##VIDEO ID:BUVV7X35dfU## e e all to order the regular meeting of the nooba regional school committee and we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance so you can rise and join me if if you don't mind muting that would be helpful I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay so um first item on our agenda is public comment I've had nobody reach out to me for public comments we're going to go right past that one uh we're going to move on to the consent agenda and Amy if you have the motion that Alita sent you can go ahead and make that motion I do I move to appr approve the consent agenda of January 15 2025 excluding the Hill Middle School donation acceptance request so I'll second that and then just as a quick note everybody we pulled that donation out of the consent agenda because it was premature and we need to kind of Kirk needs to revisit um a couple of things on that so that's why we're pulling that out of the posted consent agenda all right so are there any questions or comments about what is included in the consent agenda okay I'm not seeing any hands so we're going to go ahead with a roll call vote so Amy Cohen yes myself yes Scott yes Amy vessels yes shandor yes Robin yes Joe yes Sharon yes John yes Jackie yes and Lindsay on the consent agenda yes she says yes not sure if my audio is working yet yes there we go you're on okay okay all right everybody that uh the consent agenda has been approved um with the school committee chairperson update there's nothing that I have to offer beyond what is already in the agenda and so cruising right along um I'm wondering if we have our student Representatives here with us tonight I don't see them if they arrive I will be happy to interrupt the agenda um as long as the committee has no um objection with their update but Kirk do you know if they plan on coming Madam chair I I'm frankly wondering that as we have continued to build this as a one item meeting for the um budget that uh they did not come this evening yeah that makes sense to me too fair enough I'm sure with midterm terms creeping up on them they have plenty to do so we'll hear from Ava and Ryan next time I think aa's uh the manager of the wrestling team and I know there's a wrestling match tonight so that's probably where she's at oh very good well good luck to all of them all right look at us guys crushing the clock right now we're going to move forward hopefully KK is ready for this um superintendent's report yes thank you uh Madam chair um I'm looking at two screens can you hear my voice clearly yes thank you uh Madam chair as you know we talked about tonight being a uh a budget specific meeting however I do feel it's important to update the committee and our community regarding the cyber security breach that we've notified our community about in recent days so on January 28 on January 8th we lured our community that we had receiv received notice that hackers accessed Power School sis which we use to manage Student Records Gres attendance and enrollment uh using a compromised credential power school has confirmed that the stolen data primarily contains contact details such as names and addresses we remain extremely concerned about this breach and the initial lack of transparency by Power School the company has promised to share a completed third-party investigation by the end of next week um so as we look at this I've also included a uh copy of the information uh Tran Ed lightly uh from what went out to the community uh last week uh but we're continuing to work with power schools we're very concerned about this data breach and looking for answers and confirmations on exactly which data sets in the nooba Regional School District uh were compromised I do know that there were alert Fields these are alert Fields like um uh uh pickup alerts um uh accommodation alerts medical alerts discipl alerts uh that could possibly be identifying information but there it's not the kind of information like Social Security numbers that would cause um you know folks to to to do harm in that direction um on the topic of social security numbers we're looking to get some confirmation from Power School on this as well it has been the practice of nishoba Regional School District not to collect Social Security numbers from students and employees for the um sis system so that being said we did have uh just a handful of uh Social Security numbers reaching all the way back to 2006 uh which is round about the time when power school was introduced to the district and so my guess is maybe that was part of the launch mechanism but we're making an attempt to reach out to those folks specifically um regarding that access and it was something something in the around the range of of 40 individuals um so for all of those that are associated with the school system today there are no social security numbers uh unless they were part of that um uh uh uh initial moment in 2006 so I just wanted to make sure I I put that out there to the committee because I did have a couple of uh questions come by way about that um and before I uh move on to talk about the budget uh I wanted to pause on that item to take any questions uh Shan door uh I do work at a school impacted by this shocking uh uh have you s legal counsil around uh notification requirements uh yeah we've been Consulting with our legal counsil and our legal council uh frankly um uh has contacted uh Power school as well um and so there's Communications happening there as a matter of fact that contact I believe went out 20 minutes after the webinar uh notification webinar happened so our attorneys were ready to go and of course they're acting on behalf of all the clients they represent in Massachusetts which is quite numerous and power school is the most utilized sis in Massachusetts excellent glad to hear they're on top of it yeah any other questions all right seeing none we are about to get here to the main event and that is the FY 26 budget Workshop this is an annual annual event uh which the school committee hosts uh no longer on a SAT early Saturday morning the way that we used to uh but this evening uh hopefully you guys all have a comfortable seat lots of important information is about to be shared with us and so Kirk I will turn it over to you pretty much for the dur here so take it away thank you madam chair before we pull up the slide deck I do want to take a moment um uh to just let you know of some activity today regarding uh the budget I added a piece in the superintendent report just to to document the steps that have made thus forward uh earlier today I did send out a letter to our local officials notifying them of the budget meeting tonight and the approach that we are taking and designing this budget so the content of that email is in the superintendent report uh a parallel uh email was also sent out to our faculty and staff and so they are uh aware this evening's budget presentation and Madame chair I am currently drafting a parallel letter to go to each of our five state representatives as we are working on this budget process and I will uh have that communication to our state representatives by the end of the week so uh with that being said I would uh ask Mr mcaren would you mind uh pulling up the uh slide deck please excuse me okay there we go is that coming through okay for everybody yeah great thank you so welcome everyone and uh to those of you that this is a return engagement for the budget process uh uh we will be uh replicating the methodology we have used in recent years and presenting this initial budget to you for those of you that are new this is the budget in totality and we'll talk more about that approach in future slides but the budget uh design process is uh a process that involves many players and so I would like to turn it over Mr M Karen and uh he can introduce members of our team this year and explain to their roles in the budget construction process Mr mcaren rasher on mute there we go I was actually I lost my toolbar of all things amongst my many open tabs for today so thank you for your patience uh and thank you to the school committee uh for the opportunity this evening so this is our uh leadership team within the district obviously the superintendent's office is superintendent Downing and our assistant superintendent Laura friend as well as our amazing and helpful Alita Masterson who quite honestly at this point of the year just Fields me coming in and saying I need an hour with Kirk I need a half an hour with Kirk we need to schedule this um so that is that is her major and important contribution uh our cabinet team you can see here um obviously our director of facilities Rob freeswick our director of Health wellness and safety Mari wicker our director of Human Resources Jess Murdoch director of student services royan d mench technology Manor Suchi and our communication specialist Bridget Hanigan so obviously each of these department members um submits their budget but goes through extensive conversations with myself and the superintendent with regards to their presented budget uh Bridget has been extremely helpful this year in doing all the formatting and aligning of the slides uh as we continue to prep for this evening and we'll continue to uh with our a other budget updates our building a our building based administrative team uh we have Lenor zav who is our Center School principal Joel Bates the Sawyer principal Mr Grady uh the uh hail Middle School principal Mr OA the Burbank Middle School principal Mr Blanchard the M uh middle or Elementary principal uh Dr Kate Bon who is our uh High School principal as well as our Athletics director uh Tanya Rich so a couple of pieces on this um as you're aware those of you have been on the committee we went to a per pupil method for K to8 the high school is separate from that but again we still meet with each one of our principles to talk about all of their requests and walk through their budgets and make sure everything is tight um as well as at the high school and I'll talk about this a little bit later I do meet with Dr Bon and every one of the department heads to go through their submitted budgets as well um so moving on um I'd also like to thank um our office uh ran ausa and Kylie Harris for their help and preparation for tonight as well as our Treasurer Victoria charier I also like to thank the HR department under the leadership of uh Jessica Murdoch uh for their assistance preparing the budget this evening as you're aware salaries and benefits play a big role in our our budget so having their information and having those conversations is critical our timeline so in very small green check marks on the right hand side you can see all the activities that we've completed to date with regards to budget preparation uh the big pieces of this are obviously our budget uh work with the principles and the directors for their non-salary requests but as well as their their personnel requests um so we've hit our benchmarks and on that yellow highlight that's where we are today uh and despite all of the work that we have done so far we know that we have great work to do ahead with all the budget updates coming forward to the school committee the governor's proposed budget should be out shortly uh which will greatly impact our proposed budget and we'll talk about that a little bit later on this evening budget and warrant will continue to review and ask finer questions throughout the process and throughout the spring um as well as we have our important uh joint fin common advisory meeting and our uh public hearing on the budget um going to move ahead and now I would like to introduce our amazing assistant superintendent um Laura friend I'm not sure about the adjective there I think it's an adjective not an adverb um thank you Mr mcaren uh it is an honor to help support our presentation efforts and really help kick us off with our FY 26 budget request I'm going to speak quickly to the next four slides which just provide an overview of our Mission Vision value and and theory of action um which we talk about in abundance um during every school committee meeting but as a reminder uh three years ago our mission statement was developed and is provided for you here the mission statement really serves as the Cornerstone of our work it has served and will continue to serve as a road map and our mission articulates our purpose as we have done for the past three years our budgetary requests are shaped by our efforts to actualize this Mission our purpose on behalf of our students and in large part you will see that requests are directly aligned to strategic objectives and initiatives outlined in our strategic plan next slide Mr malaren this is our vision um for our students um and for our faculty and that is to be your best self pave your path and impact the world and the vision is aspirational it is what we hope for um particularly for our students and we hope to create an aim for that learning experience K to2 our goal is for our students to develop their own unique set of strength to be confident and self-directed directed and um with a goal of preparing them to make meaningful connections to society when they leave us next slide here we have our values um our values are intricately connected to our mission and our vision they serve as the fundamental principles that help us with decision making and guide our actions at nishoba we valuate academic achievement and growth in a collaborative and safe environment where each and every member sees and believes that they belong next slide our theory of action works to operationalize our school district mission and vision and our values it serves as the bridge and the road map for our strategic plan it really serves as the how if you will the budget presented before you this evening Works to reflect our Mission Vision Values and theory of action and as mentioned the the requests truly reflect in large part specific objectives and initiatives to implement our strategic plan on behalf of our students as we enter into year four of our strategic plan next year turn it over to director Rowan D match thank you you and as we begin this work and keep our vision in mind we are reminded that we have to keep equality which is treating everybody the same um so we look at our numbers based on the administration the number of guidance counselors and students we have sitting in each one of our schools and based on our grade size but equally as important is our equity work which is when we look at that equality it's the difference that students really need extra supports to um meet their unique needs uh to achieve a fair outcome for them and this is where we start to discuss or really dive into IEP processes recommended services for programmingsoftware multi- teared system of support um to really level the playing field for um a lot of our students in the classroom every day and that this is just as important of a vision when we look at uh building the budget for the next year and now I'm turning it over to superintendent Downing thank you uh Mr manche I appreciate that I want to talk a little bit about the process tonight uh that we'll be going through in this Workshop I've uh outlined up front right at the top the operational increase presented tonight will not be the budget presented to our communities for approval this is just the beginning of the process and so what I mean by that is we have crafted a budget here that includes the aggregate of the ask that our department and building leaders have brought to the table uh this is a response to our committee asking us questions previously of what um uh positions did we not bring to the table uh because we were in budget limitations uh before we've included those here so that you know what those requests are and we recognize that as we develop this budget that those requests may not be funded and and we recognize that ahead of time but we include them here so you know what those are um also uh Mr mcaren will review with tonight the fy2 financial information that's used in the construction of this budget while we await new information including a big piece the governor's proposed budget and the Cherry sheets will were received uh that has important financial information we will be using the fi2 five numbers as those Baseline numbers we know that those numbers uh will increase by law according to Chapter 70 regulations and so that'll be reflected in the uh January 29th presentation uh we did receive notice today that the governor's budget should be released on January 22nd if you recall that's about a month earlier than uh Governor Healey's first year in office uh so we're grateful to have that time uh to work through this budget season uh we're also tonight going to frame the impact on assessments the numbers that you're going to see on the assessments are going to be quite large and we know those assessments numbers will be reduced through the budget season process uh but we illustrate them here so that you can get a sense of pro proportionality we also uh after considering some of the questions that we've received from the committee have put together a forecast of operational budget targets when we get to that slide near the end of the presentation uh we'll I'll emphasize to you that the numbers we're using are the operational increases not assessment increases they're distinctly different um because the assessments are different for each Town whereas the operational increase is the totality of the whole budget uh and most importantly we want to use tonight to gather questions from this committee that you would like us to come back to the table with answers on January 29th your feedback is going to be critically important to uh helping us uh plan and bring back uh the specific things you're looking for so the first part of the budget we're going to go through are the school-based requests and we're going to look at school Staffing and non-salary requests to do that I want to just do a quick definition of these three tuns a unit a employee is an educator in our school system that requires a Desi license so we can think of them most commonly as teachers but this is also true for Deans for guidance counselors um uh and other uh instructional Personnel Unit C employees are administrative assistants instructional assistance Food Service staff custodial staff Extended Learning staff and our nonpresent presented positions are districtwide administrators School administrators like principles and assistant principles directors and there are a couple of administrative support staff positions that are non-res represented positions uh those positions exist in our central office in the student services department as well as the superintendent's uh office with Miss Masterson so just wanted to find those before we begin and so let's begin with Mary