uh so I'm going to call to order the regular meeting of the nishoba regional school committee at 6:30 p.m um on February 26th and we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance so if you guys want to mute and rise and say the Pledge along with
me 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 I we're good we're good thanks for that
Kirk uh so the first item on the agenda is public comment and I have not received anything from anyone so we're going to keep moving past that and we're going to head to the consent agenda is there anybody who wants to pull anything out of the consent
agenda all right so Amy why don't we start with a motion okay um one second here revised copy all right oh I move to approve the consent agenda February 26
2025 I will second that thank you is there any discussion seeing none we'll take the vote I vote Yes Sharon yes shandor yes Amy Cohen yes John yes Amy
vessel yes Scott yes Robin yes Jackie was that a yes Jackie I missed it yes and Joe yes all right everybody so that's the consent agenda we're going to move on uh the agenda calls for school committee chairperson update but I have
nothing additional to share tonight I would like to now go to our student representative report and I see Ryan so hi Ryan go for it hello so to start things off uh the stuco is working on U
organizing the lip dub which is supposed to come up uh in a month or so so they've been kind of putting together the route and the different songs and things like that uh my class class 2026 is still running um a t-shirt fundraiser so the idea it was it kind of has like
the outline of our building because we're the final people graduating so that's still for sale um my class is also uh going to start organizing the like Shamar Rock Showdown dodgeball tournament which is always fun every year and then the seniors are working to
organize like a kind of Basketball Tournament of their own for fundraising and then myself and I think 115 others are going to the DECA state competition tomorrow uh Friday and Saturday so that will be fun is is AA in here or
is I don't see AA all right I can do the next part too then okay so there's a production of the L Little Mermaid which is coming back on March 14th and this will be in the theer library on and that's a Saturday and then Northstar
Family Services the which the homeless shelter and lemonster are having children stay there right now and they're we accepting um generally used games at home if they're no longer used and there's a box in the lobby for any kind of
donations um and then Ava and Winston are going to Student Government day in April so I'm sure she can tell you guys a little more about that when she's back with us next time thank you all I have excellent thanks Ryan um I'd like to say
good luck at Deca thank you and I wonder if anybody has any questions or comments on the student report yeah Sharon I just have a a question um Ryan you mentioned Little Mermaid on March
14th is that different than the but I thought you said it was at the Bolton library is that different than the um High School production is that or is it in addition to the High School production um it's it's going to be hosted as like a story time at the
library so that's on March 14th to 16th and then I think there's the additional production too thank you yep anything else not see anything so Ryan thanks so much I'm sure you're busy packing tonight for your trip to state so again
good luck this was scrambling around couple minutes ago I hear you adigo uh all right so moving on to our superintendent's report I'm going to turn it over to Kirk
thank you madam chair appreciate it and uh thank you to the committee and everyone who is watching at home tonight we have several items on the superintendent report tonight that's coming to you from various uh members of the team I'm going to just start by tossing it to finance and operations
director Mr Ross mcaren to talk about the joint uh finance and advisory committee meeting last night yeah uh thank you superintendent Downing so last night uh the district presented its proposed budget for FY 26 which was the
version that was presented at the last school committee meeting um which was update number two to the Joint fincom advisory meeting between the towns of Bolton Lancaster and Stow uh overall I think it was well attended uh as compared to years past it was it was
similar um so at that meeting we presented the budget with a lens of the work that we've done to date um so how we got from the workshop to update number two um we also put a special lens and demonstrations on how the regional
agreement Works relative to uh enrollment to assessment um and fielded a lot of questions and uh Curiosities around the required contributions which are calculations done at the state level but again I think it was good education
and discussion overall with regards to those topics um and again putting an emphasis on how the regional agreement Works uh we certainly also presented the situation that the school district is in relative to that increase from FY 25 to 26 and talked about the major levers
that are behind that um I think our overall impression from the meeting that there was a shared commitment to creating the best educational experience possible for our students uh but also being fiscally responsible and re um uh responsive to the conditions that our three towns are in uh we thank all the
participants for their time their attention and their engagement with the budget process and an additional thank you to the town of Bolton for hosting this year uh the meeting materials from last night are posted for you in the school committee meeting tonight as far
as the slide deck goes um and then we also have uh we'll be posting it to the budget development page um that uh Miss Hanigan our communication specialist and I continue to work on um so people can view the recording and view the slides there as they can see the iterations of
the budget as well so again I felt like it was a successful meeting in the sense that was um all respectful and thoughtful discussion uh with regards to our budget and I think that we were able to provide answers um that made sense and were clear and transparent so um we
