional agreement we got to have it done but as you'll see when we get to the presentation um I think that the the finance committee and I think Steve will mention this when we get there was very happy with the um the budget and the budget process but that's for later in the evening War okay that's great so I'm pretty much done that's pretty much all I have to say for this meeting get that that's the end of the chair's report principal's leadership report Mr principal I believe you're on oh thank you um hello everyone and um going to go through our leadership report and again we have our two student reps here Riley trusdale and uh Matia trudell and um if we can share my screen I'll set perfect just a quick thumbs up everyone can see the screen perfect great so um we'll start with Riley She's gonna talk a little bit about our teacher Spirit Week in December December was tough to to figure things out because it was so short um but we do have some topics to talk about uh that did occur during the the month of December so um take it Riley hi good evening um I'm gonna be presenting real quick on the staff spirit week that happened right before vacation in December um the teachers and staff secretly participated in their own Spirit Week um that the students were not aware of um so it was a nice surprise um Monday was monochrome Tuesday was twin day Wednesday was anything but a cup uh Thursday was ugly sweaters um that you can see pictured um on the slide next to it and then Friday was Hawaiian shirt day um on the side I also have a picture um that Mr dll sent me of him and Mr tilsley dressed up um in the same clothing for twin day um and then also a fun little picture um of our principal um with words sh don't tell um the students um as it was a secret um surprise spirit week that the staff did anybody have any questions regarding Riley slide or comments okay doesn't it look like fun it was a lot of fun I will I will say that um you know it was good I think the twin days when people started to catch on uh that we were doing something um uh the cup day is interesting because trying to find anything but a cup to drink out of is you got to get really unique with but uh it was really good it was a good time and the students were like hey something's going on so that was what our goal was and uh Matilda do you want to go over your winter sports slide yeah um another thing that kind of started off in December was winter sports kind of kicked off um so on the left here I have kind of the three main sports and then we have a cross country club but it's still just a club currently girls basketball I have the stats there as well which is actually more accurate a six to one as they won their um they won a game yesterday as well um boys basketball is happening Boys Hockey is happening um as well as the cross country Nordic ski club which is um they through the mass Bay West Nordic ski League they have had two um two competitions so far their second one was actually this afternoon um and then the other big thing that happened revolving around winter sports was we had four students recognized in the Boston Heralds division um these four students are going left to right is AOL manang Muji Vader Joey Vader and Rain pogy um all four of these students were recognized um for their basketball performance which is really really neat um having them in um recognized for this um AOL and Muji are on the girls team and Joey and Ray are both on the boys team so that's pretty fun that we had such an even recognization for um our winter sports and our basketball do anybody have any comments or questions for Matilda great oh yes i' just like to thank both the students for their presentations very nice presentations um I'm always happy to learn what you guys are up to I would Echo that I really enjoy them thank you right okay so then on to my fun part of the things that um I have within my uh leadership report and one of the big ones is the um what we talked about last meeting of what the school council is working on which is the student p uh parent handbook revision wanted to give you an update of where we're at um and talk a little things about um you know remind everyone who's on the school council talk a little bit about the revision process and give you the timeline especially to the point of when it's going to be in the hands of the school committee to look on and and vote on so just a reminder of the uh school council members that are currently working on the revision process and that's myself as the principal and um our two teachers Aaron budau and uh Dan shabino our culinary and visual arts teacher our two parent reps Elena Spencer and Brook glass and our own Riley trusdale who is currently our school committee uh student rep as as well so one of the things that we're working on is really focusing on some key elements within the student ook and we have determined that these are our our main four that we want to kind of look at and make sure that things are aligned correctly and spelled out concisely so you know code of conduct our attendance andity procedures you'll Le a little bit more about requirements and promotion for graduation as I'm the superintendent's going to be talking a little bit about confidency determination and then if you look over there and I guess if you looked at the two topics that are on the agenda we have emergency and crisis procedures so I want to make it clear that we have a separate committee that actually is working on safety uh within the school and the main work is to develop a separate document but it's not something that we share with the school committee because it's important that it's kept internal the what we are going to do is is have that committee gives us suggestions as a school council and then we look at that and we can see what we can do within what's in the handbook from there so so just to talk a little bit about the safety uh procedures this committee is currently meeting it's currently working on things around the school and again we'll be tightening some things up within the handbook regarding what should be in there and what probably shouldn't be in there but we'll base that off the uh discussions that we have with the safety committee so within the review process and right now we're at the first step is we're we're looking at school committee policies we're looking at codes we're looking at laws and we're looking at the handbook itself so we want to make sure that everything is aligned and a lot of things that we've noticed in the school committee policies which is great is that you see the terms please refer to the student handbook which is great because then we have the ability to work on the things we need to work on we also noticed how big the handbook is so we're going to look and make sure we can determine which pages are essential and which Pages uh we could use differently meaning that things that could be put on a website that don't need to be put into a handbook that's something that we're going to work on and the other piece is our language that we're going to look at we want to make sure that each topic is very concise but very understandable and make it in a very clear language so there's no uh misunderstandings regarding what's in that handbook so so the timeline uh this is our goal that we set that uh we'd like to come up with a draft handbook by March share it with teachers staff administrators students and families to get feedback obviously we don't want to come up with one document and make sure that everybody understands and says this is great no I would look at this a little bit more or you know let's see what we can do we're going to take all that feedback and and make our revisions in April and once we have the final document between April and May that's when we're looking to present the final document to the school committee and we need your help school committee because I know uh just in in discussing this and and knowing that there's some insights that the school committee or that have been longtime school committee members are aware of with the handbook um that I might not be aware of or our school council may not be aware of so therefore um I'm asking if you would like to contact me and set up a time to discuss any of the key elements um for school committee members that would be greatly appreciated on our end and that is about it for the presentation and I'm more than happy to take any questions that you may have or comments as well we're talking about completely revising the School the uh student handbooks you must have a comment on it since this is one of the things you've been looking forward to since like the beginning of time um yeah I'm really happy um but also I was I was just writing down um review student handbook on my notes so um I actually will do that um thank you thank you thank you it has been many years that we've always been kind of chasing down the student book and it's been very busy with everything that's gone on and now we're finally like ahead of the ahead of the game so happy thank you very I think we may want to send a copy of the latest handbook to the school committee members so the ones who have that much time is you're right it is way too long I think can review it and then maybe get some ideas of um of the sort things that it covers because they Mayan we may not all be aware of all the things that it that it covers so send a PDF out to all the uh school committee members and the ones who want to be involved will do just what you say they'll read through it and they'll they'll think about um the sort of things that that they may be able to give some insight into if I could just jump in I think it might be a super huge PDF which we have trouble emailing sometimes I think we have a link Direct ly to a clear image on the website that you can do the same thing with or download and print if you like so I would suggest that just for clarity okay how many pages is it by the way currently do you know roughly around 85 right okay yes okay Sharon um silly question I know uh Paul when you were talking about the crisis plan and that it would not be shared with the community is that something that the school committee will see or is that still um I can answer that um a crisis plan has um literal plans that we would have between the police and the fire department and us it's definitely not something that we would share other than that small safety crew um because when you share out um plans of that nature it defeats the purpose um so actually having a full administrative training tomorrow on the latest elements with our e team um and what they're responsible for our school resource officer is there and um it is something outside of the general protocol but in the handbook everything that you as a school committee or families would need will be articulated in the handbook so when Paul says we're waiting for the Safety Committee to let us know um what they need that means the chief of police the fire department what they need us to make sure our families and students know um to be safe hope that makes sense and on the upside I'm on both committees so I can get the information pretty quick any other questions or comments on the handbook very good thank you and I'll repeat we're greatly looking forward to it this is the first uh complete restructuring and rewrite of it that I can remember and it's long