rollinson Elementary this is a chart here that is showing the forecasted enrollment for Mary rollinson next year I have applied a literal interpretation of our class side standards to define the need that we need in each grade level if you will recall last year uh for Mary rollinson Elementary uh we initially started with four kindergartens we executed a budget of three kindergartens leaving one position in advance that position this year has been uh we hired a educator to work with the fourth and fifth grade um uh teachers and students as their class size numbers did exceed that 72 uh uh standard classroom size of 24 so uh that position has been placed next year at the fourth grade thus Le leaving for us the need to add a kindergarten as well as a fifth grade teacher to Mary rollinson Elementary according to our class siiz standards and oh please forgive me I I was looking another screen and didn't realize I I turned my camera off camera's back on thank you very much um so uh when we look at um our fifth grade in particular particular at Mary rollinson you'll notice as section five uh these are students that are uh in classrooms that are uh intensive needs classrooms and they do not enter uh the other classroom environments without the full support of Staff in their program uh thus we wanted to display that uh so we have an understanding of what that impact is on the total grade level class number and then uh you'll see the enrolling uh the enroll adjustment is based on our five-year rolling average this is the last year where we will have uh the covid blip that's included in there uh for folks that that returned after being unenrolled during the time of covid so um these numbers may have some adjustment to them but you can see based on the the literal interpretation of those standards uh we would need to add two teachers uh to those grade levels so it would be adding a kindergarten teacher and assistant a fifth grade teacher we also would add point2 music teacher Staffing however this is not a new request this is memorializing the model that we moved to this year with our music program where the 6 music teacher that historically uh was assigned to um Center School is now shared between Center School Florence OR school and Mary rollinson so it just memorializes what we had done earlier this year the other request that did come from Mary rollinson is to add a halftime office assistant uh this puts Mary rollinson on par with the office assistants uh that are at currently at Center School as those two schools are now parallel uh in their uh student enrollment so the net increases would be 2.2 adjustment for Unity a and a 1.5 increase for Unit C included here is a flow organizational flowchart of the school I'll explain it here for Mary rolinson and in the uh knowing that the same methodology applies in uh the flowcharts coming up you'll see in the top left box the non-rep FTE non-represented are principles and assistant principles special education will be shown in the special education section of this presentation tonight so uh we're going to need 24 home teachers uh 6.4 related arts 1.2 coaches 1.2 elll teachers uh two guidance counselors two Specialists and then uh we would be staffed with four kindergarten instructional assistants as well as we would bring the administrative assistant allotment parallel to Central School congruent with them at 1.5 FTE and uh Mr Mo Karen will take over um the non-salary elements thank you superintendent Downing uh so just a a bit here you can see the salary um pieces relative to the Mary rolinson elementary school budget uh I do want to call out uh two things obviously you can see within the teacher salaries the adjustments for those increased positions within extracurricular advisors um there is the increase not necessarily because of changes in extracurricular programming you'll recall last year during the budget process we enacted a uh extracurricular fee for those that were not service or curriculum bound extracurricular um activities uh what we actually seeing when things shake out um is not a significant uh return or revenue from those activities so the offset is not built into these numbers for extracurricular at M and across all of our buildings um so you'll notice that in the proposed budget this evening uh the other thing that I want to point out to you is that you'll see essentially minimal increases across all of the non salaries uh with some small exceptions of some needs uh there are some decreases as things may have been purchased last year those don't carry forward uh into this year's budget uh so with that all being being said um I we are going to pause at the end of M and at the end of each of our buildings to take any questions all right Scott start us off I just maybe I missed it but what is a related arts teacher uh the related arts teachers you can think of as art PE music library as well as the instructional technology and is there any opportunity to share any of those resources across School uh those uh teachers right now are fully utilized uh at the locations that they are currently staffed at at the elementary level Mr poell you asked a good question because this is an area we're examining at our Middle School level thank you any other questions about Mary rollinson I just have a quick question for you K just clarify for me because I know that this part that your um the let's see here slide 12 is the one that I'm looking at and this this sort of a thing is going to reappear for all the schools the green boxes mean that enrollment is necessitating the addition of a section or a teacher correct so the kindergarten numbers that you have projected here you haven't have you finished kindergarten registration yet or is this I knew you I knew you would ask that question very grateful to you for asking it so thank you um so we always budget four kindergarten sections for our elementary schools at the beginning of the budget process uh last year at the end of the process we executed four at Center four at Florence Sawyer and three at Mary rollinson holding that other position in emance because they were right at the 24 Mark in fourth and fifth grade so uh we are currently in the kindergarten registration process and so we don't we all we have right now are the early census numbers uh the census numbers cannot be rep relied upon that are provided from our towns that's not the fault of our towns collections offices that gather that assessment information uh people need to return their census cards for them to get accurate uh accounting of who's in the town so our administrative assistant at all three towns are currently working on sort of their Kindergarten Roundup and uh with each meeting uh we'll have a better sense of where we are uh so by the time that we get to the uh joint um uh pres the presentation to the three towns our joint meeting we should have a much stronger sense of what we would need at kindergarten okay and so the green box that's under the fifth grade that's because that is because the current fifth grade only has three sections because they're just a small smaller class and that's why we're seeing we're seeing that green box pop up because the current fourth grade class is going to need an additional educator correct that is correct if our if our enrollment projections uh realize the way we anticipate they do yes okay but even so even if these enrollment projections didn't realize and let's just assume is zero here uh the total enrollment uh for our fifth grade there would be 73 students would would still by literal interpretation of our class side standards trigger a fourth section right um and if there's a red box which we will see later that that means that the class is smaller and therefore you're eliminating a section based on the class standards correct and we'll talk about that I think in the upcoming Florence Sawyer slide okay so I saw Amy Cohen's hand next and then Sharon yeah thank you um I'm just trying to make sure I understand the red numbers the enrollment adjustment from the fiveyear average that's the projected additions based on historical data to current enrollment is that what that is or yeah to that number is included there because looking at our fiveyear rolling average is the best predictive that we have at the moment to understanding uh if students will be coming to that grade level and that's based off of the school attending report data that I go over with the committee every year at school choice time um and so yes it's taken straight from that table Miss Cohen okay and then the other thing I noticed um in looking through these slide decks because something I was trying to do was just compare a total enrollment at each school is that I think the total total enrollment numbers got cut off from some of these slides um like this one so and if that could I'm sure it appears somewhere else but for my brain if that could be added back on it would just help me kind of compare apples to apples easily done Miss Cohen easily done we we've looked at these slides so many times I'm it's helpful to have other eyes look at them and be able to notice those things so thank you uh go ahead Sharon um so it's possible that Amy's question may have answered this question but um it looks like I I think that what you said is that the kindergarten this year there are three sections of kindergarten at Mary rollinson is that correct correct and but next year those three sections will be divided into four uh no though next year we will just have a brand new batch of kindergarteners so we anticipate that we would have up to a four classroom need for the new students that would be coming okay so I'm trying to understand what this this chart says I think that in first grade section one 15 students section 2 15 students section 316 and section 46 so is that the size of this year's grouping or is that the size of next year's grouping currently we have four first grade teachers in this school year when our current kindergarten class rolls up to four first grade you can see the rolling also up with five students in the enrollment projection okay so that's what carries them into the need because when you have an enrollment that is 67 or higher in grades K1 or two it warrants four sections for Mary rolinson in this case um 67 is the number so it would trigger a fourth section which is already staffed in the current budget thank you all right uh Scott has a hand up just to follow up on that theme if we get less than five additions like we only get three or if some of those students qualify for Section Five might there only be a need for three sections in first grade next year absolutely Mr pal that's exactly right so as I uh said at the beginning of this and I'm glad we're disaggregating this conversation on the first slide this is a strict literal interpretation of the class side standards approach so we are going to be studying those things over the next uh uh the course of the next two months so that as we get closer to the date and I really want to get to a place of having a firm place for the joint uh uh budget presentation followed up the very next evening with the school committee Amy Cohen yeah just one more question um is are those triggers that I'm sure you have memorized like that 67 that triggers the fourth section in grades uh prek through two and then whatever the number is for the rest of the grades is that written down somewhere on these slides that's not written in these slides that just goes back to our annual enrollment presentation similar to the presentation I gave earlier this year that you also get during school choice time I think it be helpful to put it in this presentation because it's not a number that's on the our Forefront of our minds but it's like critical to how these Staffing choices are being made and I think it would help um other people understand be happy to add that you know what though I think it is tucked into the slide that Rowan shared on equality and Equity it is the class standards are mentioned there yeah that I I I noticed that as ran was talking so it's there yeah but it's talk about like 22 students per classroom not which I guess is the same way as saying you know over 67 triggers a fourth section yeah okay right just like in in say third grade 97 would trigger a fifth section so um yes that's where it is 22 and 24 are the standards thank you okay guys so that's kind of the methodology and I think now Kirk is maybe going to speed up a little bit but we will continue to stop at the end of each school we want to just be really uh wise with our time because this is a long presentation Scott one more question I'm sorry I'm even more confused now because now that I see that 22 is the limit for first grade I'm not sure why we already have four sections there because this year first grade is 70 uh five or 77 students so we have four first grade teach teachers this year those same four first grade teachers will be needed next year so it's not increase in the grade level no I'm Miss I'm misinterpreting something I get it now it's those five students if you add those five to the sections above then you exceed the 22 that's that's exactly right Mr pal yes all right thank you right so this is all estimates but it's based upon the science of our rolling averages all right so let's keep it going Kirk thank you madam chair you can see in the Luther birbank Middle School enrollment this is an easy one to explain no changes uh what I do want to point your eye to is that uh in our programming we do have five sections in the eth grade uh because our fifth core academic subject in the eth grade is Spanish as our world language uh Focus so no staff and no adjustments uh came from the Luther bir Bank Middle School but we still wanted to express uh the Staffing in the middle school next slide please uh in terms of the flowchart so that you're able to see the flowchart and I'll bring it to Mr mcaren to go over non-salary great thank you again uh So within the Burbank budget we see the impact of that level Staffing um as you don't see those changes with our teachers or um any other Staffing the extracurricular uh scenario applies here as well with regards to no offset being applied uh I do want to call out an important piece of the Burbank non-salary budget which is in the music supplies So currently they have a couple of large drums tiany Kettle drum um needs at the building they have one of those instruments that's over 40 years old uh then they also have to borrow one from the high school uh when it's needed so they're looking to add two new drums to their music uh Department this is not the type of instrument that students rent um you know your saxophones your violins this is a standard piece within their band in Orchestra um and we know how strong our music programs are so they're looking to have some um stability of equipment uh within their pruss percussion um section uh for their band um so that's uh those are the that's the really only non-salary question that's beyond the per pupil allotment uh for Burbank all right thank you any questions on Luther Burbank all right seeing none let's keep going great so to Florence soer school and this will come back to some of the to the questions that some of our committee members asked earlier um so you can see here there is a red box along with two other green boxes uh this is an example of where currently we have three first grade sections uh at Florence Sawyer School that'll be rising to second grade and the enrollment adjustment does not warrant another teacher so that means the second grade will reduce by a position however first grade will need to add a position because they need four teachers for next year and you can see that essentially is a trade of a second grade teacher for a first grade teacher there so it is budget neutral what is not budget neutral is that currently uh in our fifth grade uh we are staffed with three uh sections of 24 uh they will be moving on to sixth grade next year where they enter into a model that requires four sections so we need to add a fifth grade section at Florence Sawyer school to receive the 96 students that are currently enrolled at Florence Sawyer so next page you can see those elements are explained here along with the point2 music teacher that I explained previously um and also currently Florence soyer school is staffed at 1.8 administrative assistants those two administrative assistants each share uh that allotment with a0 n and there are some gaps in the Summer where we don't have an administrative assistant and so I'm uh bringing forward a point to Administrative Assistant to round that out so the total for Florence Sawyer Personnel changes is is 1.2 increase in Unit A and a02 increase in Unit C here's how those numbers are flushed out in the organizational flowchart same as the others and Mr mcaren will address the non-salary thank you uh So within the soyer budget we can see the updates to Personnel uh again the same phenomenon for the extracurricular advisers uh and I also want to point out that we see a decrease um Within our contracted Services the school had a significant amount of Music Repair needs last year or excuse me within this school year um that are part of the FY 25 budget so sort of back to to normal within that contracted Services need uh going into FY 26 one piece I want to note that I didn't note on the previous two schools um paper and copy machine consumables uh I had my staff do a pretty considerable uh study and Analysis of what our usage uh was with regards to our budgets for paper um so you'll see different amounts increasing throughout the schools um but what it really does is it levels out um some of uh where we're at uh three years ago uh really sort of coming out of the pandemic paper costs skyrocketed um and we've worked to certainly reduce usage within our buildings um but sort of now we're able to level set and do some analysis and make sure that going to FY 26 we we in good shape um school to school all right let's uh have questions for Florence Sawyer go ahead Amy Cohen um there seems to be I I know you mentioned that the extracurricular advisor don't include the offsets could you explain that a little bit more because it seems like on each one of these slides the dollar change you know is in the 10% the change from last year to this year is is significant but I thought that we enacted a policy that we're charging fees to students and so is I know you said the offsets aren't included so is that going to show up somewhere else later on or like what's going on I'm a little confused yeah no I can expand further so I'll just do a quick sort of short short historical piece last year when we looked last year uh going into fy2 at the levers and things that we needed to update in order to get our budget to a place where we