continue to to you know March our budget behind those pillars uh with our schools I also just want to thank member Cohen member PMA and member gleon for joining us at the meeting last night as well excellent thanks Ross are there any
questions on the joint Finance advisory committee meeting update all right so thanks everyone for fulfilling that element of the regional agreement it is a meeting that we all agreed to create and attend or rather
plan and thanks Kirk for spear hitting that and living up to the spirit of that great so the next piece we have is in regards to special education transportation for ad District students and as you know we're we're looking for
Solutions on how to possibly mitigate some of those Transportation cost and I'm going to invite our director of student services Miss ran Dean to talk about uh one effort we're making to sort of chip away at that challenge so miss
deman thank you superintendent Downing um can you hear me okay great um so as you know uh as the community knows and as you know as a school committee uh special education Transportation costs really have skyrocketed this year
um and as part of looking at some longer term solutions to help with that um we're kind of looking at offering out which is not new um regulations but um really being more transparent and public
about it and as we begin our um season to prep up for Sumer school we will be sending out letters to families um asking if they're interested in seeking reimbursement to provide transport
um and we want to see how it runs a summer to then offer it out but we're going to just be more transparent about that to see if parents and want to access that reimbursement which is um part of a state regulation and is at the state
rate um and is reimbursable um through our department on a monthly basis and um and money directly back to our families uh so we're just going to be offering that up and see if that can help with some of
the transportation routes great thank you all right so does anybody on the committee have any questions around this new initiative Amy Cohen um it seems like a great idea I
mean I guess I was making an assumption that the specialized Transportation um would was required because it was kind of like something that as a parent you might not have access to to get your kid
to school so I just don't do you have a feeling for how accessible this option is for people who have to take advantage or are in the situation yep so yeah specialized transportation is a related service through the I and as part of
that we are required to provide transportation but some of our families do opt to not Place their children onto Vans or buses for whatever reasons they have and we at that time will um alert them that they can get reimbursement for
providing that Transportation as it's a related service um and so that's something we're just going to be more transparent about as an option um for families if they choose to take it if they can't because of working or they just don't have the schedule will continue to set up the specialized
transportation okay thank you excellent all right Kirk keep it going well the next piece is mine and that is the power school update um Power School emails went out to everyone who exists in the power school system not just in
massachusett but across the entire country regarding uh the data breach that happened uh at the end of 2024 that was a standard email that's required by law offering credit monitoring uh Services through experience so I just
wanted to let the committee know that that was a universal email that went out um to folks that are just in the system uh all receed that so um that's just a follow up on what was previously promised and that came directly from
Power School not the school district um and then at this point I think I'll just turn it straight over to assistant superintendent lur friend uh to talk about some report card revisions uh assistant superintendent thank you superintendent Downing um we
have some rep report card revision work underway in grades 1 through 8 and this work really complements the work we've been engaged in with all of our curriculum work in grades 1 through 8 uh as it relates to curriculum development and alignment and our implementation of
high quality instructional materials for math Ela and middle science and so coming back into our report cards and taking a look at the reporting St standards there is really timely um and adjacent to our curriculum work so that work is
underway currently uh we have a report card working group happen um convened uh made up of Representatives across the district and they are currently reviewing together reporting standards for clarity and alignment and relevance
and the group will also be looking at our behavior and Social Work habits section of the report cards and making revisions to those so they more closely and appropriately align with our portrait of anber graduate competencies so we can see the through lines of those
competencies alongside our academic reporting tool um K through 8 immediate next steps of the work include forming a kindergarten working group sharing draft versions of our revised report cards with our school
councils for feedback and also so uh teaching and learning will be developing a front-facing user guide for families to improve understanding of the reporting tool also as part of the work teaching and learning has been Gathering report
cards from neighboring districts to um review how our neighboring districts are using the reporting tool to report out student progress both for Content alignment and just for ease of use um right now our elementary families will
recog I that our report card is really long it's multiple Pages um and so as we approach the work we want to make sure that we're maintaining the Integrity of the work and we're reporting out on what's essential but we also want to make sure that it's clear and not
cumbersome for families and for our Educators and and is really telling a story of student progress over time so I would like to personally thank our the nishoba Educators who are engaged in the in that work all way through grade 8 and helping us with the process and they're