overdue and I'm I'm very happy that it's happening this year great superintendent's leadership report hi um I am very happy today um to have two parts to my leadership report um the first part is our next career in college readiness Spotlight and we have um Cynthia Deo do I see her little picture oh there she is and Eric Marshall who are here today to present um Julia can you please make sure that Eric can share and I'm his backup but he he would love to be able to share that um I am so excited to have another two leads with us um I can't uh one of my favorite things that I've been able to do over the past last couple months is hear from the leads about all the great things that they do with their teachers and with their students and the coolest thing is pairing down some of these presentations because there's just so much so I hope that we continue um just continue these as a regular practice because it's um so important and I think if I'm not mistaken we are going to start with Cynthia and Eric will will be sharing your screen oh shall I share my screen or Eric you're I'm ready to go if you oh if you can't share Eric I can go ahead I don't have that I will see plan a plan B always good all right you should be able to see this now all right hi everybody I am Cindy Deo and I am the pathway lead for health Hospitality in human services so what that means is I work closely with cosmetology I'm a cosmetology instructor but I also work with culinary arts and baking Early Education and teaching and health assisting so I'm so excited to talk on behalf of this wonderful team um collectively we have over aund 30 years experience teaching at Minuteman Alone um so we're pretty um we've got some great stuff to share that is our team Cynthia can I jump in and give you a little shout out here Cynthia has been here for 32 years and this is the first time she has been in front of the school committee to present about teaching and learning um so that is pretty spectacular so take it away all right so um three of the initiatives that we did this year last year we started a um career day which is a two-day event which covers searching for the right job resume writing um dressing for Success uh at the conclusion of that project two every student participates in two interviews with staff members around the building um the students reported back afterwards that they felt well prepared to um interview for um future positions so it that was a great day we also have um a cut it out program in which we partner with the District Attorney's office to recognize domestic um violence and to be able to provide resources to people realize again I work with health assisting Early Education and Care cosmetology culinary so we are right close with with our um clientele so we want to be able to provide the right resources um for our students give them exposure for the right um the other thing that we participate in is um a heart health fair in February and the heart health fair um is an education opportunity for all the students a lot of um educational material is at lunch time um where the students do blood pressure there's different tables set up um but in addition to that they do a project with the librarian and The Culinary Department to create a heart healthy menu um and then the program wraps up with the dissection of a sheep heart um and that's a collabor collaboration between health and animal Sciences um and that's how that wraps up we also do additional projects um like the um mock crash um and that was um done in May of last year as the students were getting ready for the prom um and this is initiative to address drunk and distracted driving and this was a collaboration between Lincoln and Lexington Police as well as fire department and um then this um victim of the accident was then medflighted so we'll talk a little B have some other pictures um coming up in a little bit um we do a lot lot of a cultural cookbook project which um is a great opportunity for not only literacy but diversity um the students will look at different um cookbooks um as well as write reviews on the particular cookbooks and then they end up that project by going out to um bares and Nobles and a nice lunch in at Karma um all of our programs do quite a bit of integration with math Sciences Etc the one listed here is a hair analysis with biotech but we also do a um project with math um in terms of looking at the angles of the head and how we hold hair when we're cutting it Etc um Early Education in animal science um did a great project where the early ed students um educated the animal science students about the stages of development with younger children and then they flipped and the animal Sciences taught the early ed students about the introduction of pets and um proper approach when you're approaching animals and caring for pets um the summer health fa there was a great project that talked um educated all of the students of Minute Men were um invited into almost what represented a science fair in the um P be room and um the education was around um skin protection um tick born illnesses and many of the other things that you experienced during the summertime and then um we do have quite a few of our students are out on Co-op um our co-ops go as far out as gron and all the way into Arlington um a few things I just wanted to point out is that our students that are um at the Emerson Hospital and the Urgent Care they fluctuate between the Littleton Maynard and Hudson facilities they have quite a bit of exposure during their Co-op um and the children's Colonial Academy of course is at Minuteman but we do have co-op students working there as fresh pick is the um organization responsible for minut man lunches and we have students that are co-oping there as well and then to get into a little bit of specifics about our different departments um the salon at minut men um operates Tuesday through Friday 9:30 to 12 and the students are stylist Behind the Chair they are e doing All Phases of hair care as well as Skin Care or manic caring and or manic caring um every day is different for the students based on the um clients that they have um we typically have a 100% pass rate at the stateboard exam the students have to participate in 1,000 hours of study before they're ready to take that exam we bring in groups of um throughout the year um one of them uh one of the groups we had this year um provided support for migrants experienc in homelessness so we had um some um individuals that were from Haiti which was really nice collaboration because there's a real movement with u Massachusetts cosmetology schools doing um more extensive work with coily here the state has U made sure we have the resources all mass teachers went through six hours of training to do that um to make sure that we were prepared and um we had great the the um residents were great so we provided free services for them as well as um we have groups come in with discounted pricing for senior groups Lincoln Council of Aging is one of the groups Atria is another one we have different ones throughout the year um another thing that's really great is we have our alumni students come in and do demonstrations well really workshops for the students and we have at least one a month and very often times we have two or three times um in a month where our students will come back or our graduates will come back and provide workshops with all of our workshops we've now um Incorporated a social media component because this is how our future stylists are getting the word out and showcasing their work so they're really doing some creative work with the social media which is pretty cool so featured here is um Marin um is one of our acting students and then this is just a um Holiday Hair contest that we had a snippet of that um and in addition to that we have just some of our students working so Michelle um from um Cambridge actually that's a typo um but anyway he is working on one of the little student um as we got them ready for piter day and then um fisha is a Needum student she's finishing up a thermal set and then we have Molly from Lexington and Justice from Needum doing facials and that happened to be a group the atrio group that I talked about that came in for facials and the bottom picture it's it's a little bit small but that is Kristen Cooper who has to happens to be a graduate of Minuteman she was a balmont student when she was at Minuteman uh she's doing a haircut demonstration Kristen owns a salon in walam um for years she's had that and now she just opened up in Bill RKA but 80% of her employees are Minuteman graduates and moving on to the district restaurant um I bet everybody is familiar with that uh they do a wonderful job in addition to the restaurant where the students are getting their skills they're also doing the cafe and the bakery counter um they do a collaboration of with food link where they help to prepare um the meals for that they do the Ryan's wish fundraiser the weekly soup group um is a wonderful initiative that they started you can put your order in on Monday and any Thursday you can see a lineup of cars out in front of minut man where people are just coming up to pick up the their orders um and you'll see a picture afterwards it's quite quite a setup to get ready for that um the top staff contest is amazing it Rivals that of TV uh if you have the opportunity to see any any U posts on that it's an incredible contest that they run and then the students also participate in many many functions where um they're bringing in groups they do The Advisory Board committee they do some um work for the Rotary Club Etc so the students are really seeing all aspects of The Culinary industry and here's a picture of Monty from Lancaster just getting ready here we have a picture of um Haley Al y good we have a Haley from Lancaster and um they're um assembling things for soup group adish from Arlington he is getting those frosting ready to decorate the cookies and cakes um Cassidy is checking out one of our minut at men staff um that's Cassidy from Lancaster and Avery from sto this was a baked sale extravagan there you should have seen the restaurant in that they had so many baked Goods it's just incredible to see the work that the students do um it's just amazing and and if you've spent any time it's very relaxed in The Culinary Department it's not a high stress it's just it just rolls out it's just amazing to me so that is the culinary department and then next up is early Ed so the Early Education Department um runs the CCA um which is a program for 2.9 to 5 year olds and they're quite busy full enrollment this year they went up to 17 um in addition to the CCA the students are also do an internship out at the garded school of Lexington um The Early Education Department does an incredible job with collaborating with the many different departments in the school on various projects um all of their seniors are out on Co-op I will mention here the American Red Cross babysitting certification is earned by every student that has um identified Early Education in their top six when they're going through exploratory um and they gen they also do some school visits to look at different education style such as montor Regio and Waldorf and then in the picture here you'll see we have Matilda from Arlington Karina from NM Gabriella from Lexington Liberty from Acton and aoya from Acton