felt it was um uh where the towns needed it to be we did a significant amount of work uh one of the proposals was the in extracurricular fee being enacted for any activity uh extracurricular activity that was not related to content or was not related to a service organization um so National Honor Society wouldn't be something that we would charge for um or the green team would not be something that we would charge for so these are the types of things that we adjusted last year going into fy2 what we're seeing for actual Revenue in that in those offsets is minimal because we have students who have needs where we wave the fee and or we don't have a significant amount of of activities that are actually running that would follow under the category of not service or not curricular related um and in addition to that our principles have made adjustments for this year's uh what they're actually running so when we build the FY 26 budget we build it off of the actual extracurriculars that are are running within the buildings and so there's there's some variability there so if one building uh does not have as many activities running uh their budget would be lower for FY 26 because we're basing it off of the fy2 actual activities that are happening the offset piece is not being included because we don't feel like we're actually generating Revenue to make any significant offset at this point we can certainly discuss it uh further on the budget process but it would not be um on my end advisable to put an offset into the budget at this point for FY 26 if we didn't feel like it was materializing in fy2 okay so then are the increases in these advisor line items due to just like the built-in increases in stiens or additional activities mostly they're due to well it's a combination of factors uh Mrs Cohen so what I would say is there is uh part of it is whether they're they've uh decreased the amount of activities that they're running this year which would change the FY 26 projection it is part of the stien change uh which is part of the contract and it's also part of the fact that we're not adding in an offset so I I don't mean to be complicated but it is multi-layer and and it is the same across all schools so thank you for asking for clarification all right I'm not seeing any more hands on Florence Sawyer so let's keep going Center School K on hold on one moment sorry I note there yeah moving into Center school now you can see we would again use that Baseline kindergarten number of 80 but as the enrollment Rises through grades uh we see that our second grade cohort in a literal again literal interpretation of our classy standards they have four sections with 72 students here they would have three sections for 72 students because the class size standard changes second grade to third grade it's 22 in second grade it's 24 in third grade and this is a literal expression of that and I want to be clear about that because as we make uh difficult decisions in the coming weeks about where we put actual positions there's multiple factors that we would have to consider um looking at fourth and fifth grade currently those two grades are staffed at uh uh three teachers in each grade so to execute the current enrollment we would need to add a position at both fourth and fifth grade you will see fifth grade has 73 students so this slide actually shows that literal interpretation well because fifth grade is simply one more student more than third grade in this model and would warrant another teacher but again we would make educated decisions based upon complexity and need of the students ultimately when we reach the final budget scenario I'm simply providing for the committee tonight the literal interpretation of the class sizes so next you can see the uh description I just gave along with the reduction in point4 music the 02 that was moved to Florence Sawyer school and the point2 that was moved to Mary rollinson Elementary so the net increase for Center School would be6 FTE with no increase in uny here is that Staffing uh request expressed through a flowchart and I will once again turn it back to Mr McAn thank you um so you can see the uh materialization of the salary increase at Center uh within this budget uh as well as the extracurricular piece we talked about before um I would also point out uh that the Center School in particular has no significant requests above their per pupil allotment so you can see how those things are coming in uh when we're just using the per pupil uh expenditure all right so let's if anybody has any questions about Center School I would just say that really quickly um third grade classrooms at 24 I know that it's the standard and we might need to make hard decisions going forward but there is concern about having so many youngsters in those rooms so although I support the standards and I know that we need to stick by them and I'm glad we have them um it strikes me as tough to have 24 kids in a third grade classroom just putting it on the table thank you mad chair if you recall back to last year's budget process uh we had a conversation similar to that relative to the class siiz standards at Mary rollinson Elementary which is why ultimately we uh had a position assigned to Mary rollinson that was held in OB bance until the time came where we saw the appropriate place so uh I say that to recog this isn't our first time we've had this conversation and that we have some methods of how to look at that down the road the last thing that I want to point out really quickly is that I know that Center is going to experience if this goes forward a small increase in their salaried positions but I really want to point out to anybody watching that in all of these line items where you see the teacher salaries the vast majority of this budget is Personnel it's the people and so the percentage increase at Center School is 4% and that's largely just because of the cost of living increase that the teachers are given each year and so a very base increase in our budget seems to be around 4% and so when we get to the tail end of this and we start looking at how much more do the towns need to provide to keep a leveled service um you know that strikes me as an important number uh Ross it may be a good point time to point out that you know if someone's looking at the teachers contract uh for unit a where it would say three and a half perc we have to remember that some of our staff unless they're at the top of the the salary schedule are subject not just to that um that percentage increase but also to uh a potential step change on the salary schedule as well as if they're earning other credits uh they could also move a credit l um so when we do our P our analysis for salary we are by the person looking at with step they're on do they move up a step and applying uh the increase per the contract so not every salary salary category is exactly that three and a half because there's other factors at play yeah and so this is kind of what I consider non-discretionary spending where you know it's required by the contract it's not something that we are granting because we want to be nice although we we do want to honor all of our Educators and staff members and all their hard work but this is um an increase that is really is just mandated by agreements that we're Bound by so I just want to put that on the table and that's you know something that all the taxpayers need to keep in mind all right so let's keep going okay next I would like to bring in Hell Middle School you can see similarly uh the enrollment numbers uh that are here I would like to point out once again like we did uh at the Luther Burbank we have a a class of currently 65 students rolling into 8th grade uh the enrollment projection is to remove one reduce one by the fiveyear Rolling average and with that fifth section of of uh core academics in the form of Spanish at 8th grade you would see that would delineate out to 13 students per classroom at the eth grade level um so I want to pause there for a minute because I know we've talked about this conversation in the past about our class sizes in eth grade relative to other places and uh aord the committee any opportunities to ask a question here go ahead Jackie I think it's just more of a comment um I know that we have our enrollment Max but I also think about the level of the minimum level of students in a cohort and what how that kind of plays out knowing that um someone in my own family had a very small cohort in eth grade and I do think it's worth um exploring and talking about further because I there's there's something to be said for the right amount of students and 13 feels very low [Music] I would agree uh go ahead Amy yeah I I would agree too especially I mean there's I hadn't considered that perspective I was thinking of it more from you know allocation of resource point of view and if you're you know if you're have an eighth grader at a different school and their class size is more it [Music] seems um just I'm trying to think of the right word it's like doesn't seem fair that an eighth grader in one school would have a significantly big CL bigger class size um seems like there's an opportunity to consolidate those sections and Hil yeah I I would say that um to my earlier comment I struggle mightily with thinking about a third grade classroom with 24 kids in it and an eighth grade classroom with 13 I mean that's an equity problem for me um all grades have different challenges so yeah the cultural piece is important too I think 13's too small I I've taught classes of 13 and it's very hard actually sometimes to build culture but um a class of 13 is just not a great allocation of resource especially when we're looking down at our at our third grade classes I would also say that it's not just hail Hills the smallest but the other two eighth grades eighth grades at the other two towns are are also smaller than they should be in my opinion so um you know we need a solution there I know that it's hard because we have technically five core classes at the eth grade and so that's kind of a scheduling conversation that needs to happen I guess um not for tonight go ahead Scott so I just want to make sure I'm understanding is the um EX existence of Spanish in the eth grade de demand that we have five sections we we can't do it with four sections for that reason can you help explain the mechanics of that please yeah it is built into the mechanics and and some of it Mr pal I could go into a long presentation about this frankly but as a product of our our middle schools have historically been 250 students which are small middle schools and there was a value made educational value made decision made years ago uh of having our 8th grade students in a everyday approximately 45 minute period of having Spanish and so it was incorporated into that schedule of having that Standalone section so that students would be distributed across five home rooms that rotate five times during the day across those five teachers we are excuse me just a dry throat um we are currently uh examining that methodology because we Rec recognize uh the contradiction in our values uh regarding Staffing of our classrooms for both Equity uh and equality uh and so we are currently working on that issue and uh look to bring forward um how we can approach a future solution to this committee uh but I want to stop there because we have some further vetting to do on that question all right thanks Kirk um I think we're ready to move on to the next thank you so uh you're actually going to see inhale a reduction and this was a product of looking at our related art schedule and maximizing those schedules uh when we had an art teacher and a health teacher uh elect uh to go to different school systems this past year it gave us the opportunity to share a health teacher with Florence Sawyer school and to um reduce the number of art sections needed that rounded out a full schedule if you recall from our presentation earlier this year on uh scheduling our related arts we did go to a 4-day rotation with a plus day and so a a point4 art teacher is what is needed to to execute that model so uh this reflects the uh th those unfilled uh percentages for this year as we hired um the job share for health teacher between hail and Florence Sawyer we were able to make those ructions and um uh so that total was a reduction of one unit a staff and here is uh Hill Middle School expressed in the flowchart as well and I'll turn it to uh Mr mcaren once again for non- Salary thank you um so to just point out quickly uh again you can see the stability of uh the salary pieces at hail I do want to point out to miss Cohen's Point earlier about the extracurriculars so this is a phenomenon where we had a reduction in uh C curricular offered this year uh because of enrollment or uh activities were combined um or the like uh so you'll actually see the reduction so even with the offset not applied there's a reduction here just because the sheer number is gone down um no other major asks uh for Hail throughout their um request um some increases on the contracted Services just for inspection of equipment and then also we have um some 504 compliance needs um and some other expenses that I think was in the form of a table um or excuse me for it's for Lego kits uh for competition uh as well as some other pieces um for those the competitions that some of our students are in any questions on the hail uh budget I'm not seeing any so let's keep going hey this brings us to nooba Regional High School this is a new look that I'm giving to you this year um you can see the overall enrollment of noober Regional High School I'll point to the ninth grade that currently uh we have 258 students and these are I want to emphasize the committee uh based on our October one numbers 258 students our five-year rolling average for the number of students that leave is in eth grade to go to a Vocational Technical High School or Charter in n9th grade is a drop of 46 students is our five-year rolling average if we apply that to the current enrollment that would bring us to 212 freshman uh what I will note is that you would see the nrhs project enrollment total would be 807 students uh currently we are 8002 so that is level just slightly greater than what it is and as because we are graduating fewer students than the number of freshman that would be entering the building as a general rule with some adjustments at 10th 11th and 12th grade as well based on historical mbers the second element that was here is the simplest way that doctor Boon and I could construct an understanding class siiz standards and so it's broken apart in semesters based upon how students select their courses and then it's divided by the number of uh uh total sections in other words FTE Staffing of those important uh teachers at the high school uh a full-time teacher teaches five courses um with our department heads teaching four courses or even three courses uh depending on other workload responsibilities that they have as outlined in the contract so you can see those average class siiz standards and it's tough to express the true story of class sizes our high school because at a high school you want to have um a breadth of course course offerings for students that range from seminar style instruction to larger groups like bands and PE classes um you so you might have some some guitar ensembles are all of our Foods courses have to be capped at 16 students uh because of the equipment that's in the classroom um and so there's lots of variables that are applied when looking at this so I just wanted to provide this table to the committee to give you an understanding of sort of the relative class- siiz standard in each one of our uh departments um maybe a question or two now Kirk uh if we could just finish the high school section then we'll come back very good you don't mind so in looking at our class siiz standards uh we are bringing forward a reduction in science uh of one teacher um and this is not going to be a reduction of an employees's position uh rather it is uh as as we have uh faculty members across the system make decisions uh uh about their future were aware of of an adjustment to make um in that is the only net reduction that we would have at the high school so again here's a reduction with no additions here is how the um that uh is broken out across our departments and I will turn it over to Mr mcar for non-salary great thank you um so you'll see the salary uh Staffing here at the top um again we do have a change um in one position at the high school um but the relative rest of it stays the same you'll see under NRS other salaries a reduction uh that was a position in the library the instructional assistant in the library we still have a full-time librarian but this year uh that position was not filled we signaled to that to the school committee earlier um as school started uh as that um that portion was used to expand our world language um FTE that was necessary so that's why it shows as a reduction even though we've already sort of ass reassigned uh that funding uh within the world languages Department um I do want to give a shout out to our department heads who like I said before met with Dr Boon and I um and worked really hard to walk through their budgets ask questions um I think they were all very fiscally responsible um the only real uh increase that we see um across the departmental non-salary expenses is is relative to the AP Chemistry books that are necessary uh so without uh upgrading those textbooks we would not be necessarily following the curriculum uh as prescribed um by AP and we want our students to be fully prepared uh for the exam as well as earning those AP credits um as it may um work out for them uh within our high school all right guys uh what questions do you have for the high school Scott so you gave me data so I have to ask about the data um on slide 32 your enrollment by section table every every enrolled every enrolled number for every category goes down in semester 2 except for pH what's the narrative that's causing that to happen Mr pal I can't answer that question well for you um so I will uh go back to uh Dr Boon and and bring that answer forward okay I have a question for you Kirk um I noticed that you are reducing science by one FTE but it seems like with the exception of math science is one of the heaviest heavier enrolled disciplines and it looks like you're then going to make the science department the actually science is below 18 where you see so as we look at science social studies um uh English mathematics um it is the lowest of those four elements okay so you're you're basing it on the ratio you think you can reduce science by five SE because the one the one FTE is five teaches five sections correct um but science is one of those disciplines