truly excited and engaged in helping us make that reporting tool more effective um and streamlined and really a useful tool to impact student learning in terms of reporting student learning and growth over time for our students so I wanted
to make sure the committee was aware that that work is happening we are hoping to implement our revised report cards in the fall so I'll make sure to keep the committee updated on our progress as we work with our school councils and we approach the the
end of the work I will keep the committee updated thank you that'll conclude the report Madam chair great thanks guys uh any questions on that last piece or even the power school
update all right not seeing any questions uh I thank you for the workl I think that that's a great initi and we really appreciate you um leveraging the school councils to give you some feedback from families that's great all right guys we're going to move on to our next item we only
have one item in new business and that is the promised appointment for our final dear J seat and I'm going to ask Jackie to kind of cue this up a little bit and maybe even make a motion so that the committee can um vote sorry I'm not feeling so great this
evening um I just wanted to say thank you to the school committee for uh pressing pause on this just wed to make sure that we're um Crossing all our te's and dotting our eyes um but I'm pleased to share that a parent from Bolton has
graciously volunteered to um pending uh voting this evening to step into that 11th final um position on dear J for the remainder of the 2024 2025 Academic School year and um I just wanted to say
thank you to Beth um I apologize if I pronounce her name her last name incorrectly but fringer fringer I think um and so thank you to Beth um and to Dear J for their continued efforts um so
I'd like to motion to approve Beth as the 11th final member appointed to Dear J this evening I'll second that thanks Jackie and thank you to Beth for volunteering uh the work is really important we appreciate that 11th member
to lift the weight so is there are there any questions from the committee I just want to make a quick note that all of our advisories are annual appointments and so we will revisit the dear J advisory membership for next year in June and so this
appointment and those who serve now will serve um up and through this term and then we'll reset all right so I'm not seeing any questions so let's take the vote Jackie myself yes Sharon yes Amy
vessels yes Scott yes shandor yes John yes Amy Cohen yes Lindsay yes uh Joe I think I lost Joe
Robin yep all right Joe last call I think you had to step out lead us so we'll just go ahead uh so welcome to Bath to Dear Jay and I'm sure Jackie will close that Loop for all of us great so let's step into the next item here and that is the finance and
operations update yeah I'll introduce finance and operations Ross mcaren to bring the update and then we'll have a disc discussion um about the joint fincom presentation so that you heard about in the superintendence report Mr mcaren microphone Mr
mcar multitasking thank you um just pulling up my uh agenda um so the operating budget report for January uh um Alita do you want to bring that up she doesn't jump on it I can bring it
up I could do it for you oh there you go there it is thank you Alita Master Alita go ahead so as Alita is zooming in on that for everyone um I just want to call your attention to that there's no significant changes um to where we're at right now
as compared to the end of December um we're still tracking um as we were um We are continuing to watch all of these types of things um again this report goes through the end of January um and
therefore um some of the things that we need to pay careful attention to over the next couple of months are exactly how long does this winter season continue uh how much more snow do we get um you know we're just about through this month and there's plowing costs that happen during February that will
reflected next time and we'll see how long our heating season extends uh if you remember we had the benefit of a warm start to the school year um which continued but um our our our forecast is not complete on um all of our um
utilities until the year is complete uh Alita I think we just lost the report on the uh shared screen if you don't mind bringing it back up um while the is bringing that back up um it's in your meeting materials uh you'll also notice that again uh we're anticipating our special education um
line to be using some circuit breaker but we don't anticipate that it's going to interrupt any sort of the operational Surplus that you can see really effectively lies within the um uh salary lines at the building level one thing to not is we're paying careful attention to
the substitute line obviously um this came up in budget and warrant as you call potentially during our budget development we have increased our substitute line for next year to better match our actuals over the last couple years um so while that does look like it
is um in a deficit uh we've already planned for next year to make some adjustment there and see how it plays out so at that point I can take any questions this was reviewed with budget and warrant earlier this week um and again no significant changes to our forecasting at this
point all right does anybody have any questions for Ross on this one all right looks good Ross thank you for that let's move on to our next item yeah so again great uh meeting for my mind uh last night relative to the work that we've done on the budget so
far with the joint fincom um I don't know if there's any questions about that process or how that meeting went at this point uh superintendent Downing you know if you're intending on feeling any questions or providing any other details why don't you just describe the materials that we've included in the in
the meeting materials agenda for tonight uh do you want me to pull them up and quickly just roll through them or no I think we can just make mention to them because the committee should be familiar with all this information yeah there there's there's no new additional information in the joint fincom materials that were presented last night