as well and they're working on some planning as if they were designing a school is what they're working on in that project and then if as we move on uh some different projects so we have some Leon planning Jamie Donahue um so that's interesting Jamie's mother also works as a TA in our department um as well but we have Jamie Don here from Lexington and Kaylee from Acton and they're working lesson plans just like we all do as teachers um Bella Travis stone is from Lancaster and her senior project is about the importance of community helpers um getting involved with Early Education and Care and so here she is she brought in the Lincoln fire department to work with the little ones and um a nice story about Bella is that yes she is an Early Education and teaching um student but by Lottery was able to get into our EMT program um so she is an EMT she's enrolled in the EMT program and then when she's eligible she'll take the license so she'll graduate with not only her Early Education credentials but an EMT the ability to take the test um and then the same group of students I won't call out their names again but same groups of students are dressed up for story day um they were working with the students on with the little ones on reading a book and they're all dressed up in character and just I wish heidy if we can yeah great all right and then we have um Health assisting and um Health assisting goes out to um Brook Haven of Lexington which is assisted living facility and car will which is a long-term care facility um they have a 100% passing rate um for the EKG exam all the students graduate with their CNA um the nice thing with the photomy is they just found a facility that will allow the students to stick so um the students will graduate with the photomy certification or the ability to take the exam when they're of age um the students have the option to either stay on Co-op if they've already been out on Co-op or participate in the EMT program but again what an amazing opportunity for these students to graduate with not only their diploma but their um EMT certification in addition to You'll see the list um later on um the another nice initiative this year is that they participated um helping out the nurses and the Lexington um elementary schools to provide health screening for the little ones and of course our kids loved interacting with the little ones so that was a great experience um as I mentioned before the exploratory students that have identified Health in their top six choices in it if they did let's say um Early Education in care and health assisting before these before February of uh freshman year they would have an addition to the babysitting certification they also have the American hat Heart Association CPR and stop the bleed certification as well so again just incredible experiences that these teachers are able to provide um seven of our students are enrolled in the district competition already and um again I mentioned the health fair and this is a picture of Liam from Aton and of course doing the CPR right right there and some more pictures I have here um Kylie from conquer and um Kim from Lancaster Julia from Acton and Gavin from Bolton um working with the stop the lead here we have Sam practicing her sticking how we is that um and Sam's from Nita and then the mock um crash and um thank thank you to Dean um from Acton with um being our our um our poor injured thanks Sharon I know I saw you that day um but again that was just a great um collaboration that we did and then just moving on this is a list I won't read them all but I bet this PowerPoint will be shared of all of the credentials um that the students have the ability to receive in going through the various um programs and here we have Cassie and um Cassie from Lexington and Sam from Needum so proud holding up their EKG certifications so um I thank you very much for this opportunity if you have any questions um you can ask now or there is my contact information as well but thanks for listening I I'm sorry I tried to condense condense but there's so much I want to share questions and comments school committee members other than wow I'll do the wow and then you can just follow on from there Alice I'm just um thinking that the IRC um slide and and one for each of the different um Majors would be very informative to the boards of Selectmen and incomes and member towns um when we talk to them I I think it it it's it demonstrates the really big distinction between the standard comprehens of High School curriculum and what happens at Minuteman in a in the most concise way for me other comments in Sharon yeah just as the parent of somebody body who's in that right now like it's it's been amazing to watch all of the opportunities that have been placed in front of our children on a daily basis it's really cool agree Sara I was really pleased to um see the alumni participating and really interesting to learn that that uh one alumni who has the salons is able to hire so many Minuteman students that's really impressive great work everybody Linda um I was really impressed that all the seniors in early childhood have co-ops that's that's huge to to not have one loser in the group to have them all being successful that's fabulous thank you agreed and uh final comment your presentation was not too long oh thank you okay I liked every every minute and every slide was informative and useful for me oh and I just want to add something one little thing so in case you don't know when students are not on Co-op they still win because they get to stay in the program and get that advanced learning so I want to make sure we know that even if you don't get an opportunity to participate in Co-op totally still a winner wonderful opportunities with the teachers and you get those smaller groups and connections and sometimes even to teach the Young younger students here so I want to just make sure we uh we know that too um Eric do you want me to share for you or do you want to share yourself your own uh let's see I think I can share and Cindy thank you so so so much thank you again thanks for the opportunity it's exciting all right um Cindy's a tough act to follow um my name is aric Marshall I've been teaching at Minuteman for 17 years and I'm the Lead Teacher for the science department I'm going to explain to you how the science department supports students with their career Readiness by teaching critical thinking skills and showing the relevancy of their classwork through some integrated academics and okay I'm going to start by describing what I call the group joist project where groups of students are given a home improvement scenario such as a new syn being installed which requires holes to be drilled through seal or floor joist and these joist support the structural Integrity of the home so we go through a process of scientific investigation determine the safest way to do that Massachusetts does not only give us content standards for science but also science practices that help guide investigations like this these practices are meant to teach the critical thinking skills across the curriculum things like analyzing data engaging in arguments and communicating information can be taught in English as well as in history or in science the project involves using scaled down models of a joist hundreds of them which is not something readily available but at Minute Man we have a carpentry Department that works on planing and jointing and Milling skills so we can do that here we also need to take measurements of how much force each joist can hold until it fails here at Minuteman we have a half ton structural stress analyzer right across the hall for me an engineering finally we need students that can operate power tools like drills and saws to modify the joist large workspaces and professionals willing to supervise and assist this is all stuff we have at Minuteman this isn't normal high school science stuff the wood strips are scale models of the joist students decide where and how to modify them and then we break them collect the data and we learn from that one of the inquiry standards is communicating information so the students take take pictures of each step along the way so this can go into their Minuteman graduation portfolio something they can show employers or colleges the project shows they can collect data analyze the data and decide based on their data the safest way to modify the joys to successfully accomplish their scenario they'll then interview their shop teachers to learn about what the international building codes say is the safest way to do these modifications and we discuss the agreement and disagreement all all of the screenshots in the presentation are just examples of student work that has been turned in over the they all from last year after doing this project for a while one of the shop teachers said why are you scaling it down so much because even though in my mind I have to fit it in the classroom at Minute Man we don't really have to so we take it back to the shops where Mr Romano from Plumbing Mr LaRosa from carpentry and Mr St George from Electrical uh have their students spend the day repeating this experiment with full-size 2 by8 joists and it looks something like this so we have a hydraulic jack to create the pressure um Mr Rano will talk about running drain line through the floor joists Mr L Ro will talk about what knots mean for the structural integrity and it's always just impressive to see these big pieces of lumber just snap some of the other connections we do um this is a project we do linking the relationship between force and spring stretches in physics we call it hooks law and we connect it to car suspensions by experimentally adding students to the back of a pickup truck and measuring the compression of the truck bed Mr this from Automotive explains some of the ways that that weight is transferred through the truck frame so we have students like uh Reena Treadwell who's a junior from Arlington and a star soccer Striker and Joe Vader who's an electrician from conquered who is also featured basketball player earlier and they go into the automotive shop during their academic week to reinforce and really enhance the lessons that we're trying to teach them in physics uh this activity also recently got recognition from the automotive service excellence in Education Foundation in applied chemistry Mr Bradley works with the cosmetology students and he teaches how hair care products can affect pH and how the solubility of the different products will affect the rate they get absorbed into the hair Miss nadua teaches her academic nutrition classes about healthy meals and as a project she partners with the Early Education and teaching students who present case studies of children in their care with a range of nutritional requirements such as dealing with allergies to gluten or dairy students with arfid or students that just refuse to eat anything green while our academic students are learning about M making healthy meal options they also get the real world opportunity to work with and help Early Education students as they plan a week worth of meals um next up for science we're really looking to continue to help the support the students when Health occupations is doing dissection we want to help them when we have students in biotech or environmental taking AP test we want to help them too uh we also want to