that require that has equipment and things like that there um and knowing that a lot of the the master schedule requires some of the classes to be bigger and some of them then become smaller I mean could we see a a science class of 28 kids 30 kids no we should not um and so we've already uh working with Dr Boon and our science department head Miss Pier this is something that we've been preparing for and anticipating of as we've looked at our enrollment numbers that have decreased in years previous okay uh Amy Cen yeah two things one is that is there a reason why the number of enrolled students in the English classes doesn't match the enrollment at the high school like the way it does in math and science those numbers are much closer in terms of so the and and forgive me I think I need to put my glasses back on Miss Cohen um so yeah that it it all has to do with how students build their their courses over the course of four years uh English is a foure requirement science is a requirement but students do continue to elect to take some classes as electives as well so it's not always going to match up because a student doesn't always have an English class every semester if they doubled up because they chose to take an elective for instance and so uh that has to do with some course selection per by student okay and then my second question has to do with um you know if the students per section in a lot of these classes is less than your target of 24 um students per class and I I'm assuming it that's the same it applies at the high school the way it does at the younger grades does that mean we have an opportunity to increase our school choice um numbers oh that's a fine question Miss Cohen we certainly could uh we know that based upon recent enrollment you know when I first began at noar high school was at I believe around 800 50 students I may be wrong with that number um and that we know at its its peak it was uh over a thousand students but of course that's when the modular were brought in uh back in 2013 2014 uh times so yes we could uh look at that um uh and so I'll take that under advisement and consideration and discuss it with my team Kirk where I'm looking at the available school choice seats is this over and above the school choice students who have already come into nishoba well Madam chair I think that what you're saying on that line uh might be a an air on the superintendent's behalf for this presentation because I screen grabbed one buying too low based upon the model we use for our school choice hearings uh but yes we've been able we've been systematically adding essentially four per grade level if those are few uh utilized so the max we would add at the high school if we added students would be 16 according to the methodology the LA we've used the last two years got it and then my last question is the um number of students who we have historically lost to other options in the nth grade when do you find out or when do kids have to declare where you'll know that the number is 46 or somewhere near there yeah un unfortunately we tend to get the actual numbers on that after the budget process but if you the the our vocational technical schools have to give their towns the same notifications that we do so we do get some forecasts of that uh in late February so um as we see that if there's room to adjust that we'll adjust it okay thank you all right not seeing any more hands so we can keep going okay so uh let's come in here uh I want to bring these pieces up these are Personnel changes uh requests that are being made from our cabinet officials I am not going to go into these positions at this time rather as each one of our department presents their sector of the school budget they will be speaking to these elements but out of student services you would see the need uh for a speech language pathologist as well as an instructional student and Facilities we want to talk about a building operator position in teaching and learning uh we're exploring the concept of academic tutors at the elementary level that would be non-represented academic tutors and then in nursing non-represented float nurse uh to provide some of those needs and I'll leave um uh those professionals to address those in their presentations but I include them now uh to show on the next slide that uh the salary increases that are included in this budget and again I'm G to come back I'm gonna be a broken uh drum on this one we included all the asks in order for you to see what the need is and so when you put it the aggregate together of the asks with the reductions this budget would reflect at 3.8 Unit A positions 2.8 Unit C and 2.0 nonre um with you can see uh and the academic tutors outlined here um so that is included in today's budget we recognize uh the budget scenarios that we're in today and we're going to have to make choices um but I just wanted to make sure our committee knew what was brought forward during the request cycle and so with that we'll move on to Department budgets unless Madam chair the uh committee has any further questions about these school-based budgets your microphone Leah thank you sorry Amy Cohen yeah could you just give a little bit more explanation on the academic tutors that are being proposed and whether those are like during school hours are those after school hours um and these will be presented in the department budgets uh so I'll give Miss friend an opportunity to talk to that when she gets to her Section okay thank you great all right let's roll forward all right and at this point I am going to turn it back to uh Mr Mo Karen to steer us through the Departments great thank you um so you'll get to hear from me for a little while here um our insurance and benefits uh budget is certainly being impacted by some increases I want to uh remind the committee that last year uh we did uh through the insurance advisory committee uh make a plan change as we added a deductible with which resulted in us being able to decrease our premium um from FY 24 to fy2 um that was very helpful uh in the meantime um you know obviously across all of healthc care costs go up um we are using a 12% placeholder on our active employee insurance I do not have a rate range from our Maya representative uh just as a reminder we are in the Massachusetts interlocal um uh Association for uh insurance so we are part of hundreds of school districts and municipalities that take part in that um which does help mitigate our cost however um we are uh building in tonight A 12% assumption uh I will have a specific rate range for the trust uh at the very end of January likely right before our next school committee meeting however our actual rate will probably not be provided to us until uh that first week in February so the probably the first um February budget update on the 12th will include uh a very specific number also built into our insurance increase for our active employees as a placeholder for um the uh requested positions that you're hearing about this evening um another thing that I want to point out um is that we have had a significant increase on our insurance rates for our retirees uh over 20% however what you see in the budget is higher than that because we've had a significant amount of new retirees so those are people who are on our plans uh that are similar to our active employee plans because they're not available for the Medicaid uh excuse me the Medicare plans yet because of their age so if someone retires earlier they're on uh the Blue Cross Blue sh blue blue shields uh plans longer um so that's driving up some of our costs as well other operational Insurance pieces we've uh used approximately a 5 to 12% assumption um we just got our Worcester County Retirement assessment today um so I've entered that um in the updated materials for this evening um we'll continue to update our insurance pieces throughout um and again I would say we probably don't have our final picture on Insurance uh until that first February meeting where we can say this is more likely what we're looking at for increases across all sectors our insurance another piece on operational insurance we don't get our final numbers until really after the budget season I will reach out again to our operational um so that's more of our unemployment insurance that's more of our um uh you know our auto insurance uh that is our casualty our property all those types of things um but they are behind our health and dental rates unfortunately um so luckily we don't make a lot of claims there um but again you know certainly it's something to consider uh and we'll continue to get updates as they get closer as representatives to that those dates they'll get more information from the companies and they'll share it back with us so you can see those increases here um I'm not going to go ahead and read across them um we have seen um just lower Dental us message um and again I will I will let you know that uh for our active employee pieces we are using our numbers as of uh last week um I still need to get an update on some retirees their plans go January to January so we may not have as many or we may have more retirees on plans um but I'll get I'll get more updates on those like I said uh again this is a major portion of our budget so I'm happy to take uh questions and um walk through anything as necessary go ahead Scott so I understand we would have to get like Union approval to do something like this but have we made any inquiries about what kind of insurance savings we might be able to achieve if we increase the deductible again and you know like we did last year if we increase the deductible and then pay the extra might there be savings there or something like that I don't know um I would have to ask that question um of our representative um to see if that's even an option it may because we already took on a deductible an increase may not be a lever that's that's going to move anything um and Mr pal you were an appreciative of your your um attendance on the uh advisory committee for insurance last year as you recall some of those pieces on co-pays or insure or or prescription changes some of those plans really did not move the needle on our insurance really at all um when you you look at it that deductible was the the best possible thing we could have done at the moment I will certainly pursue it as a question I can't say that it will yield the same result even if we were to put the um advisory committee back together understood all right I'm not seeing any more hands so we can keep moving thank you um just want to finish my note on that okay um our system wide um so this is where we have um sort of all of our central office and some of our district-wide pieces the only things that I really want to call out specifically uh ahead of time is that we continue with our OPB trust contribution as recommended in November of 23 by the OPB um management advisory committee um and thanks again to Mr Powell for heading that up for the school committee and the Town members that participated uh so our OPB trust contribution of 100,000 this year reflects that recommendation of increasing by $25,000 each year uh our transportation costs are based on our contractual rates uh Debt Service is also documented within this um account and uh I will show that a little bit um here so for those of you who call our high school renovation from approximately 20 years ago uh this year that we're in right now fy2 that is the last pay payment on that debt service so that debt uh is retired as of June 30th 2025 um the high school track and field has approximately two more years FY 28 is the last year for the high school track and field debt um and the leech field and fuel storage which is actually a bond anticipatory note where we pay 10% down plus interest each year on that original note for the leechfield and uh fuel storage project that was taken on 201718 I believe it may even been right before that um but again we are just that's a band so we pay a principal of about 10% of the original loan um every year and so that has approximately four or five more years left on it um U but I'll confirm with our Treasurer there's always the possibility where you could pay more principal in a given year on a ban um we're not recommending that right now given our full picture um and as far as high school new construction so one of the assumptions that you'll see in the detail pages of the budget um is taking on a new and additional Bond um the strategy out of the bond advisory committee um when we started the project was to bond in two to three stages this would be stage number two um I have a follow-up uh conversation with our financial advisers tomorrow um if we feel like a number can change based on what we're looking to borrow we'll do so um but we are moving uh to do a bond sale at the very beginning of February so again final detail details on that to come um and we'll continue to share information with our town officials as we get updates on what that may look like um we've had some conversations with them throughout the fall um so timing with them is important um as is knowing as much information ahead of time uh before that sale as possible so this is the entirety of the systemwide um budget and again um some some changes here um one thing I'll point out is our photocopier expenses that's our lease um our lease is near the end of its time so we'll be using the state bid list I'm approximating $60,000 to pick up a new lease um but as we work on that throughout the spring we'll see what that looks like and update the committee um as necessary um you can see the nrhs building project Debt Service um as many of you are aware uh our operating assessment does not include this Debt Service we'll talk about that a little bit we've been working really hard and uh purposeful to make sure that we're showing our debt Ser Service uh outside of our operational costs because of the increase in the need to borrow for the high school um so it doesn't get baked into our operating assessment um we want to make sure our towns um and our residents are aware of what the actual cost of operating the school district is exclusive a Debt Service any questions on the systemwide proposed budget I have a question for you Ross yes please I noticed that the feasibility study is zeroed out because we've paid it is that right correct and have we been reimbursed for that as well so yeah so that's been that's part of the um reimbursement that we've been receiving um from the msba I think we talked about this maybe two or three meetings ago um that we are holding our msba reimbursements at this point um we're we're not spending those as we get them in um because we we want to again track those and work to um you know put those in an account where it's also interest bearing so at the end of the project they that may help um where we're at if we spend those as we go we don't have the potential to earn interest so it's it's one of those balancing acts as we get get those reimbursements in right but aren't we borrowing money that's paying interest at the same time would it doesn't correct like I said it's a bit of a balancing act so um at the end we still have to borrow what we need to borrow it doesn't change um but currently we are not um spending down that msba money just yet okay um any other [Music] questions I'm not seeing any so think we can keep going great um just a quick note on substitute teachers um I know we have many Educators on the um the committee um we all remember sort of the difficulty and sort of day-to-day um Staffing crisis as we would have um we're far enough away from the pandemic now um where we feel like we can do some good analysis and based on where we're at with our analysis for substitute usage for both daily and longterm we've made adjustments um not much is needed more in the substitute um line for long-term substitutes for teachers uh for substitute teachers however it's those regular day-to-day Subs uh where we want to make sure that we're providing adequate funding within there um to make sure that we can keep up with the needs um and again we're in a better place where we feel like our analysis now is not inclusive of the pandemic need so we feel like it's a pretty pretty accurate analysis of what needs to be proposed I'm sorry I had one more question for you Rossa just I remembered um so the second bond that you're going to be taking out in February it's going to be approximately annually it's going to cost us $7 million can do you know the the number of that second Bond how much were the the so that estimate is based off an $80 million Bond okay and the rates have not been locked in yet you're not sure what we're going to get but you're ass yeah I'll get more sort of market analysis and sort of Market updates tomorrow when I meet with our financial advisers okay and any idea when the third round will be taken um so that that Bond will get us through approximately one more year of cash flow needs so and approximately another year so the timing to line up um with budget information so that when we go before our towns in the spring that they have an accurate understanding I think is important okay and um I I just said one more question before I get to you Amy I see that um we are laying out Charter School tuition and school choice out tuitions this is because um students who opt to go to other Public Schools we have to pay those Public Schools approximately $5,000 per student but the Charter School tuition is much higher because it might be far fewer students going to Charter schools but we actually pay an actual tuition for Charter Schools correct and we'll get better numbers uh once that Governor's budget is released that's also part of the governor's budget is our preliminary number so that that number will be updated does the governor's budget is that where we fig where we find out what the tuition is for say an amsa student um the specific number I would have to double check on that um so I'll I'll check however what we do get is our assessment numbers on what our projected charter school will be next year okay how complicated thanks R and I would add in that it's January we don't fully know how many of our students are going to be switching to a charter school next year correct got it okay Amy Amy Cohen did I lose you did you have question iot to unmute um the 7,100 $2,491 of the building project Debt Service that's showing up for the fiscal year 26 so can you just kind of help me and other community members understand is that the number that we should be expecting to be assessed um next year and for how many years after that I know Leah just asked a similar question but so those are those are so the first bond is a 30-year Bond um the second Bond would anticipate to be a 30-year Bond um if you look in the detail pages of the systemwide