again we really stressed sort of here's where we started um with our um overall operating budget at the the workshop and discuss the fact that this is the the moment where we talk about this is if we could have what we want um you know in a
full package for all of our students in each and every each and every um spot in our district this is what it is and we knew that that would need to come back and then we started walking it back um we walked them through the updates from budget update number one both reductions offsets and um our salary adjustments
our reductions in salary in our budget update number two and talked about where we had been prior to the health insurance premium coming through and then also showed them directly the impact of that health insurance premium going up that $528,000 discussed with them we removed
the you know the Deans of students and talked about the the concern with that obviously um uh but we were in a a position and are in a position to do that and then also talked about the fact that we increased um our expectations on investment income earnings so while the
budget came down about $400,000 really the assessments to the town have gone down to total of $500,000 because we increased the revenue um we again like I said earlier we did a lot of work about walking through the enrollment overtime um both at the uh
fall level of the the the high school level but also at the um more importantly at the operational level across the district that five-year rolling average showed them how U Foundation enrollment has changed but also how the minimum local contributions have changed over time and obviously the
on the variable assessment so I think overall really good healthy understanding of how the budget works and comes together and really good healthy discussion and questions on where we're at what else do we anticipate um questions about um you
know State levers and those types of things we talked about the situation with special education and how the funding is sort of level on that um superintendent Downing did a great bit of sharing about the the legal um advocacy that's happening across the state right now just not from
nooba um so I think that was a good good bit of information for our folks there that are elected officials and appointed officials uh so they understand where where we're at and that this is just not a aoba phenomenon um we also signaled Our concern about how does health insurance increases continue over the
next several years um and that we are we just like I think all three towns are being judicious with uh and being cautious with using our revolving or balances as one time funds for ongoing costs and needing to be transparent and clear that you know we're we're sort of
at our limit of comfort level um with those things right now and do not want to push those further discussion about end and all those types of lovers so from a full sort of regional uh financing a Regional Finance um lens I think there was a lot of good understanding and good discussion
relative to the budget being proposed and then obviously discussed our next steps um and then the budget book itself Mr moan yep so what you'll see is an updated budget book as of maybe an hour
ago um so as we were preparing for um The Joint fincom meeting last night I was going back through line by line in the um the executive summary and noticed that um there was a duplication of some of our our guidance staff because they
get additional pay for those extra days that they work um both before and after the school year and that was applied sort of in a duplicate manner um so I had our staff today work that back out and make that correction we've also had to apply an adjustment Rel to the
administrative salaries um the the salary increase still stays at zero um but we said to the committee we want to keep our folks whole so when we had done the um uh Insurance adjustment for the administrative team um that was built on
a 12% increase so that insurance adjustment is now built on that 19.9 2% increase so that changes things as well so we were able to back out some of the duplicated numbers but then put back in the increase um to make sure that our administrative team says whole and
people who take insurance with us don't make less money next year they'll make the same amount of money as they do this year so the overall adjustment to the operating budget is only a reduction of about $27,000 um so no major changes but again we are line by line and double-checking
everything um as we anticipate and prepare for the budget hearing next week which will be the final number that we put forward for vote for the school committing barring any major changes at the state level or something like that that happens between next Wednesday and the school committee vote on the Wednesday thereafter um again you know
we are we are feeling like we are stretched as far as we can at this point but we continue to double check and look at every little piece um and as news comes in or may not come in um we make adjustments but we don't anticipate any major changes and have no major changes obviously for tonight we've done a
significant amount of work and that superintendent Downing has talked about being painful for our district in different places um and we've we've certainly made our sacrifices on our end um relative to being you know fiscally responsible and and fiscally responsive uh to the region so um at that point I
can I can take any questions or or comments or anything I I'll jump in here um a couple of things I wanted to bring forward to the committee regarding uh this work is um there were some questions about enrollment trends that came up so I appointed those committee
members to C uh pay attention to our school choice presentation and ultimately our SK school choice Hearing in April as you guys historically know I show you the enrollment Trends so we can do that analysis um I'm happy to also report that all five representatives in the