make sure our course offerings are in line with the student interests um so updating our curriculum and even considering some new classes um so that's what we're up to in science uh thanks for the time if there are any questions I'd be happy to take them Jeff you're on mute M all right Eric will you uh will you close down the uh share screen we can see everybody thank you so much go I just really enjoy listening to the collaboration between the different trades shops Majors whatever you want to call them um it's one of the significant features of minute man and a vocational education again something that the local schools don't really understand and I I actually don't think a lot of parents understand it either um if they're not involved at Minute Man and I I wish more people knew about it um it's more like the real world uh when the kids learn uh from each other and with each other in the different um types of work I just think it's fabulous thank you thanks and Linda I wanted to apologize for saying the word loser that wasn't really what I meant at all that I understand that not being on Co-op can be a great Educational Opportunity too but I was really impressed with Early Child other comments and questions we got uh Sharon yeah I was just Eric I loved the way you were able to show all the all the academic things that go into these like trades and um just the interaction of all of those skills was just really well presented I really appreciated that and I I agree with what Alice said that it's just it's unlike anything you get in a standard Public School setting is yeah Alice it occurs to me that the Board of Education could also um benefit from understanding this uh what the presentation that you just made um that would be revolutionary I think to bring that to them I was actually going to suggest that uh both of these presentations from the recording of this meeting be placed on the minute man website because then we have a a link uh uh that we can give to anybody to say if you really want to get a flavor of what happens at Minute Man this isn't a description of the whole school this is uh a really kind of intimate description of these programs with actual things that the students are doing that you might be interested in seeing because that if you if you look at one of those two presentations either of them or both you will uh get the flavor very quickly of how minute man is different than traditional schools and how that can be beneficial to so many students so I would just take those I wouldn't even have to do it again special for this just take those two presentations from this recording put on the site give us the links and it might be useful in talking to somebody I can say just look at this link if you want to get a flavor what really happens here it may not be the subject that you're interested in but but just imagine that for all the other subjects we have here Minute Man Sharon the only question I have on that is I'm not sure we can post first and last names of students on the website like can we how do you know that yeah yeah we that's something we could take care of offline but um we can't as long as the people have releases that's not an issue so if we showed it here tonight we we can put it on the website and I think Jeff is right we actually have two others the first two we saw we wanted to see how these go and and I do feel like um we should have a library um of these to access it has been incredibly helpful even with the first two for when I am on my tour and meeting with people um across our communities to be able to use um I wish Maggie were here because we use some of the slides from the last two um while we worked with the Bolton um select board um excuse me do select board um it was wonderful so I I just want to say I know a couple of people have hands up but I really want to thank Cindy and Eric for putting the time in for this because you can tell how thoughtful it was and how students first it is so I just want to thank you thank you thank you carene I know this is sort of belaboring the point but people say that you know schools are like communities but at minute man it's more like a an ecosystem you know the way the groups work together and really teach each other is so incredible and um I just like to thank all of the Educators that are doing this work um for our students because you know obviously without you they couldn't learn all of this but uh I really appreciate it I mean I have a student there myself and I really appreciate these presentations and I really appreciate the day-to-day work so thank you we have a number of well-made professional videos that we've used and put up on our website in the past but I really think that these presentations will really uh push the point home um perhaps better than they do for a lot of people very well no more questions or comments thank you very much for those excellent presentations that I just wish everybody would um in our communities would would look at they be breaking down the doors to get in um and I see a couple um people here here today I see Katie buard I saw um Samantha somewhere oh there she is um and I see Peter kellerer here I want to thank them too for coming um to support their colleagues thank you very much uh may I move on to the next portion Jeff it's up to you it's on your item okay uh our next item is the mcast competency determination update um so what all of you received in your backup is you received the frequently asked questions uh that was provided from desie I know there's a lot of information out there it's just about as clear as most things that come from the state are um so I have a little summary uh that I think will clarify some points and then I'm happy to answer questions um move this over okay you should see um leadership Report with um Janu okay great um so the first thing um that I want to share is that the vote that happened that was the talk of Massachusetts um even though it was about MCA the actual law that is impacted is the competency determination which is required for a Massachusetts diploma um this is our current policy and as Alice will tell you the um the policy subcommittee will be looking at this policy as we look at many others um because our policy that we currently have says that students have met all local requirements and have passed the required State assessment mcast will be granted a traditional high school diploma um to get a diploma you actually need a competency determination which mcast did meet that but it wasn't mcast alone it was also an mcast appeal and it was also a portfolio for a competency determination so any one of those would have met the competency determination um but now it does not um local gradu graduation requirements are separate from a competency determination and local graduation requirements are at the discretion of the district oh and I have a slide with pictures like I like to do what is the difference between mcass and a competency determination so mcass is an assessment period the competency determination is required by law for a Massachusetts diploma and one way it could be earned is from demonstrating proficiency on mcass that's it so I actually said this before I even showed the slide questions about this please please feel free to interrupt as I'm going through this because if there are terms or if there's jargon you don't know I'm I'm happy to explain as we go through so here's the new language in the statute the December vote the um the no more mcast um vote which really isn't no more mcast the only thing that was taken out is that uh is the line as measured by the assessment instruments described in section one which is mcass that's out so now it says the competency determination shall be determined by satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the students District as showing Mastery of the skills competencies knowledge contained in the State academic standards and curriculum Frameworks in the areas measured by the mcast as administered in 2023 and any additional areas determined by the board so what was measured in 2023 it was math it was English and science Technology and Engineering that's it but it also says and in any additional areas so that means if they did add foreign language or history and social science those are still on the table but they're not there currently because the board hasn't voted so this is the definition of a competency determination it's assurance that an individual student has attained Mastery and has completed coursework that has been certified by the district that is where we are now that's what a CD is and that is not new a competency determination is not new local graduation requirements are not new so local graduation requirements are at the sole discretion of the school district and may include things like required courses number of credits required assessments required Capstone projects community service I can tell you at my own I have two high schools students every year they have to do a certain number of community service hours and a total amount by their senior year um right now is their um Common Core assessment week it's like midterms they're required to take those um so a CD plus local graduation requirements now equals a Massachusetts high school diploma the law says you may not use mcass to determine um competency anymore that is not a thing could a local uh graduation requirement include mcast yes it could but that's at the discretion of um a district not the state it cannot be a part of the competency determination IDI sorry to interrupt I thought it said that it could be a part of the competency but that it was not required to be the competency anymore no no it cannot be the competency determination no now for kids who already took mcast and have a competency determination they get to keep it it doesn't go away but for um years following as of right now you may not use that for the competency determination questions okay um so what does this mean now it means a lot of things but I'm pulling out just some key points I don't like walls of words I apologize for this um so mcast still takes place this year and Beyond to to provide data to schools districts and the state accountability system accountability does not go away we'll still have percentile rankings we we'll still have District targets and school targets we'll still get all of that same information um students who have not earned a CD in the past may be reviewed by a school district not the state to receive a high school diploma students in the class of 2025 who have not yet earned a CD may not use an mcast retest or an mcast appeal to meet the requirement once the new law takes effect now thankfully at Minuteman we don't have anyone in that situation in the class of 25 100% % of our seniors met the competency determination through the traditional U methods prior to this law taking effect um so that's where we are however not every school district is in that same position um Heidi do you know are there um for the second bullet are there students at minute man who fall into that category who would um are being asked to be reviewed um no one has asked us yet but this is literally any student who did not receive a diploma from 2004 until today um are welcome to go back um to try to earn that now they have been able to do this this entire time but the way to get your competency