expenses um that's where that's broken out and again the estimate on Bond number two is really um from our financial advisors I I it's not a definitive number it will be updated does that answer your question Amy are you asking when it's going to hit our tax bills no well I mean I think it's important to clarify that I know that this will hit Bolton's tax bills in July because that's when the next that's that's when fiscal year 26 starts um I'm just trying to you know there's a big jump between last year and this year I know it has to do with the bonds that are taken out each year and and um but I think I'm just trying to help community members understand what's coming down the pipeline and I I'm still a little confused about that in terms of like well each year will that number go up will it remain the same that kind of thing well yes as we continue to borrow for the high school The Debt Service will increase I think too Amy that the three towns are going to it's going to be different for the three towns like what Stow needs to increase on their people is going to be different from what Bolton needs to increase on their people I actually think that these questions might be best answered by our town managers eventually and how how that actually impacts real estate tax bills those quarterly bills we all get so maybe more on that later Adam chair if I may add there's all there's and because you hit the nail on the head this is going to be something that is an annual adjustment for our town officials to to work on because uh also the repayment schedules are based upon the high school enrollment as outlined in the regional agreement and as we know and have experienced that shifts over time so um each year it's it's not as if it's like a mortgage where you can count on sort of a consistent principal and interest payment over the course of 30 years there are variables that are applied there and each town has its own constructs that are uh involved in their assessments that will time out and new ones that will come on so those are all variables that I think uh are best addressed by Town officials we assess them so they know what the borrowing is and then they pull the town levers and mechanisms to Define that how those tax Bill assessments Squad to their residents Scott I just like to ask question I think might help a little flush out what Amy's trying to get at which is how much do we borrow in 2023 how you think you said we're expecting to borrow 80 million next month and then how much do we think we're going to need to borrow in the third trunch so the third would be approximately 50 what we want to do is balance out sort of end of project needs um so in talking with other school districts what a lot of them have done is so if we were going to do you know we did 30 if we're doing 80 now um the last one we might not want to go all the way to the max um because we want to leave some um just to see what where uh yeah how the project closes out so that's sort of stage step three but correct Mr Powell we're essentially borrowing in three major stages right so if we're going to have 7.1 million doll in costs based on one 110 million borrowed then we can expect that to go assuming interest rates stay roughly the same that would go up to somewhere in the 11 million do a year neighborhood when we're done borrowing yeah I mean I trust your mental math on that this evening um but certainly um if we're ballparking I understand your methodology okay thank you all right everyone let's uh keep going were there any other questions on substitutes sorry I don't want to overlook that doesn't look like it okay so I want to introduce now our director of Health wellness and safety Mariah zwicker who's going to walk through uh her Department budget go ahead thank you so much can everybody hear me I just want to make sure before I start talking great um thank you madam chair and the rest of the school committee for allowing me to come and speak to the health wellness and safety budget that is propos proposed for next school year um oh good I didn't even have to say next Slide the health wellness and safety budget proposed is aligned with the Strategic plan in the following ways um so 4.6 um improving and sustaining physical environments that promote healthy environment learning conditions in all buildings uh the professional development of the nursing team the ability to purchase supplies and equipment needed to care for each and every student and having skilled Ford nurses who are oriented to our health offices promotes health and wellness to each and every student at nooba Regional so 4.5 which is review of school safety and develop uh priority actions as a district and for individual schools the Alice Through the navigate 360 modules and Massachusetts partnership for youth yearly cost supports seal and Public Safety trainings for all of our staff as well as for the public safety um personnel in all three towns and the youth risk behavior survey which is also known as the yrbs is offered every other year and will be conducted in the spring of next school year and so 4.3 is to recruit hire and retain highly qualified diverse staff that mirrors the educational vid uh Vision the addition of a 1.0 FTE LPN which is a licensed practicing nurse will allow for coverage of field trips onetoone nursing coverage and the support of School nurses daily Runnings of the health office and student health care um case management and the prdm nursing pool continues to cover school health offices for nurse absence support mandating screenings and field strips uh next slide please um the new ask that has been mentioned in uh previous slides this evening is for a district support nurse in the form of a licensed practicing nurse position um for the health and wellness and safety budget this full-time LPN would support our nursing team by fulfilling many of the tasks that our School nurses need to complete as well as expand our capacity uh to fulfill the onetoone nursing needs for our medically complex students next slide please overall there are incremental budget increases requested for the health wellness and safety budget beyond the LPN request and the yrbs survey which cost $3,000 and is conducted every other year and will be conducted next spring of 2026 other than that the budget increases reflect inflation and costs of supplies equipment and contracted uh services and um thank you all for your time and if there are any questions I am happy to answer them thank you for that any questions on the health wellness and safety all right not seeing any so we can keep going thank you so much thank you Mariah um so uh you're all familiar with Mr freeswick who is a director of facilities you're also aware that Mr freeswick is not available this evening so I want to do my very best to fill his shoes um or perhaps the best term is to fill his boots this evening um so here we go um so obviously the Strategic plan connection for our facilities department is relative to our physical environments um because we want to have healthy and vibrant learning conditions for all of our students in each of our learning spaces so our maintenance costs uh increase obviously go up to make sure that we are keeping up with our scheduled maintenance um ensuring that we're we've also analyzed our spending patterns um and then also taking a look at compliance standards um as you're aware we do have to make sure that we meet um drinking water compliance um as we've talked about that significantly over the last 12 months or so um and then also so as we work to be more efficient with our energy use um so bringing in our contractors to do what we need to do U as far as making sure we monitor our systems um and we're being efficient um even with some very old equipment uh in some of our spaces um so a couple of new apps that are within Mr fick's budget uh facilities building operator um so I've had to act as a substitute facilities director uh a couple times including this morning at 5:00 a.m. and I can tell you there is no easy task um what we're really looking for though is not necessarily an assistant uh to Mr fck but a building operator so we have equipment that is old and we have equipment that is new um they're both complex with regards to uh what needs to happen and understanding how they work and to build efficiencies with them and to also become an expert in our equipment um so having someone with a background in either Plumbing or HVAC knowledge can number one help reduce some of our repair needs uh reduce some of our visits from our contractors to provide either repair or maintenance um but also having somebody on site and with their hands on our you know our machines our equipments our our furnaces our boilers um will also help uh the longevity of that equipment um we also are in need of a a vehicle so we do have an old Chevy passenger van right now um that is used for the PACE program Athletics um and some various clubs and activities um but it it is it's at the end of its useful life so that is also being built into the requests um and we have um removed that um from our process the last couple years um but again regardless of the outcome we're making sure you're aware of it this evening um a couple other things that you'll see within um there's increase in scheduled maintenance for small projects um there's our scheduled preventative maintenance um we have to do a 15-year engineering study for the high school Wastewater Plant which is part of our permit with d this is outside the scope of the building project um and then because we have to meet D and other compliance our Wastewater and water testing operator uh contract is going up in cost as well so here is the full scope um of the facilities budget um I just want to make a quick note under facilities Department depart salaries um what we did here is we do have the increase for the operator um but we've also had a little bit of a slight reduction because as you remember our program administrator uh for um facilities um is also now shared with our food services department so it's not just the increase um we also have a little bit of a decrease so the balance works out um to the dollar change you see there um and then again throughout here you can see the the the uh proposed um budget for next year um and it's further detailed uh in the backup that's provided uh within the budget so at this point I'll do my best to take any of your questions uh with regards to facilities great job Ross Rob would be proud I sure hope so okay all right not seeing oh I see one hand Amy oh sorry I seem to have a question for each category but the program vehicle where does that show up on the this proposed budget for facilities I don't see it as a line item um let me just double check within the detail Miss Cohen hang on one second Amy can you restate that I'm sorry I just missed it sure um it says one of the new asks is for a program vehicle got it U replacement of the passenger van and so I was just trying to find it on the proposed budget request and I yeah I don't see it yeah so ironically enough uh Miss con it's actually under scheduled maintenance projects because what I'm I'm going to guess is a previous um budget item with regards to districtwide vehicles and Equipment um so it's built in there given your question we may think about moving that to vehicle expenses so it's more clear okay so thank you for asking that question you're welcome and then as a followup on that if that um programed vehicle gets is the new ask of the facilities Department um is there a limitation on what clubs can use it because I'm just thinking about the EMT the Sha Cadet program and how they are in need of a new car and I just wondered if there would be an opportunity to kind of um kill two birds with one stone if this vehicle is going to be replaced yeah so I think typically during the day it's used for the PACE program which runs out of our high school um for what their needs are I would not tonight commit it to being able to do that I understand your question but I think it's probably best not assigned I also I don't know if superintendent Downing wants to speak to this at all um because we've had conversations with the town of Bolton um with regards to the cadet vehicle so I would not commit that to being used for the program today yeah the the cadet vehicle is a uh related to anou between the the district and the town of Bolton and I think it's best to leave it in that place can I ask a quick question about the capital planning when any whenever anything is going to be bought and owned by the district it doesn't need to go into a capital plan right those are only for the Town operated or town-owned assets yeah so it has to fit the definitions uh within the regional agreement so essentially there's there's desie function code 7,000 and there's some categories within there but the best sort of summary of that information is it has to have a useful life of more than five years um and it has to be more than $10,000 that then it goes as a capital request to the towns and just like you said about the assessments each one of our towns handles our Capital requests differently but because the district would own that vehicle it's not considered a capital request to the towns no if you if you look at the regional agreement because it would be a capital asset owned by the district across the district it is assessed as the rest of the District budget is like op in operational cost correct yeah if you yes correct okay thank you all right looks like we're good to go there let's keep going okay without further Ado I'm going to introduce or reintroduce uh our assistant superintendent Laura friend thank you Mr mcaren um a great job with facilities um i' just like to take a moment to um extend gratitude on on the part of teaching and learning to the school committee into our larger School Community um as a result of your collect support and the hard work of our Educators we continue to make steady progress towards our strategic plan in the work of teaching and learning I'd just take like to take 10 seconds to um just highlight some work of note uh as it relates to your support relative to our curriculum adoptions and work there to date and of note we have implemented highquality instructional materials in K to 5 math k to5 Ela literacy and 6 to8 science currently we are working on 6 through 12 math and 9 through 12 science steadily we're also really excited about our work at the high school with the implementation of innovation Pathways planning um and the work there so thank you for supporting our work and Our intention here is to continue the steadfast work as it relates to improving our student learning learning experience with the help of our tremendous Educators also of note uh to help further accelerate our work since the spring of last year we have successfully secured five competitive grants totaling $25,990 that have worked to help accelerate and support our work in the Strategic plan during this fisal year please be assured um and we want the committee to be assured while there are no guarantees teaching and learning will continue to be committed to seeking out and um competitive grant opportunities to help further accelerate and support our work Beyond and support the operating budget and that work continues as we speak next slide so on the next on the next three slides I've provided really a highlight of the teaching and learning requests and we'll certainly uh answer any questions you may have on the other side so as it relates to curriculum development and and what I had just shared our our work with curriculum is always going uh curriculum work is dynamic it's definitely not static uh and there's a lot across grade levels across content areas uh K to 12 however our curriculum review schedule provides a focus for grade levels and content areas through a cyclical 5-year process priority areas for FY 26 C curriculum development are highlighted for you here and includes 6 through 12 Ela 6 through 12 World Language 9 through 12 stem and world history n9th grade as well we are continuing to work to work on the curriculum development for enrichment and extension is part of our work with mtss that's our multi-tiered system of support which we have presented to the committee in a prior meeting and need here is reflected for you as an identified request and need to to demonstrate um learning opportunities for our students who have already demonstrated understanding of learning within the classroom for a given unit content or skill moving on to textbook adoption our FY 26 textbook line here Cesar reduction from fy2 last year as you're well aware we had our large k to5 Ela adoption so we're naturally seeing a decrease here due to the elimination in large part of that request yet um the textbook line here request supports year two of our literacy implementation specifically with a focus on foundational literacy and intervention materials with us bringing forward hegerty adoption into grade one in providing additional intervention materials to support Foundation literacy in K to3 we also have here a request for high quality instructional materials for Middle School mathematics as part of our curriculum review process as noted in our last school committee with curriculum director um Candace mcrey and department head Nate Melbourne um we've presented um our update there as it relates to 6 to8 math and our work that's beginning there at the high school through 9 through 12 of note we have already secured a grant to help support the purchase for Middle School mathematics that's already been approved by the school committee and noted for you here um in the amount of $285 in terms of requests to support professional development we also see a decrease here in requests from fy2 requests here support six of our initiatives across three of our strategic objectives and include professional development to support our districtwide early release the implementation of all block which is additional literacy and language block as part of our El implementation in year two specifically for grades 3 through five to continue that foundational literacy work at the Upper Elementary grades work to support uh content and pedagogy focused PD continuing that work as it relates to our curriculum review cycle tier 2 targeted support intervention strategies science 6 through 12 math 6 through2 World Language 6 through2 and Technology Innovation as well as a request here to continue the work relative to plc's coaching and consultancy with the work to continue to work on the implementation of the PLC model specifically with a focus at the high school in grades 9 through 12th next site our instructional software line here reflects the most notable increase in the teaching and learning budget this is a result of the