nooba delegation to um Beacon Hill have accepted my invitation to meet and so I'll be meeting with them uh on March 6th to review these things they're very concerned I shared the letter uh that I sent to the community last Friday and we
got very prompted responses from our representatives and Senators uh because they're engaged with us in looking for some solutions um I also want to point out uh to our committee and also to the community out there that our goal is in
identifying the reductions we had to make we had to get to a Target budget number and I'm going to repeat that's the budget number for which we are going operate and um it provides the structures sort of the guard rails around us we are still looking for
solutions to some of the challenges that we have in the school system so actual execution of those positions come September 1st end of August uh may look slightly different than what we've presented to you today uh currently I am on a tour of our schools I'm doing
office hours at each of our schools um to make myself available Avail myself to our employ employees to come in sit down with me ask questions about the budget uh whether it pertains to them or or doesn't pertain to them or general understandings um I'm happy to report in
the first two meetings I've had this week we've had uh many faculty members come and approach and have those discussions and I'm receiving a lot of feedback um one of the pieces I want to share with this committee is that as you know uh we were working everything in
our power to retain the dean positions as critical uh positions in the schools um in my office hours and in other uh communication channels people are telling me
those position critical to daily Student Life they are the positions that connect with students who struggle getting to school the high school alone uh tardies at the high school have dropped dramatically due to the efforts of our
Dean at the high school uh Mr visor in uh building relationships with students not uh it's not coming at it you know you might think in a in a conventional sense of you um you know offering strategies of punishments no it's the opposite it's building relationships
building rationale getting kids in their seats the number one Pathway to learning is is you got to be in the seat and when you're in the seat then we can do some good things so um I'm sharing that with you because as we come up with uh options uh we're going to be looking to
figure out ways to return the Deans to the budget knowing we have to stay within the constraint of the total budget um and so uh that's all we have for you on that topic Madam chair excellent thanks Kirk I see Amy
cohenan yeah I just want to kind of follow up on that last thought um what flexibility will you have to to move things around once a vote a budget
is voted in in terms of I guess what I'm trying to understand is if you're able to preserve the middle school dean positions yeah um and we vote a a budget number that assumes that those positions aren't funded
[Music] um I want to make sure as a school committee member that I I also understand like what positions are protected you know what I mean like are we how do we
understand that you could preserve the dean position but then another program is eliminated like all that all that will be presented to you and we're not going to eliminate programs it's it's a matter of looking at you know what are we got to look at you know the demands
of things this is a springtime so uh we know that uh individual education plans other learning plans language plans are being developed so we understand the demand of how we need to employ uh deploy our employees um and so those things change uh we also know that we're
waiting for kindergarten numbers to come in so if those kindergarten numbers at Center and Florence s school don't actualize to a need of four sections that's a possibility so there's lots of levers to that um as the committee you
vote the budget number if we were to shift spending out of a line in the budget meaning out of say salary and into professional development we would have to bring that forward to the committee for vote but if it stays within that bucket within that sector
that's within the operational purview of the superintendent um but you know Miss Cohen these are things that I'm going to be updating our community on um and updating this committee on along the way okay all right thank you for clarifying that yep yeah I mean to clarify for the
community too the Mass General law maybe it's just regulation it says that anytime anything is moved from one cost center to another it requires school committee approval right Kirk that's correct and um but salaries is just one
of the cost centers right right correct and so you can once we approve the salary number you can kind of deploy that number in the way that you see best suits the needs of the kids before us that's correct okay but you couldn't use you couldn't like fire a teacher and
then buy the facilities truck correct without our approval correct that's exactly right okay good all right uh Jackie I just I think to um mirror and then also
expand upon what Amy just said that when Mr mcaren says that there significant sacrifices that we're making in order to be fiscally responsible for community members to truly understand what that actually means and I think
that we have a very involved board that I think does the work um but for community members who may not understand part of the efforts of the district over the past two years that I've been um part of the school committee has been a lot about capacity building um and
keeping kids supported whe whether they're in special education or general education and I'm very happy that you brought up the dean position because that is a critical position as are all the special education positions um that
are being considered and that supporting kids every day and meeting them where they're at is that's our mission which is just so important um I also wanted to mention and I I'm very pleased that you mentioned the
attendance because was um I was actually going through our district report card and our attendance is looking so good kids who are in school just do better this is what we know um and so I just encourage our community members to stay