determination would be to take an mcast retest now they would have to participate in whatever process we've determined is equivalent to a competence determination um the other piece is you would have to still meet local graduation requirements so our local graduation requirements may look different than they did 20 years ago questions about that okay um the so more what does this mean the John and Abigail Adams scholarship The Click certificate of mastery the state steal of seal of biliteracy still will use mcass as qualifications for those award programs so that's still exists um let's see and and as I said students who have already earned a CD um have met that requirement for those subject areas do not need to do anything else and what will likely happen soon the department of Ed will develop and Implement oversight or functions of District processes and there will be some sort of reporting of District processes we have no I this is likely um every District at currently will have a different process um the Board of Education will likely have additional definitions of terms through regulation like what does a course of study mean what does that mean it doesn't mean a course what does a course of study mean and how do how does that show demonstrate Mastery um Bessie will possibly propose additional areas in accordance with the new statutory language through regulation and it's possible that they would put out requirements around District processes but we don't know that right now and what will likely happen happen long term longterm the department of Ed will likely um develop recommendations for new Statewide graduation standards which may involve new legislation the Board of educa Education would create new regulations based on the current law or any subsequent legislation and what happens now the department of Ed will adopt regulations on current land language and the department of Ed will provide guidance right now our guidance has been um two rounds of frequently asked questions shortterm class of 2025 for minute man um our students are poised for graduation and need only meet their local graduation requirements medium-term current high school students we need to await guidance from desie so we can adjust policies handbooks program programs of studies things like that um because we will need a process for our Juniors um and if I'm not mistaken there's fewer than a handful um who have not met the CD requirement at this time and longterm what do we do with our students who are not yet in grade nine um across the state um because it it is really important that when someone begins high school they have idea of what that long-term goal is um if there is uh whatever that determination is you don't want to Spring that on any um and again on most of the Department of Ed slides in the longer term there may be further legislation I can't I have no idea what that legislation would be what that would articulate um and Minute Man's next steps is we have to make sure that our policy um is uh I guess malleable enough um to be able to apply as the state and the Department of Education figure themselves out um so the policy subcommittee um will be looking at that soon we need to make sure that our student family handbook and our program of studies we have to make sure all of those align not only with our competency determination um requirement but also with our local graduation requirements it's important that we don't say how many credits you need for this year to get to that year in three different places um because uh many times those uh are not calibrated uh on a regular basis so those do need to be aligned and supporting each other and that is a very short and summarized version of a very hairy issue um and I was uh just so you know at maa's General membership meeting in March um I'll be presenting with the mava officers on um options for um competency determinations and um supporting districts making those choices I know that was a lot questions com some questions for the superintendent based on her uh I think a reasonably short and fairly thorough um report demonstrating um a context of the issue that we have to deal with or mostly she has to deal with thanks joh I think the lack of comments and questions is not an indication that people were bored by our presentation but rather than you did a good job in presenting the information in a way that we can start to think about about as events unfold Charlene okay you are we yeah so we don't know um exactly what process we're going to use to determine the competency right now for students who I mean seniors look like they're in good shape but maybe Juniors sophomores who haven't passed the mcast and those previous versions um we'll come up with a new plan for them is that basically it yes our sophomores they have um because our sophomores don't take biology or excuse me our freshmen don't take biology our sophomores currently have no competency determination so this our choices will impact our sophomores and our freshmen and any remaining Juniors Alice I'm hoping I can articulate what I'm thinking about correctly but um I think that this the issue before us is that a decision was made at the ballot without any plan for day two and it is the same kind of thing that's happening in many other spheres including of course the admissions policy and it's sort of a let's break it all down without a plan for day two approach that people are taking across the Spectrum in the country and I I just think you know they've got it's got to stop people have to think things through they have to take the time and not just you know shut it all down that that is not an approach that is going to win us any battles and I I just I think it's just a bigger issue um and this is just one symptom of that issue and I hope you know we get through this cleanly but um I know we will because they're already you guys are already thinking about how to handle it and how to have a policy that is you know flexible enough to address whatever comes with more guidance and more facts and FAQs and stuff but um I I just feel the need to articulate that and I hope that other people will speak up when they see things like this that are being done without any thought to day two very well uh Heidi you have a com I have one more thing to add uh Dr peralt and I have already started Drafting and if this then this if this then this type of um policy that would keep us I think safe for probably the next four years um so we will be working with that we need a little bit more time to be thoughtful and we will be bringing that to the policy subcommittee to to think it through um before we bring it to a a broader audience Pam I just want to say how fortunate Minuteman is if um this issue is not impacting current seniors just hearing from many many parents who are you know really concerned about the impact of their um children and particularly in um with children with disability it kind of goes both ways sort of how do you like make that determination at this level in terms of um you know if if there's a concern that the child might need additional education you know past um you know an additional year or not you know what are the um procedures in place I it's just I I just want to say how fortunate we are that there's there's going to be a lot of work but that we're not under the gun right now with a lot of very very very complex questions that have to be and decisions that have to be made very quickly very well is that the end of the superintendent's report it is sir I would call that two very substantial items for your report now let's move on to some of the fun stuff we talk about numbers a lot uh Finance report Steve Leo thanks fun with numbers that's what it's all about um so the finance committee um um met last Monday evening and we reviewed uh once again the superintendent's recommended budget which we'll be getting into in in in a moment uh we unanimously um uh voted to uh recommend that budget but with two caveats um Jeff did mention one and the fact that the governor's um uh budget state budget has not come out yet so uh we don't know what the impact of any any uh Aid will be at this point and secondly the uh School Bus contract is out to bid and we wanted to be able to see those numbers as well so we are meeting again on Monday the 27th to see how those things either impact or don't impact the budget you're going to see a presentation on um right now now at prior to the um to the public hearing so it is conceivable what you see tonight may change a little we just we just don't know and and secondly we met jointly with the capital planning committee last week kind of went through uh some of their report and U uh the elements of the first year of the capital plan uh are included in in this proposed budget so uh we're very happy and we think both both Heidi and Nikki have done trem tremendous work on this budget and um hopefully you you guys will U feel the same as as our our finance committee does so I guess with that we'll turn it over to Heidi and um and Nikki to do the presentation all right thank you all so much um Nikki will be sharing our slides and I'm going to turn it over to her okay so on on the sorry about that trying here we go all right Heidi I'll let you introduce thank you on on the next few slides um you are going to see basically how our budget reflects our values um Nikki is going to get into the weeds um we flip by that first slide pretty quickly because Nikki and I are going to replace Ed McQuillan's image over there um with ours I'm you see him right there we're going to replace that in the next version we just need a little Photoshop um and on the next slide I it's I love these pictures because it shows our staff our students uh teaching and learning um and I think you've heard a lot tonight about what happens in our classrooms and in our school and I think our budget helps us uh help show us how we can continue supporting them so uh next slide all right take it away so I will take over with the numbers but uh you know just as Heidi had mentioned um you know when we think about the school and the budget we really always want to put those those teachers um our staff and our students first um you know when we create the budget it does start um with the teachers they put in a you know a departmental request or a wish list and then we go through um as the administrator team and with the superintendent um so we really do get input um from everybody this presentation is a summarized um presentation of what we have spent the last few months with the finance committee in detail about um so you we condense these to a 5 to 10 minute presentation for our public hearing we will personalize the presentation if necessary for any of the towns as requested with pictures and and facts about the students um from your town so I'm happy to answer any questions um after the presentation but this is a a condensed big picture version of what we're looking at for our budget so our FY 26 budget operating in capital is up um from FY 25 about 2.99% just under 3% um coming in at 32,4 61,500 that breaks out a little bit further is our operating budget is just under 6% um increase from FY 25 5.98% our operating and capital recommendation is down a significant percentage negative 27% and we'll explain uh in further detail that's due to a lease coming off of our books and our building