renewal and the necessary renewal of our Renaissance Star Learning Suite which had previously been funded by Esser grant funding Renaissance Learning is our Universal screening tool which you're aware assess to students reading and math skills at minimum three times a year not only does Universal screening data provide us with important information about student need in a timely and proactive way it also was required by law in September 2022 I know we've spoken about this with the committee in in Prior meetings but as a refresher the board of Elementary and secondary Ed adopted a regulation that requires school districts to assess at least twice per school year each student's reading ability and progress in literacy skills from kindergarten through at least third grade using a Desi approved screener of which star is a desie approved screener our Renaissance Learning Suite also notably provides strong practice tools providing students with adaptive individual practice based on student need that is elevated from our Universal screening and directly aligned to our m Metts learning standard we would like the committee to be aware that we have already um completed a very robust application um for a competitive grant that would potentially um that would if allocated if we were awarded the grant would reduce and help defay the cost of this request here the state has not indicated an award date of yet but certainly we'll keep the committee apprised of that information as provided to us other requests um within the instructional software line include software that reflects High usage High utility and high curriculum alignment including multimedia tools to support content creation instructional tools to support instruction and intervention as well as our Consortium membership to support our student data privacy efforts our curriculum membership and dues reflect District memberships for state and National Core Curriculum associations including matol for Department in Ed leer 21 which is our National Organization to support our continued connections with other districts Across the Nation as a relates to our portun of Vish graduate our contracted Services line here includes a request for funding um to support our ongoing District equity inclusion work specifically professional development learning and related resources to support directly our Equity audit recommendations that we received in the spring of last year so the funding there is allocated to support our ongoing Equity work as and commitment as a district relative to new ask and I know Miss Miss Cohen had asked a question about this earlier um teaching and learning is proposing for consideration a request for six part-time academic tutors two per Elementary School to be focused on foundational literacy and no mercy as you are aware from our Title One Grant and a result of increased Title One funding this school year we have implemented this part-time academic tutor model in lancasters is currently underway using title one funding we are seeing the value in this model and these roles and we're looking to expand the model across the district with our request next year the academic tutor specifically would provide targeted small group and individual support for students identified at the earliest moment possible as at risk in literacy and numac numeracy during the school day the goal here is to provide time timely response to student need such as through a double dose of Foundations or a double dose of hegerty or a double dose of our math using our bridges intervention kits the goal here is to provide short time short timely response through the academic tutors to catch them up close those gaps so the students can return to the classroom um quickly um without delay and those gaps can be closed again at the earliest as possible during the foundational primary years that is essentially the ask with this um request for our part-time academic tutors and again we have this underway in Lancaster as result of Title One funding our cost changes I believe I have spoken to the increase and a decrease here we've spoken to the decrease in the district textbook adoption and the decrease in p and the reason behind the increase in instructional software so I believe that that is reflected on this slide and I think I'm going to turn it over to Mr mcaren to speak to the next slide and then open up for any questions that the committee may have the so thank you assistant superintendent uh really there's not much more to add in here or to um to discuss uh you can see the academic tutors under the teaching and learning tutors and assistance line uh and we certainly see um the decrease in ask but also under instructional software with regards to that platform uh we see the increase but again um this friend went into great detail um so appreciative for her efforts there and also to to what she said thank you for to the committee for the support for the teaching and learning um budget over the last several years I know that we we worked hard to maintain and keep in pieces that were key to the develop velopment of our curriculum instruction and assessment within the district um and we we we we're seeing the results of that um and now we're able to sort of step back um and present a budget um that really does not have significant asks um built into it thank you Laura I'll start by asking a little bit more about the tutors will the title one Grant still provide an offset for the Lancaster tutors and this request is going to pay for the tutor that you assigned to the other two towns that's a great question I don't know if superintendent Downing you want to lean in here um and but I can start off with the answer of the title one grant funding is orted to supplement not supplant the operating budget and what's provided um in in other schools at other similar grade levels so Title One funding is on top of what's being uh offered through the operating budget I don't know if superintendent D and you can clarify that a little bit better yeah Madam chair um from a very high Lev title one for many years was traditionally funded under what was the free and reduced lunch enrollment Provisions that is since shifted to what is categorized as a high needs uh enrollment position and so this past year our Title One funding increased significantly if you hearken back to when Miss friend presented that earlier in this year and the reason why that did is because we crossed over a threshold to receive additional funding the your question's an interesting one because we don't get those numbers until late July to understand if we've crossed those thresholds I worry when you cross a threshold because that means you could just as easily cross back down into the previously funded category um luckily the uh desie does produce uh a forecast that typically comes out at the end of February so on that forecast it's intended to notify districts that are in a bandwidth that they're they're uh watching carefully they put those school districts on notice for any changes so we should hear something by the conclusion of our budget process but there is no guarantee coming from desie on the title one numbers so the 972 number is for the tutoring program sum total how many tutors is it did you say six six yep three hours per day yep and so if we are to get that title one funding this number could come down but it's only after the money's been allocated so we would you know use that title one no you have to think about the tital one funding completely differently so in other words the tital one funding was used for this model and is currently being executed now and under Title One rules you cannot supplement uh or or you cannot supplant excuse me it's to supplement so we cannot use tital one funding to show a distribution of how we do that across the district uh we would still have to show uh in our Lancaster schools that that uh that is where the preponderance of that need would be so this is completely while the current positions are supported by Title One funding the six positions at the $997,000 clip is completely independent and considered outside of that scope okay any other questions all right let's keep rolling I just want to um make note very quickly I know we don't have a lot left we have about 23 minutes until that magic hour of 9: so I just want to put our presenters on a little bit of notice there so let's keep rolling into I think student services okay I'd like to introduce uh Rowan Dees who is our new director of student services I know that she's presented her her entry plan um work so far and she's going to speak to some of those pieces I know within her budget um and also discuss some of the increases that you're seeing um in the special services budget thank you um I am really appreciative of being here tonight to speak about the student services budget um I know that student services especially the special education side when we talked earlier especially about Equity is um can be very complicated um and along with the uh state and federal Ida laws so let's move forward so this is um as you've seen in all the slides special education um really is identified not only um by uh School uh what we call case load numbers but also student need um so you'll see a variation across uh schools I am constantly reviewing those case load numbers with um our team uh uh all of our teams um our school psychologists our team chairs uh we review all the case loads to see um what students are qualifying for services uh what our special education teachers at each um grade level is experiencing on their case load that they are servicing on a daily basis for instruction they're also um participating in uh chairing team meetings um and identifying um students for eligibility in uh special education um so it does vary across um School based on student need and um but overall we have a pretty consistent um staff um at our elementary level we do see that we have an on average um for uh um special educ ation teachers uh they start at the grade level um preschool to grade two and then after grade two they're identified at each grade level um we also see that we have a team chair identified to support the needs um across the district um M and um Luther Burbank share a team chair um Sawyer has an identified team chair uh the high school has their own and Center inhale share one um so it's based on um numbers that are constantly uh reviewed so this is the proposed budget um based on the Strategic plan and I'll review this more a little bit in depth um because it's really is based on student need but when I reviewed this in my entry plan one piece that we really wanted to look at is the alignment of some Services especially in the te three um academic area um we want to take a closer look and really expand um in these services for tier three especially in the area of multi- um sensory reading instruction we want to give the same opportunity across the district um that students can access based on their um identified disability plus their um uh need for instruction um we also do see some unique needs that are just based on disability areas um we do see that uh we don't have currently um employed staff which is pretty common for certain types of services such as Vision Services so those are our contracted services that we have to go outside of the district to supply um and then we really are at the um the mercy of those contracted services and the rates that they set for themselves um so we've seen an increase um in that area because of those services and needs and based on what the market is um supplying and charging right now um we have seen an increase in our bilingual evaluations so this is a service that we have to go in contract outside of um so we have to hire a bilingual evaluator if our um students have um if their first language is not English so we've seen an increase in families um requiring or students requiring the service especially in Portuguese and uh Spanish uh we've seen an incre y I just want to go back one I'll be quick um so we've also seen an increase in testing materials there's been a market increase and we've also needed to update our um testing to the latest version for our initial and three-year re aows um as part of the Strategic plan I we're also looking at increasing in our supports around the mtss model especially around uh social um emotional learning and this is seen in some of our contracted Services supplying some training and support to our staff especially currently in our early rise rise in TLC program at the high school okay now we can go forward so based on all that um and looking at case load numbers and the way services are able to be delivered my asks for next year is to increase one FTE speech and language pathologist um currently right now we have 324 students out of our 650 on active IEPs who have direct speech and language Services we've seen an increase in our preschool numbers um qualifying for speech and language anguage and in order for us to continue to be able to meet the needs and deliver the service for speech and language I am recommending uh one FTE um in this area I'm also recommending one FTE for an instructional assistant at the LEAP program at hail last year hail made a commitment to um expanding the LEAP program that is currently active at Center and services students um at Center School and now we want to have that Continuum of services as students um increase in their grade level and continue to need that support uh so we would need an additional FTA FTE uh instructional assistance to support that uh Continuum of service we have seen um some cost changes um and some pretty dramatic cost changes uh we have seen a increase in our added District tuitions um to date right now as um you're all aware at a district and students moving in placements uh are IEP team decisions and so this is always a moving Target and this also is affected by movein so to date um we have 24 students in add a District student uh placements um we had originally started at 19 we did see an increase based on um some team decisions and some movein um from out a district of students who moved in with IEPs who already uh had an added District placement identified uh through the through their IEP we also have seen four changes in the current ATA District um roster of students who uh were in one placement and needed through the team process to have a more restrictive placement so we did see an increase in change in that and um as you know the added District tuition costs uh are really set by OSD and um continue to increase um every year uh and so we're really left at being um obligated to pay that OSD rate um when students are referred and then accepted to to that program out of District transportation we've also seen um a pretty large increase in our transportation cost for special education and so why is that well currently right now we're in a model with um aset Valley collaborative they manage our transportation contract as a collaborative with many other districts um as you know over the summer we had one U bid winner that was going to provide IND District transportation services at a rate of $270 per route as we all know that did not work out for us and we had to go out to rebid with another company um through this process we did um bid out to another Transportation provider and their base rate is two $324 a rout and I want you to keep in mind that that is just the base cost um some of our students through the team process require um monitors on the van which is an additional cost and a wheel wheelchair van is a higher cost um and we have um two whe wheelchair vans in District that are required right now so this is what's really contributed to some of our increases plus our increase in our added District um student population um once a student is found uh eligible and requiring an add a district placement it is Our obligation to provide transportation to that um location Mr Man if I may uh add in on the transportation conversation um today Mr mcaren and I had a conversation uh with our executive director and in their finance office we are working very closely with them right now and looking at current efficiencies that would impact uh hopefully show us a better position this year but also for next year uh but it continues to be a uh a a a place that we have to examine carefully and as I expressed this committee at a previous meeting it is one of the topics which I discussed with Senator Kennedy as as needing some support from the state level on uh Mr Mare and I have talked about what that change has looked like in budgets over recent years and he's prepared um a slide image that uh uh we did not add to the slide deck yet because we had released the materials to the community already but I'm going to ask him to share that um representation with you tonight to get a sense of the challenge that we've seen in the most recent years so Mr and we will we will add this slide to the slide deck to make sure it's included in the scope of the slide deck is everyone seeing the special education Transportation Budget Building okay great thank you so a couple of of things on this as uh superintendent Downey mentioned um as Rowan mentioned um you know with a changing contract um not only from year to year but but because we had a change Midsummer um we've seen an impact on what we're doing this year which therefore informs next year what I'm sharing with you here um is each year we have to budget for special education Transportation I took a look at fy22 through today and looked at what did the District budget for cost for special education Transportation the blue line that you see um is the total cost that was projected in the budget for transportation that red line you see is the grant funding available to offset Transportation so what happens over time without an increase in any any major increase in our Ida Grant we're not able to leverage more of an offset through that Grant to our transportation cost so there's a compound factor of just the general cost per van more students being out of District um we're looking at the root efficiencies just like superintendent Downing said with ABC um because we'd like to see more sharing of these roots when students are leaving the district um and then the just the general change in cost um that we did not expect because we changed contractors Midsummer for our IND District transportation so back in fy22 the total projected cost um was just about um near the $900,000 level however because of the $700,000 available in the grant really whatever only showed up in the budget was $125,000 over time like I said the cost has gone up um we're seeing a much larger cost um increase for 26 projected however our available grant funding has not changed therefore over time we're left with a bigger share to the operating