informed about this process and go to the budget page and do your due diligence as voting members of our community thanks all all right so thanks again Kirk for all of the Endless hard work that you
and your team including you know most of all Ross but all of your team for all the hard work you guys are doing to get this budget to where we need it to be so that we can get our Town's people to approve it at town meeting um and so we
will uh just emphasize that the hearing is set to take place next Wednesday on March 5th this this is required by law and also by our regional agreement so anybody who would like to hear more or communic with the school committee and the superintendent you can attend that
hearing it will be virtual and it's next Wednesday night uh the notice is already posted so let's move on to our uh last item here and that is the school district calendar and Kirk I'll let you tee this up here I think
um I think maybe actually Kirk before you do that I'm gonna ask Amy to make a motion on this and then we can kind of go from there Amy do you have that handy yeah I moved to adopt the school
year 2025 2026 District calendar as presented I'm going to second that and um anything that you wanted to add to this Kirt because I know maybe a couple of changes were made from last time yeah I'm actually going to bring forward our Human Resources Director Miss Jessica
Murdoch to uh uh update you so miss Murdoch thank you superintendent Downing and thank you members of the school committee um so I've provided a new copy to the group I believe it is in your packet we've made the updates based on
the conversation that we had last uh last meeting and so what I have done is corrected and made those edits to where the holidays were listed and then I've
also notated the early releases um I want to note the one in your packet where it says NRS ear released for midterms um the one below it said midterms as well but I recently just added that to Safe finals so I apologize
for that that error um otherwise I think all of the information that was discussed last week has been Incorporated and then I would just draw your attention to the very bottom of the calendar where we've made a notation based on the feedback from the committee
to not include the dates of the um holidays that may be an observance but to add a calendar where it will say all observances so a person who is interested in looking at the different uh religious holidays and just general
holidays can see that at the calendar of observance link so I think that has addressed all the committee's questions and thoughts and so if there's any questions I certainly happy to answer those thanks Jess go ahead am so this
this incorporates a change to the high school schedule right where it's early releases and not late starts it is correct they there was late starts and I had shared with the committee at the last meeting um member
Coen that the principal had done a poll with her teachers and with other administrators and they felt that it would more align with all of the classroom activities um with the high school and making sure that they were using that time and they
wouldn't lose any learning time as well um and I guess you know I I my only other comment is related to the use of the um reference to the ADL
link and I mean I I think it's a separate issue I I think I I would like to see maybe maybe we could put this in the parking lot again um Leah but to just kind of
revisit um the issue of how we can can we how we can raise awareness of holidays that are celebrated within our community um in a way that's I think a little bit more
accessible than this this link um to the ADL resources C of calendar observances um I I just I've clicked on that link and I not sure it's it's as useful as
it's intended to be so that's my only comment Madam chair if I may sure I I want to use this opportunity to thank Dr Riner for finding uh the dear J work on this that was done a couple of years ago it would I think Miss Cohen's uh request
is spot on I would recommend that that work be directed to the Dej to focus in on and drill down on that to then return to the committee um and thinking Miss col I he your focus
is in some of the information that's in there but readily accessible to people uh in a way that's almost like a like um um PR is not the right word but uh a way that's easily accessible that they understand how we treat
holidays in the school system yeah thank you thank you for that I wasn't find the right words there I think that I'll just add one more detail here I think that there are two sides to this coin side one is excusing work for a kid who is
observing a religious holiday but I think the other thing that we talked a lot about way back when is educating our District employees everyone to understand when the major holidays are so that big things don't get scheduled
on those days that's right and so there are two big elements here one of them parents are kind of responsible for they call the school they say my kid is observing a holiday I want their work to be excuse or whatever the case may be and we mark it in power schools an
excused absence and all the other good things follow but the other half of this is how can the district make sure that they're not scheduling big field trips and things like that on rashash Shana for example um so um Amy I'm gonna put in the parking lot and then uh we will also like Kirk
said bring it to Dear J too um and uh Madam chair I will ask Miss Masterson if she would add this to my agenda for our next principal meeting and and we'll be reviewing this with our principles as well and uh I'll work with Miss Murdoch
on that communication with our principles thank you uh Jackie did I lose you um just as a point of clarification is the request from the school committee that dear J look at the
calendar in anticipation of a future meeting or is this ongoing work for next year's calendar like at a later time I'm wondering Kirk if it makes sense for you to um address this with your leadership team and then see what you might need from dear J and you can kind of funnel