project debt um has remained very consistent um with just under 1% change year-over-year this is due to the msba project being completed and we're now just paying our our principal and interest on our debt service payments and our overall um member assessments 26,5 47,800 increase from the prior year this is not specific to each town this is just in total each Town um will vary and you'll see that in different slides um based on how the budget is calculated um so our budget a very strong budget driver in our budget is the four-year rolling average of the students that attend so based on the number of students and the increases and decreases um in the number of students that really drives each Town's individual member assessment so our budget drivers or our budget priorities um really you know first and foremost is our staff we're on our final year of the CBA and FY 26 which was a 3% increase plus any steps and levels um that those teachers get we really dug in a little bit deeper into supplies and materials this year especially um in the CTE World um just to make sure they have um enough of the supplies that they need to do all of the the great things in projects um considering you know a number of different things um you know inflation increased pricing potential tariffs um we have seen a big increase in our insurances in particular our building Insurance um cyber security insurances um due to certain claims um on our building so that has been um a priority and as Mr Leo mentioned we have our transportation bid um that's out we will be receiving those um bids back by Friday so we will have an update to you before the public hearing as to what that will look like um one of the acronyms that we use um is OPB in the finance world and that means other post-employment benefits so that would be you know when you're retired you continue to get health insurance benefits supplement from the school um we have um there's a slide that shows a bit more detail but we've really um invested some time into making a plan as to when would be the right time to increase our contribution to this fund and um that ties into our next item which is our Esco lease it was an energy savings lease that was from our old building it was finally paid off last year so our school committee um put together a OPB study committee which decided this will be the appropriate year to increase our contribution to OPB and then starting from that spot um next year we will continue to increase our contribution 5% each year we have different capital in um stabilization needs and other needs surround our building which we'll get into more detail and um just to note for our debt service um this was you know a big question from the towns we will continue to offset our Athletic Field um Debt Service payment with um the revenue that's um created by renting our fields in our facilities revolving fund so just going into a little more detail on the capital requests our Capital stabilization fund um is an account that we put money um towards and into if there are any um you know anticipated or unanticipated needs of the building um it helps maintain the campus and you know mitigate some future um increases uh and you know once we get a little more into the um long-term capital plan you'll see how this kind of ties into the budget and what we may consider um in some future upcoming budgets some other Capital needs include um a bulkhead on 20 mil Street where our animal science um group is as well as some roof work um some sewer pumps a Wood Bridge repair HVAC repairs and four electric gates which will be funded 75% with our general fund and 25% with our revolving fund a little more detail on the OPB again the other post-employment benefits um is we have um an actuary estimate what the cost um per some per auditing requirements is so our um our liability to fully pay off OPB for anyone that could potentially retire in the future would be about 22 million um our current balance in our opep trust fund is um 1,448 , 46 so as you can see here we're around 5 6% we've still got a way to go um so when the OPB study committee um you know put a plan together they increased our contribution this year from um 800 to you know 1,1 155,000 um and that helps pay for our active as you'll see there's a plan for the next year is to continue to increase this by the 5% in order to start um making some additional progress towards that that unfunded liability and transitioning away uh a little bit from Finance world is just talking about our enrollment in our school uh our total enrollment this year is at 669 students again you'll see the trend um you know over the past few years is that our member Town um students have continued to increase our red line and our non-member students um you know have decreased or or stayed consistent this year the past two um freshman classes or the class of um 26 and 27 were 100% member Town students um but our incoming fres freshman class this year did have 13 non-member students and our senior class graduated 13 member students so that's why that number has stayed consistent and this is a little bit more of a breakdown by um town and by class but as the enrollment shifts if um and we what we've seen in past budgets is that as our outof district um students decrease the tuition and the capital fees that they pay in conjunction with coming to Minuteman has also decreased so that has remained stable this year um because those students um that left and the students that came in were the same but that has been um an impact and a talking point to Our member towns just to make them aware um as we continue on with the new freshman classes in the school and as I had noted before um our assessments per Town um do vary based on the enrollment so this is a slide with a lot of numbers but our preliminary assessments for each member town is over in this column and the assessment from last year is in this column with the percent change so um you can you know find your member town and go across to see what your percentage um is for the increase inre in the assessment what we have on this slide um this column is the change in the fouryear rolling average of the students so we don't do just one year because if there's big spikes there may be really big percentages we really like to even that out so we do a four-year rolling average and compare it and you'll see the percent increase so overall our total increase 3.34% for our assessments and our total increase 7.1% for our change in our four-year rolling average and you'll see um that there is some strong correlations between um the change in the number of students or the four-year rolling average and our preliminary assessments for each town and just to start wrapping things up um just a refresher again our operating budget sitting at the 5.98% our um operating Capital um has decreased because of the Esco lease falling off the books and our building project or our debt service has remained somewhat consistent being just less than 1% difference year to year with our total operating and capital budget being 2.99% increase from year toe this slide is our non-assessment Revenue um we have Revenue that we receive from the state or from our outof district students that we are able to offset Our member Town assessments with as Jeff and Steve had noted um our chapter 78 in our chapter 71 Aid is um estimates that we estimate uh for the state when the governor's budget comes out on January 22nd we will update these numbers and we will let know what that update is prior to the public hearing with a short um one one slide just to kind of go over the changes um but you'll see we've estimated those to remain somewhat consistent are prior year tuition and capital fee are um fees that we collect from our out of District students that help offset Our member Town assessments our excess and defici fund um oh goodness our our excess and deficiency fund is um remaining consistent at 650,000 that is essentially um our fund balance or the revenue minus expenses any excess funds the school has we're not allowed to um hold over 5% so we do give U money backs to the towns through um our assessments this way and last but not least our facilities revolving Revenue um offsets that Debt Service payment on the athletic fields so our non-assessment Revenue again remaining very consistent this year um with just under a one and a half percent change this is the first year in a few years it's remained consistent um which has really allowed us um a more consistent um member Town assessments just increasing at 3.34% last but not least just wrapping up our assessment components um again our our minimum required contribution we're estimating to remain the same that will also update with the governor's budget our transportation budget has increased quite a bit this year um due to us being out forbid as well is properly budgeting for our foster care and our homeless and our special education Transportation our Esco lease as we noted has fallen off the books and you'll see this that here um our capital and our operating Capital has increased due to the capital we've requested um and again our our building project debt remain inconsistent so that is our summary of our FY 26 budget and I'd be happy to answer any questions that the school committee has school committee members questions or comments I see Sharon's hands up yeah Nikki I just want to say thank you um to everybody involved on it like you your presentation made it very digestible for somebody who like I like numbers but I don't always understand all that but I think that you your presentation was very helpful and very clear so thank you thank you are questions and comments I see Pam's I think hand up just one quick comment I'm actually kind of looking forward to the my meeting with my finance committee thank you find something to complain about I guarantee the first time Pim has ever said that other questions and comments uh Nikki can you close your screen so we can oh absolutely apologies so you can see why I I uh kind of uh suggested that it was a h very well put together budget I think the towns are going to be happy uh Steve who to me is the gold standard was happy at the first presentation that they did he was pretty happy and I go by if he's happier than I'm happy and I think that all the members of the the finance subcommittee were very very pleased with how the uh Administration put this budget and with um the presentation they've created no more questions comments please send a copy of the presentation to all the members members if you have no questions now but you can look at it you have a question shoot it out to Julia and the appropriate person will get back as I said as uh actually Nick she mentioned there going to be some changes possibly depending on events we cannot foresee and the public hearing uh well uh the public hearing which of course we'll all be attending is on uh January 30th followed by our votes did I leave anything out Steve no I think we're think we're good great any final comment Steve or uh Alice um I thought it was a great presentation I really liked it I wonder if we're going to get a a larger level of detail beyond the presentation which I think we usually have and if we're not I'd like to know what the theory is there do you mean the budget book yep um we will still be receiving a budget book um Nikki and I were looking