budget another thing that I want to point out because we often talk about circuit breaker where if you remember back on the end ofe operating um budget report that I presented in October we had to tap into circuit breaker um uh to support the budget um expenditures for fy2 in special education we built in 1.6 million this year for fy2 we've built in 1.8 for next year we're going to continue to look at that and see what can be done however in studying the district's return on um circuit breaker over the last several years I just also want to point out a phenomenon with that within that as well in FY 23 any qualifying costs through circuit breaker calculation for transportation were reimbursed at 75% in FY 24 the reimbursement dropped to 58% for transportation cost for FY 25 reimbursements the transportation cost reimbursement rate dropped to 44% so we are not seeing just a flat static availability of Ida funds um we're also seeing a decrease in some of the potential circuit breaker funding that we could bring in and offset we're going to continue to look at this we're going to continue to study what may happen with just our general Roots right now um and we're going to Al continue to see what might be forecasted um for where circuit breaker may come in for next year and how we may update or change um our projections for circuit breaker offsets so I apologize for the late slide add in but I thought it was a helpful visual to see one example of how cost increasing but potential funding source not thank you and if you could go to the uh Financial table to round out the student services portion so you can see the cost increases um again for the the teachers is not s um that would include the SLP our sped assistants and tutors includes um uh the Ia adjustment as well um our preschool salaries are offset by the preschool revolving tuitions um and then you can see uh the remaining changes obviously most notably um and highlighted by Mr demanche is that we have our contracted um uh Services therapies and evaluations our out of District tuition and our special education Transportation so at that no uh no will pause for I'm sure some some questions with regards to our budget go ahead Scott so clearly the special education transportation is a severe pain point Have you had discussions with other districts about if they're seeing the same experience as far far as the grants are concerned as well as the reduced reimbursement rates on the circuit breaker Scott I I'm involved very closely with our association on that regard yes this is a universal problem across districts okay and this is why we are collaborating together as as an association to Lobby um policy makers to to do something about this problem thank you Amy Cohen yeah could you just help us understand again it um what is meant by students were qualified for out of District placement like what control do we have over whether they qualify for out of District placement I'm gonna turn that over to miss de Manch to talk about the IEP team process yeah so the intention when you have a student that qualifies for an out of District placement it's a very lengthy process um it is of course all of our intention to service all our students within the um schools of nooba Regional School and that's really what most of our families would like and um what most of our staff strive for there are times um and this is decided through an evaluation cycle so it's not taken lightly there's a lot of uh evaluations and data collection that go into the decision for a student um that can't be serviced within um our current public uh School setting and require a really specialized school to meet their needs um based on their disability that decision is made by a team through the team process and once the decision is made based on least restrictive environment um we then um have a system where we have to make referrals out to schools that really have the ability to service that disability area that's identified through the team process and we make the referrals these out of district schools then review the referrals and they decide based on their student population and their current um programming if they can meet the needs of the students that we referred to them um so it can be a lengthy process for families um at times uh we will make a referral um to a program that is then not uh accepted so we need to move on to another school which can also impact uh costs um as we um kind of make our way through the process um like I said before OSD sets the rates for every private special education school in the state of Massachusetts and our collaboratives set their own rates based on their board that is made up typically of um school committee or the local school committee or superintendents will set those uh collaborative rates and then we uh once we make the referral we're making a commitment to um paying that tuition thank you I I've been on the school committee for five years and I every year I have a question about this process so I appreciate it thank you madam chair if I may add one more thing yes and and this is a message for all of our our community members but particularly our families out there the number one objective we have in student services and and in identifying the correct programs for kids is making the decision that is right in the best interests of that student and it is our moral and social obligation to do that which is why these are budgetary priorities and their mandates they are mandates that we must fund um so as we are going to be working through this developmental process over the next uh uh couple of months uh we have to remember we have to do that within the fixed construct of ensuring that we fund these very important programs for our students Kirk when we have a student move into town who's already outplaced don't we have the right to evaluate whether or not we can provide service inhouse when they arrive uh Mr mes unfor no so we can through an evaluation cycle if the parent agrees to it but if they have an existing accepted IEP then we're required to to supply those Services there are particular um regulations in place based on when students move into a district for example if you move prior to April 1 we would see that cost um into the next fiscal year if they move after April 1 then you wouldn't see that tuition go into effect until um the next fiscal year the only exception to that is a collaborative placement we pick that up automatically IC Ally um uh through the regulations but an accepted IEP in Massachusetts is an accepted IEP in every city in town so they have to um when a student moves in and we have an accepted IEP we have to abide by that unless we make or um are able to have another team decision with our existing team here in aova and the state does do some increase in our chapter 78 when we have one of these extraordinarily costly out placements right it it's seen in our circuit breaker um funding um excuse me yeah so every year we apply to circuit breaker which is there's always a foundation number that is uh we pay automatically um right now it's in um I believe it's about 51,000 that we pay automatically and then after that um we get reimbursed 75% of the tuition after that uh Sharon I just wanted to say these numbers are really hard but thank you for putting the the needs of the students first thank you for your commitment to that to making sure that the kids get what they need Above All Else Jackie sorry I want to let my hand um I would Echo those statements and I also am just curious I think it's relative not necessarily to this conversation tonight but in what way can the district think about long-term increasing capacity around some of those contracted Services um so that we can defay the amount of um outside contracted services that we have to pay on an annual basis so just an observation Dr thank you for your comment and as Mr Man mentioned in her anry plasis that is something she is doing concurrently during this process all right everybody I see that it's 9:02 I'm noticing that we're probably going to need another 25 minutes at least so I need six of us to stay I know that on the YouTube channel many people are watching so can I just get a thumbs up that you're okay giving a little bit more of your time I appreciate it everyone all right so are there any more questions on student services I don't think so that's a lot guys I mean obviously I just want to reiterate this is these are the line items that our towns want to pay attention to this is non-discretionary spending it's mandated by law we are happy to do it but this is this is a lot of the driver right here in the budget numbers on to Tech okay we're going to we're going to walk through these last two departments rather quickly so in our technology department uh I want to welcome Sue Chi who is our technology manager who will be presenting his budget uh this evening go ahead Chi all right um thank you everyone and uh thank you for spending time with us is such late hour uh I will try to make it quick as possible so how does the the Ty budget connect to the uh strategic plan um ivly like since most School operation nowadays use technology or even relying technology so I would say almost everything we put the budget um somehow connected to the to the plan and there there are two two areas uh I would like to point out kind of the focus for next year so the first one is about communication and the data sharing um So currently like uh the district and also School level we still use a lot of program that do not uh talk to each other and the date sharing is is really not that easy so that is one area we try to change uh we would like to build a much better integrated system so data can be shared more easily across different platforms so the second one is about uh school safety and also somehow related to the communication as well it's about the internet backup so I I already know like right now um pretty much everything is is in the cloud online now so has a reliable internet connection is pretty much number one priority for typ operation so for us um not sure if you guys know like you know later in the summer uh start of the school year like in the high school project you know the fiber was cut the internet was lost you know for like twice and uh you know that has a big impact to to our operation so we try to avoid that uh so we've been doing like some research and compare different solutions so we were lucky enough to secure some Hardware um um from rising they have some internet gateway for uh oh Chief froze there's some irony in that there there is a little bit that was a little bitony with the FI he's I believe he's at home oh did I lose you guys sorry yes glad you're back so so where I lost you guys H I think you had just finished that we have now backup established uh internet connections so we can maintain um main offices so basically uh we were able to secure some Hardware this year however uh we need to continue budget for the service because those are like kind of a yearly cost monthly cost that kind of thing so that's why um so we need to put in next year and also following years as well um next last speed so new ask um so this is actually is not really a new position it's more like a current position take on more task um as most things like by moving moving to the cloud you know the way we provide support and also the the skills level we need for the support is changing uh we need people on the team has more skill level for to doing like server Network kind of task and also be able to do some uh config application online applications so that's why you know we we try to ask for this kind of a additional responsibility and uh with little bit extra pay uh so next slide please so the cost change um you see some like a change on the hardware uh there are couple reasons uh the first one is the since pandemic the the overall cost for all Hardwares has increased and never came down you know that including the laptop the tablet the Chromebook for student and also all the classroom projectors another big factor is the last year we did not buy one to one Chromebook for the third grade student because we were able to reuse some of the old device from previous project and uh however those device um we don't think it's sufficient enough to to last another like um three years so basically you have to understand whenever we buy a a grade book for sur level it's not just for one year it's actually for for threee use so if we continue like uh uh do not buy Cate so I think what we kind of put out you some kind of risk uh another one is about the E rate I think uh Ro can speak little bit more about that yeah so a couple of pieces um for those of you whove been on the committee uh during the pandemic the district made a commitment to move to a onetoone model for grades three through five last year we able to wait on the third grade purchases just by using um additional units that were already within the district the problem with doing that over and over again is those units no longer can upgrade um they become too far out of date and therefore the student experience on the user end is not efficient not functional especially even when we get to mcass um so you know not that the machines are only for mcast but that's just an example um the district bought a significant amount of those um those Chromebooks during the pandemic using Esser funds as that has sunsetted um and we still have the one to one for grades three through five um we do have the position that we're in today also we're near the end of our fiveyear e- rate cycle uh which means we don't have as much availability of eate funding as we've had in the past if you remember last year we had a big boost of eate come in um during the year we were able to pre- purchase some equipment um because we had our return on the um money that was spent during the pandemic um however that's just not there so it's not necessarily that our our our costs um are as significant as the increase in the line says but we also have the phenomenon of some grant funding obviously going away and the e- rate not being um as available as it was in the past um CH I'll turn it back over to you for the software piece okay so you see some increase in the software uh so the majority of the increase are caused by U so we we can't decide to for the like a slide I discussed like in the previous uh we want build a better integrate U platforms so we kind of uh absorb little bit more about different Power School modules so the data can talk to each other better so that you know compared to what currently use the cost increase quite a bit and also overall for all the software um there are kind of a industry standard 5 to 8% increase every year so that's why you say overall you know there are some increase in the cost so next so here's the entirety of the technology budget um that dollar change on the salaries includes the $115,000 increase for one of the positions to be um moved to that senior uh position um to take on more responsibilities and obviously you can see the change not just in the computer soft and Licensing that she just mentioned um but also the computer hardware talk that we described um uh previously as well are there any questions with regards to the technology budget any questions all right seeing none thank you so much for that sui we're GNA move on to the athletics department s y uh man of many hats time to put on my cleats and play a athletic director here so Tanya Rich who is our amazing director of Athletics is unavailable this evening um she had family commitments amongst a couple other things so I'll be quickly presenting her budget given the time of evening um so a couple things related to the Strategic plan um I'm going to work from the bottom up um obviously uh M Rich works really hard with her captains her coaches and her teams to make sure that they're involved in community service Partnerships um also from a professional development lens making sure that our coaches and our our staff within Athletics um understand our students um so they get some of that same training um and an athletic specific um social emotional training so that we can work with our students beyond the beyond the bell and then lastly um we're continuing to grow our prek through 12 identity um however you'll see um within the budget this year there's no increase on our rebranding um because we have extended all of the necessary rebranding that would not be part of the um new building so you won't see that that in the the budget uh for FY 26 um some of the fees have to go up obviously um and then we have a contract for transportation for athletics that's built in and that's what that increased um cost is uh again this is the entirety of the budget um to miss Cohen's uh Point earlier about stiens you can see within those coaches stiens um and salaries those are going up that exact 3 and a half% because that's related to the contract um again it's a stien does not have a step or a lane um it just goes up three and a half per each year so I'll take any questions on the athletic budget I'm not seeing any so it looks like we can keep going okay so this brings us to the entirety of the proposed budget for FY 26 I thank the committee um for their time and intention this evening we're going to continue looking at the big picture um I know we're short on time but this is where things get very important relative to uh increases on assessment and the work ahead so as we've worked um with the um onboarding of the new high school debt and the construction that's happening to really be specific and separate this out our operating budget as of this evening is 73,3 2017,18 9 as proposed in all the budgets you just saw that is a 10.07% increase over fy2 last year at this time uh during the budget Workshop our budget increase for operating was a 6.91% and we know that we walked that back uh a bit during that time so to give you a sort of year-to-year comparison at this time last year we were about a 7% increase so here are the voted budgets relative to the proposed budget this evening um for operating so you can see the the steady increase with a a slightly a slighter larger jump for uh the proposed FY 26 um you can see that relative to fy22 we had a a lot happening with grants and things with covid um but you can see over the last three years where we ended up for an increase um was anywhere from 3 and a half% to almost 5 and a half percent for an operating increase um during those years revenues so we've presented all of our expected expenses now we're going to talk about um what the revenue um sources would look like um as discussed earlier this evening we are applying fy2 estim or figures to our minimal local contribution our Chapter 70 educational Aid um what was appropriated from end and fy2 and then also our charter school and Regional Transportation reimbursements as Revenue sources are set at fy2 five levels again like the superintendent said we'll get updates on these through the governor's proposed budget next week and bring those forward in two weeks from tonight so here's our estimated revenues um this is always the time of the the slide deck we sort of do a little bit of a a working backwards all of our assumptions applied in that FY 26 column um that's where our Our Town assessments would land including our debt service so this is the entirety of the budg budget this is not just operating but this also includes the debt service and uh this is where this all gets broken down um I will just do a quick walk through so our total proposed budget with all of the the cost including the debt is that 80 million once you back out uh the high school debt um that decreases it if you add in the local Revenue which includes our Chapter 70 it includes Regional Transportation reimbursement those factors um what's left is $60 million the fixed assessment which comes from our minimal local contributions which is set by the state and we'll get updates on those as well over the next couple weeks um as of fy2 was 30 million we still need that FY 26 update but the remaining variable assessment is 29 million subject to that five-year rolling average uh for enrollment across the district per town we'll see those foundations enrollment updates from the state as well and update those tables which inevitably changes uh the information here again we've worked really hard over the last few years to break out our operating assessment and our Capital debt assessment as of today our operating assessments each of the towns are shown here Bolton at 12.52% Lancaster at 14.11% Stow at 11.35% meaning our all member towns the total change in the operating assessment across the district would be 12.57% uh we know that there are numbers that we pay very close attention to over the next several weeks as we start to get in more information and look at what the impact on our towns will be and as superintendent Downing said at the kickoff today uh we are not where we will be at the end of the budget season so I'm GNA turn it over to superintendent Downing at this point to walk through this slide so the challenge we have in the coming month is is closing the Gap and what we need to determin is what is the size of the Gap that we need to close so you can see the 10.07 increase uh to the $73 million budget that is in the workshop numbers tonight uh I asked Mr mcaren to produce a table that would show by 1% increments what the dollar amount that would need to reduce in the budget to get to operating uh percentages that you see on the left so as he explained earlier last three years we've operated between uh three and a half to five and a half percent increases so looking to that direction you could see if we set targets of getting to 4% or 5% in the operational budget it would take a reduction off of tonight's budget of uh$ 3.3 to4 million so I hope this table illuminates for our committee and for all of our residents and our employees out there the ch challenge that is before us in these coming days and these budget gaps Areo closed uh through two methods uh that is uh adjustments to increase revenues and reductions to cost and as we get more information over the coming weeks on those uh we certainly will get closer to that number but we're looking to this committee uh to think about what are the levels that we are comfortable taking to our towns and asking for in this year's budget and um because we know that that we're going to have to be very creative and delivering a high quality educational program that also is a ficially responsible budget that we put forward to our towns Mr mcaren yep so as superintendant Downey just mentioned on the revenue side when we get our update um from the Governor's proposed budget we will update our Chapter 70 education Aid Transportation reimbursement and Charter School reimbursement uh we'll also have information our foundation enrollment which impacts our assessments as well as that minimum local contribution which is set by the state the school district the school committee uh the administrative team have no uh bearing or impact on what the minimum local contribution is for each of our towns uh that is managed by the state as I mentioned insurance and benefits we're going to get updated information and bring that um to light uh as we get it through our budget updates but again we can expect our final rates for that health insurance piece which is our major cost in that in that uh cost center to be sometime in mid-February and then also we expect to have our excess and deficiency certification coming in relatively soon I reached out to the Department of Revenue uh two weeks ago we're in the queue we're close uh she thought she might have it by the end of last week we're not there yet obviously um because we've not received that back yet but my hope is by the next two weeks um we'll be able to tell you exactly what our excess and deficiency certification is um which is necessary for us to consider an appropriation um to the FY 26 budget superintendent Downing okay thank you Mr mcaren um as I shared through the superintendent report tonight a communication with the town officials on that budget process uh is underway and we as you know we reach meet regly with our Tas but we've extended those conversations to our fincom and select chairs and so we'll continue those conversations as we go through this process uh I know the budget and warrant subcommittee will be reviewing the budgets and Mr boarin will lead the district's effort in drilling down in some of these uh uh considerations um and then we got to look at reductions and offsets over the coming weeks to see how that can uh Help Us close the gap we will update the budget on January 29th as this again will be a large agenda item for us on the 29th as more information comes in um so next slide Madam chair it's with that that I'm happy to say uh we have concluded with this as they say we did uh two and a half hours of up for what was a 10-minute punchline um but I hope this illuminates for our committee uh the challenge that's in front of us and uh we look forward to your partnership in the coming weeks I have a quick clarifying question on slide 84 Ross um I don't have the numbers in front of me so can you tell me as I'm pulling up the screen share again yeah so it's the it's like the third to the last slide something like that it's the it's colorcoded it's called projected assessment by Town sure hang on one second it's right above that one yeah um so it says there in the bottom right corner that the operating budget assessment for all member towns is at 12% but isn't it 10% no that's the operating increase after all of our factors of uh Revenue are put into place the actual assessment is not the same as the operating change is the increase correct yep okay because we have our total proposed budget less debt less um Chapter 70 Regional Transportation reimbursement etc etc then there's that and then whatever the minimum local contributions are and then the variable assessment so there's a number of factors that go into that but those that's the totality of it okay and so I'm looking at the next slide where you show the potential reduction scenarios and so in order to get down to our historic high or our recent high of 5% we would have to cut the budget by 3.3 million and I have to assume that we were just talking about the third grade classrooms being at 24 students and how you know that's as high as we would ever want it to go but if we're going to cut an additional $3.3 million dollar from this budget I have to imagine that that would impact class size across the entire District across every grade level I mean is that fair to say just I'm trying to project out here what a 3.3 million reduction looks like I know my town is dealing with it and they're projecting something like 50 that equals could equal something like 40 to 50 positions yeah so you know towns are all different but that's a gigantic number to get down to 5% and yeah for us to to get to the 5% level it will require a reduction in positions and that's why we're going to have internal conversations and prioritize those things and you look to the classroom last however you have to fund positions to execute your District buildings have to have principles as as as a basic sort of example um we have to have guidance counselors we have to have custodians we have to have all those things that support a system so that is going to be the challenge it's tough for me to say directly in terms of class siiz standards Madam chair today we are going to have a much better sense of how to answer that question on January 29th once we have those other factors come in okay so but Madam chair I think your your projection that I'm assuming your qu in your question is very reasonable that for us to get to $3.3 million in reductions to get to even a 5% operational increase it is going to take uh the reduction of positions in the school system to get there so that means all new asks would be taken off the table and we would have to include additional positions that are currently uh in our school system okay any other comments or questions from the school committee I know that this is just a starting place we're going to hear more on the 29th everybody's tired and perhaps not very happy about what's happening right now at the state level frankly the you know there's some situations that we're compelled to deal with that it's really just not right what the state government is doing so Amy yeah so in the 29th we'll have this number is going to adjust with regardless because we'll have more information about revenues and projections and costs and like a lot more information to kind of fine-tune that number but at that time will we also when will we get an idea of what it would look like to start getting to to see some of those scenarios play out to get that percentage increase lower is that after January 29th like once you've gotten some refined well we will we will bring some of that to you on January 29th uh the the previous Bud budget iterations if you remember we had three consecutive meetings where we did that however we were in a tighter time crunch due to the new Governor's budget at the time so um uh we're going to be looking at bringing some of those to you in the next time Madam chair you you mentioned 5% and so we can model out uh based on information to date on the 29th what would be necessary to get to that level um i' would be hesitant to metion mention specific roles on that date but we certainly can do position equivalencies to get to that place yeah I mean I think that's essential and perhaps the committee agrees that the T we don't have a lot of time to work out these scenarios so as much as you can do that on the 29 that would be great so we will build a a Target scenario to that 5% operational increase to bring further context to this committee Scot did you your that's not that's not what we're saying will be the budget but that is to to give us context on um what we need to execute Scott I do but Amy might be ahead of me that's okay go ahead so I'm just the the the operating budget right now does not incl include any potential use of of excess and deficiencies is that correct that is correct we used last year's number of $1.4 million so those those are the types of levers we can look at to make adjustments wait I you I you lost me there did you say your current budget assumes we do use 1.4 million in excess in deficiencies yeah that's on the revenue slide you'll see the FY 26 replicates the fy2 voted budget okay so we could increase that which perhaps is one of the levers you'll use on the 29th Kirk I think we bring options to the committee so we will show you what those options look like thank you Amy yeah I was so 5% would be like you said significant reductions I guess I'm wanting something a little back from that like that's not quite that drastic is are you going to preent present like a couple of things you know scenarios not just the nuclear one you know what I'm trying to say that because that would be probably 50 50 Cuts right so are you g to present something that's a little less drastic I guess I would say Miss vessels I think what we'll do is as we build those Mr mcar and I have already done some strategy on this we'll put it into buck and show you what the cost is in reducing those buckets all right thanks could I add on superintendent Downing I I just and and to the chair just as a followup to miss vessels I think she mentioned and maybe I just misheard with the time of the evening but I think she said 50 positions I want to be clear that we're not necessarily labeling any positions or amounts because of the fact that we need to understand our revenue and what other Associated costs within the operating budget could be adjusted before we start to look at Personnel I just want to be very clear that taking an estimated salary and looking at the reduction number and making an assumption on positions is is not a good place to be um I understand you're thinking I just want to be very sort of clear with the committee that that that's not necessarily um where that would land if we did look at 3.3 million thank thank you yeah that's a great Point Ross that's very premature um here's what I here's one thing that I just wanted to put on the table very quickly sometimes I hear rhetoric from various leaders that the public schools it almost feels like the public schools are a problem and that the this exercise is frustrating to them but I would just remind everybody that we all are neighbors and we all live in these towns none of us want our taxes to go up but the public schools are the lifeblood of our communities and this is why this is you know one of the most important entities period And so funding them is important that said we recognize that people are on fixed incomes we have this high school that needs to be built you know infrastructure has not been a focus um at the high school level for a long time and so there is a balance that needs to be struck but it needs to be fair and we need to work as a team and not point fingers at each other going forward so I hope that anybody who's watching or listening recognizes that this committee although responsible for creating this budget under the leadership of our professionals recognizes all of the pressures that everyone is under we are also under those pressures as residents so I just want to put that out there that we're all on the same team and that this is not a competition it's not a war it's not a battle we need to come to terms with it and create compromise um in the spirit of nourishing our kids all of them Sharon I think that this um Builds on what you were TR saying uh a little bit Leah but I guess what I'm thinking is I'd like to hear too um if if just some information about what the the benefit of the investment um because I'm just going to use an example it's a very simple example but um the request for tutors for um the elementary schools so that is a cost it's an increased cost but there's a benefit from that investment in our kids as well and so in addition to um seeing the information on what it takes to bring the numbers down and the percentages down I'm also interested to If and I know this is hard to quantify because you're projecting um into the future but I I do think it's it's worth it to think about the investment that these things put into our kids and how we recoup that in the future um and so again I don't know how easy it is to quantify it but I am interested in hearing that part of it as well thanks Sharon all right everybody um um any final comments this is definitely to be continued so I want to thank all of our administrative team first of all for being here I can see that many of you guys are still in your offices I know Ross got there at 5 am so thank you to all of you for all of your hard work it obviously doesn't stop here um we really appreciate all of the people over there at Emerson and all the work you guys do it's very much appreciated so Thank you Kirk thank you uh Madam chair um I just saw our colleague ran appear on screen let's recognize Anan for all the the hard work he he does a lot of the numbers work that goes into what we presented to you tonight uh under the direction of Mr mcaren uh I just want to emphasize something that I always tell this committee I'm just saying it again your feedback your questions all the things are important please if you have them get them to the chair uh Miss vivito and I talk regularly she will forward those questions to us for our our consideration this is going to be important over the next couple of weeks so that when we come to you on the 29th we're coming to you with thoughts around the ideas that are ruminating around your your own thoughts so please forward those uh requests to Madam chair for us thank you you all right guys so the only item can I bet on that Leah oh sure for members of the community I would encourage them to reach out to their school committee Representatives with their thoughts on you know what's been proposed and the idea of having to strip $3 million from this budget um because we are here to represent the community so I would just put that out there that I would like to hear from my community members on this agreed yep great reminder um so the only item left on the agenda guys is uh just looking at items for the next agenda so the planning calendar is here for you if you guys want to look at it um and get back to me and let me know if there's anything that you'd like to see on there but we're obviously going to have a budget update uh we're going to have another policy first reading so another one of those big initiatives from Amy subcommittee um we're also starting to look at the district calendar for the following school year um we have a little bit of dear J work to do Etc program of studies is also going to be shared with us there is a bullet item there that says subcommittee goals checkin I'm actually going to bump that out because I think we agreed to do kind kind of a 2year um goal cycle and so that format of check-in really can be moved maybe even out to April Alita so if you want to bump that um and then yeah just budget update stuff so if there's nothing that you guys want to share now or if there is just raise your hand all right but you can also email me if you have something that comes up uh but if that's it I'm going to move to adjourn do I have a second second nice Jackie well done I saw that um so let's take the vote Scott yes myself yes Amy vessels yes Robin yes Jackie yes shandor yes Amy Cohen yes Sharon yes John yes Lindsay yes and Joe yes we are