at that today actually was that today yes the last few days uh it will be posted on the website but we will also provide the budget book prior to the public hearing at standard 48 Hours um it will be posted on our website and we'll also email it out to the committee any other questions or comments is that the end of the finance report Steve yes it is okay and thank you I want to thank Steve and I want to thank Sarah also the members of the other members of the fincom uh for um helping us through this process especially you know Steve's leadership is always uh gratefully appreciated we're very lucky to have Sunday with his level of experience on our our committee he he he often tells us he often says you know the things that he's had to deal with on both sides of either being a town manager or having to deal with Town managers or whatever and always very instru and and useful in how we think about moving forward right fascinating very good I believe that comes to subcommittee reports and we have um I think we're going to talk about animals and then uh back to numbers alisca um so uh Heidi already covered the discussion about the the mystical world of company determinations local requirements and everything else we're not going to talk about the uh graduation requirement thing but that is something we're working on um we're also uh working on uh still on policy section I will'll be coming to you all later and when you receive access to all of those policies you're also going to receive an Excel sheet which um you can fill out your your comments on and then we can take them back and try to make determinations as to whether we're going to update the policies with your comments and then it'll all come back to you for your approval um review and approval uh so that that'll be coming down the pike right at the minute at the moment you know we're not going to be doing anything very um abstract this is a policy um IMG about animals in school there is an animal in school it is a service Animal Service animals are a very important part ERS for people who use them and need them um and they have a right to have their service animals in school but it also causes obviously um complications for any any um environment in which there is a service animal or there could be complications and part of the policy is to um anticipate that and to try to be as Heidi described for other policies flexible and um cover things without too much uh in the weed so you received the the second copy of what you received has um well it has a service animals and two paragraphs and educational and two paragraphs did you did you see that policy it was sent today around 3:59 p.m. is the one that you're looking at and that we're asking you to consider so Sharon and I met with Heidi and Amy Pro this morning um and we made a couple of edits they were mostly technical edits to this policy the original one that you may recall reading um discussed uh things like rabies animals that might have rabies it talked about bats and skunks and all kinds of animals which are never in school um so and it was a very complicated long thing at the time that we approved it it was what we were told we had to do so we did it this time around um it's really about service animals um in the school and how the school district is going to comply with the Massachusetts Department of Health publication guidelines for animals in schools or on school grounds so it defers to that um and it provides information also on educational uses for Animals because we now have an animal science program in the school which we did not have when we adopted that old policy um so that's that's about it on what's different um this is a total replacement of the original policy that we're asking you to consider um and it is um you know it's been quite a while since we reviewed this and and revised it so I guess if anyone has any questions this would be the time to oh let's get a motion on the table let's get a motion on the table to approve um IMG animals and schools the version that was sent out at 3:59 p.m. today um so moved okay second okay so there's a motion in a second and now if anyone has any questions it's the time to ask those I don't see any questions I think Al that the revised version of the um the one that you sent out was is pretty straightforward and it essentially refers to the policy that we have to follow anyways created by the state so I think that it's uh very very straightforward in this one may not be a lot of questions on it well thank you um so I guess we're now needing to put it to a vote pam pam is on mute Heidi did you have a question your hand was raised I just I just wanted to compliment Sharon and Alice before we even got um to the vote because what they've been trying to do with policy is make things digestible I noticed you used that word earlier and I I just think I know I appreciate it I think the community will appreciate it because these are usable and readable so I just wanted to to say that before you vote Thank you Pam nurse okay Pam nurse acting yes Sarah Montegue Arlington yes Linda Heron Bolton yes evil do conquered yes Charlie the Lancaster yes Sharon Musto Lexington yes Jeff Stan needen yes Al Lucas joee yes thank you very much okay now the fun topic oh Capital planning um so that actually is really exciting um we have this very long report which you're all going to get a copy of later um but right now there's going to be a brief discussion of uh the the report from on-site Insight that you all approved um a number of months ago and um I guess uh Heidi is going to um give the the presentation on that it so it's just a brief overview so you know what the heck you are about to read when you receive a 90 page document and I think we just found out today also emailing it isn't the best way to go because you lose some of the um Clarity because it's such a huge file so we may end up sharing it in a folder but Julia and I will figure that out Tom EXC meone I'm going to make a um a recommendation that you will not like but nevertheless I think it's correct I think that this is the sort of thing that we're g this report we're going to be living with for years and I think that it may be useful for us to actually write notes on it so I'm going to re recommend that despite the cost for this one it be printed and sent to school committee members that that makes sense that makes total sense um that's how we've used it ourselves um because it is it's just massive um do you see my screen right now yes okay so this is just a reminder um the capital planning committee requested a 20-year projection of expenses to maintain the Minuteman campus this happened or began last spring um the director of operations Michelle rendes worked with a company to evaluate the current state and future of both our buildings and grounds um the report will be used to drive the future work of the capital planning committee and the superintendent to plan for potential and actual expenses to have fully operational educational programming at Minute Man um and I should have probably put this in bold but please note that the funding plan in this report is a guide and immediate needs for issues that cannot be predicted always take precedence so I think sometimes already as soon as the report was in our hands and the capital planning committee can attest to this we had some unexpected events that were on the timeline somewhere but not right now they are so that changes things um so what Michelle is working on is a tracking system to log um our work as we do it in conjunction with this um guide so this is at a glance our funding um that this report says we need to maintain our buildings um including other than the main building so you'll see our highest year is in 2038 um we will need $18 million of upkeep that year now does that mean we have to that is happening that year no not necessarily um and that's where the capital planning um comes in there are things we can take out of order there are things that were repaired early there are things that are funded through grants um but this is a guide with um very specific um items for us to look at so we know what to prepare for um so we have the main campus um good overall condition um the biggest issues are we need the signage that was taken out of the original um plan we need Bridge repairs right now and we have some HVAC HVAC issues that need to be um taken care of um our accessory buildings there's multiple they're aging um and we had just started talking about plans for Partnerships and where do we go and as Steve mentioned um I mean one might have just we might have just connected with one this week um and the critical systems that need to be addressed and those ancillary buildings so the HVAC the roofing asphalt and the infrastructure and this is a highlight of some of those most expensive years what are those things that would cost $18 million redoing the playground redoing the dog park um fencing boilers um the elevator controller um but this is interesting so we have the elevator here um as many of you know we actually had to um replaced uh all sorts of things in our elevator this year because we had um vegetable oil instead of synthetic oil and it was wearing um too quickly so that had to be PL replaced much earlier we'll have our other elevator um that system replaced much earlier so that changes things already um questions about this these big picture years okay um it also included um or the report includes instructional vocational equipment um and those are included in here but as um as Katie can tell you many times we can get a skills Capital Grant or fund things through Perkins to take care of our um vocational instructional equipment but some of those big ticket items that are included in here are theater rigging lighting AV Equipment the col kitchen equipment um Metal Fab equipment horiculture Greenhouse equipment um and that also right now I know we're trying to look into a yearly maintenance plan for that gorgeous Greenhouse um and some of the grants that we typically um would use are on the right the issue with grants is they are grants they are not entitlement these are not things that we can guarantee will happen forever they go up they go down so this plane prepares us if those don't exist with that the proposed funding strategy from this on-site Insight company is that we put away $2.79 million a year now that is not reasonable um but that is if we had no grants if we had no Revenue if that was it that is what we would need to do our current Capital stabilization fund which Nikki mentioned that's a fund that we would use for an unanticipated cost that we couldn't um address out of the budget um is $3.7 million so the this is this is where you're going to have to take take a minute or more than a minute um to get into this full preliminary report this will break down every single spot on our campus is a summary that is much more detailed than my summary and then it goes down into every type of item that we would have to um support uh to keep Minute Man operating um as Minuteman is right now um and I'm not going to go through all uh 90 Pages uh but this this is it it is a thick and dense report so before we send this to you to digest we just wanted to give you a little overview of what it is and then we're going to send you a hard copy um of this packet that will be photocopied without the risk of blur depending of course on the status of your copier or it make sure there don't those are great those are already in the in the plan questions and comments uh the school committee members so those are are large numbers correct that we have to learn how to fund over time but I I have to say this is one of my uh happiest days in the school committee because what we're doing is we're taking a um a problem that is very easy to ignore and many many schools just ignore it and they ignore it until they run into trouble down the road and what we're doing is we're we're facing the music and saying if we want to keep this building running for its uh um appropriate Lifetime and not like Let It deteriorate like our previous building which I had to live through this is what needs to be done so our job and the the finance committee is going to be working with the um Capital committee to come come up with a plan to really fund this thing and the administration and we might have to uh part of this may be a a raise in our budget some of it and we're going to have to talk to probably people in our member towns officials in Our member towns to let them understand at one point what we're doing it's kind of parallel to what we're doing with OP saying we have this problem we have this um liability and we have to fund it somehow and we came up with a plan to approach it and uh they were actually quite happy with the plan at least the ones that I talked to so we have to do the same thing here is we have to um look at the problem in the eye without flinching right big numbers and come up with a plan to fun it in conjunction with our Our member towns who of course will be paying for a fair amount of it one way or the other and better to be paying for it in a in a planned controlled manner than having a catastrophe come that you have to address in an emergency manner because that is never cheaper than maintaining it properly as any homeowner understands so it's a very happy day for me that we have this report that this enormous amount of work has been done by the capital committee and now the the fincom committee and the administration to present it to you for the first time and it's going to take us I think quite a while to figure out the strategy and how to deal with this Heidi I'd just like to add an additional decoration to this conversation um you will receive this full report in that summary um something that uh you should be aware of that is not articulated by the report um are is the issue with our warranties and I know the capital planning committee and the finance committee are aware of this but I think it's important for the full committee to know for our towns to be aware um we opened our building in 2020 we promptly uh excuse me 2019 we promptly closed our building in 201 20 as anyone will tell you when you open a new building it's important to have it functioning and operating so you can see um so you can get the Kinks out um we shut down that year when we came back we were operating half and half we were not using the building um to capacity um or maybe that's we were over capacity I guess we're all over the place uh but it's important to know that the building operated differently so what we are finding now is that something that a six-year-old building shouldn't have break ends up breaking and we are out of a warranty because the warranty ended two years ago um and had we not opened during the Pandemic those warranties would have served their purpose so it's another bizarre unintended pandemic consequence um um that we're facing a bit and um I just want you want you to be aware of that I know the finance and capital um committees are aware because we've we've come into a few issues already this year um but that's that is something important to know so I think for us even more so we do really need to maintain and stay on top of of our building Al one other thing is that by smoothing out by figuring out how to fund this very these very large numbers over time and not and maybe not have those huge spikes we're not going to be dropping in the lap of a future generation a big mess over and over in Massachusetts and elsewhere school buildings deteriorate and another generation comes in and they're like what happened what happened here why do we have to suddenly build a new school um and this this will prevent that from happening to another generation it's a good idea and it's really exciting to not to not to to leave things better than we found them and to keep them that way that is very exciting and is that the end of the capital planning subcommittee update excellent thank you very much Alice thank you Capital subcommittee Finance subcommittee Administration uh we're going to be living with this issue indefinitely into the future so you'll get your report it'll be a romantic reading for you take notes bring questions and comments in and we're going to make this work legislative subcommittee update Charlene cab thanks Jeff um so uh like Alice reported earlier and today's meeting um we Linda and I and Alice went to the um Board of Education meeting recently last month um there's a lot going on with V Tech education and hope that everybody is you know watching those meetings when they can and um seeing what's going on with these V Tech issues uh just this week or actually it was like last week the masc sent out a missive from uh Glenn Kutcher requesting that we support masc resolutions that involve vetech education one resolution which was resolution nine uh sponsored by Tri County VTech is asking for the um legislature to P to I'm sorry call for a tiered system to assess School building projects accounting for the higher costs associ iated with these specialized schools as we saw today in our presentations by our department heads our programs are more than just you know whiteboards and books and you know we we have a lot of expensive equipment and right now the um the government the state does not call into they don't um consider all of that extra funding that is needed for V Tech schools so so masc is requesting um that they start to put in more monies for these specialized schools resolution 10 focuses on expanding capacity in chapter 74 V Tech programs because there are current waiting lists um it doesn't look like those waiting lists are going to go anywhere so in your materials you have a um a sample letter to legislator we discussed uh potentially doing a letter by the Minuteman subcommittee however there is importance of receiving multiple letters so we are asking the school committee um parents any of the Minuteman uh Community to feel free to take this uh template adjust it to your own needs into your own message but to support these resolutions because these resolutions will ultimately help the um growth and sustenance of vol Tech education in the Commonwealth the years to come there is one surprising uh piece that is missing from this which is the lottery issue um and the uh placement the application procedures for Bap so as you know um there's a movement a front to change our application procedures to a general law Lottery um proponents of this think that this will make everything fairer for all students in the Commonwealth um many people whove really studied this don't agree um and without going into everybody's position here individually um some of the the those who are defending the current process uh explain that the application processes that are in place now have a purpose um you know looking at a students academics and their attendance and their behavior is important because as a vol tech school we are training future employers employees rather and these students need to have some um some responsibility for attending school attending their co-ops attending their jobs someday um you know behaviorally obviously we don't want students that would have such uh High behavior issues that they would be at risk to themselves or others um and academics you want to show a student that has made a good effort um this doesn't mean that we're picking the top-notch students throughout the Commonwealth it doesn't mean that we're discriminating against students who aren't all A's or who don't have the perfect attendance um or anything like that and unfortunately people get misunderstandings when they look at certain criteria they assume things that are just not true so um having a lottery system could very well minimize Equity across the board because V Tech schools have higher concentrations of all kinds of students diverse students um students with IEPs and all of that so we are asking this the legislative subcommittee is asking our school committee members to consider writing to um to the Board of Education which is dealing with this issue right now um and exposing your thoughts on um defending our program as it is defending the um application procedures as they are and perhaps um you know suggesting why a generalized Lottery would not be such a great idea if you're so inclined the board I think is looking for input um they basically told us they read every letter that they get which suggested to us you know send more letters send more different points of view because the people who are supporting the general lottery they are sending their letters um I'm not sure that we as a community of Vtech are sending ours so I want to encourage every one to um send a letter send a letter to the board of ed on the on the uh application procedures issue and hopefully we'll get our points across thank you is that the end of your report Charlene it is any comments and questions three long-term issues that we will be looking at into the far Horizon of our future we will be discussing this again finally last but not least for this evening superintendent evaluation update it's a coming Pam it's a coming although it's going to be a very short report tonight we are meeting next week so the the committee is getting together I mean um conducting the superintendent evaluation process is one of the you know it's an important role of the school committee and the state has a model that they have laid out masc has guidance on um you know using that model we're going to be meeting next week to you know and you know with Heidi and to be talking putting together a process that will'll be bringing back to all of you so much much more to come colen we have that meeting set already yes it is on the 21 yes thanks for confirming that Pam I didn't know that either it is January 21st and I need to I need to just confirm with Julia on the time if she got any feedback on the time 5:30 p.m. 5:30 thank you any questions and comments on the start of the and remember we did not do one last year because it kind of didn't make any sense so we kind of like but this year we have to go back to our our formal process and I'm very happy that that Pam is you know leading this effort with our subcommittee they'll be very busy for a little bit of time right uh any final comments and questions before I ask for a motion to adjourn very well then can I have a motion to adjourn please second pam pam Nur Acton yes Sarah mue Arlington yes Linda herbison Bolton yes Steve Leo conquered yes Charlie cell Lancaster yes Sharon must Lexington yes Jeff stulen yes Al Joe yes thank you everybody thank you Julia thank you all Minuteman staff and faculty who attended the meeting uh administrators and uh superintendent and call good night