that through Jackie happy to do that okay great all right thanks John thank you um just a quick note it seemed to me that it would be best policy to just include the names of the legal holidays on the list there it seem
like we're we're following des's suggestion with our policy is and on their page for legal holidays that names the names it also just seems like we're required to observe them by the
state it seems like we should be educating our students um you know why you know at the very least include the name uh just just seems pretty simple and straight for it if I heard in our last meeting there was
some suggestion of taking him off to to not affect offend people but again we're kind of mandated to have the holiday to observe the holiday and um one of our stated goals for for our kids is to
educate them in a way that makes them internationally International seems like sort of sounds like the reason why it's coming off is basically to hide it from the kids and that just seems the antithesis to educating the kids so I just wanted
to bring that up I agree with you John I think that what we've said in the past and I and I kind of still this is what I use as my guiding star on this one is that the calendar is not a tool to educate it's just you know there are so many other good ways that we could do this for our
kids I think the calendar is just a tool to identify when the buildings are closed and that we can find other methods and that's I think what Kirk's going to do with his leadership team to help bring that awareness and build that out so that we do have robust observant
and um understanding and recognition but in my opinion I think the calendar should just be a tool where we say these are the days where it's closed these are the days we have early starts late starts whatever the case may be and um leave it at that but is there anybody else who has something
shandor uh what defines a holiday and is December 24th really a holiday yeah I will answer that for you the holidays that are mentioned on there
are the holidays that are recognized by Congress um and so there was an interesting actually case on this a couple years back when President uh Biden uh named Columbus Day as indigen
indigenous people's day he did that through an executive order not through an act of Congress um and in doing so Congress you know going back in time uh selected Christmas day as an actual
holiday um and so the tradition has always been and so Christmas Eve December 24th is not recognized as a Federal holiday in the same sense but I could be wrong on that one but it it is to
notify which holidays are identified by Congress as federal holidays Patriots Day isn't a Federal holiday and it's shaded green and that that is we're not just following federal holidays
we're following State ones but I don't think December 24th is a state or federal holiday yeah so that that's exactly right there is some it's it's not 100% exclusive to that ruing um uh so I think that it's not
necessarily a holiday as much as it is holiday break yeah much in the same way the day after Thanksgiving is not a holiday but is warranted as a day off of school say no school and that would clarify it right yeah seriously no you
don't even have to use the word holiday I mean there's what I'm wondering about is the color coding is should December 24th be orange and not green yes yes very good we'll take that and as you
we'll we'll make that adjustment uh so when you give the motion as discussed we can make that okay cor uh Sharon I'm just wondering first of all what is the um title on this
calendar what what is the calendar called it's this 2526 school year calendar y so it it sounds like where we're going with this is that this calendar is
perhaps one of several calendars that we're going to end up with this is the school closing or School Open dates um so this calendar is specific to when the district is open or when the district is
not yes and then perhaps we have another calendar which is more geared towards observances and that then is where we highlight
or educate or whatever the word you want to use for it is but where we include all of the other pieces which is you know these named holidays the religious holidays um and all of those other
things as a separate piece a separate document awesome I'm GNA have Kirk kind of log that in his brain and when you speak with your team and yep brainstorm this let's make it part of the conversation
you bet all right guys we have a motion on the floor off to accept this calendar with that one small change so I'm going to take the vote I vote Yes Scott yes Amy vessels yes John I'm sorry was there a discussion
about the link on the bottom is are we we changing no not for this time around but there's it's going to go in the parking lot for next time okay uh yes Okie do uh Jackie yeah Robin yep Amy
Cohen yes Sharon yes shandor yes Joe yes yes and Lindsay yes okay guys thanks for that so we have a calendar for the following year so parents can plan their days
off um all right so the only item next is the next agenda and I know that the hearing is next we'll get a short update at that hearing as well but the meeting after that will be the very important budget vote which is required by the regional agreement so we're going to hit
that date as well um the planning calendar is there for you is there anything that anybody wants me to consider for the agenda for next time in addition to what's already there yeah I have a question yeah go ahead well I know a lot of of
um community members schools are wonderful and also very complicated and people have a lot of questions about um the information that was shared on the slides just in terms of like directing
people to the most appropriate channels if they had specific questions about other than redirecting people to the slides that list like you know how we map out the is there any way I guess basically
to have a point person or someone with either within the administration or the school committee if community members had questions about the last iteration of the budget uh Scott are you volunteering well so the budget and warrant committee actually talked about this on Monday and
we are going to be having a meeting of budget and warrants on the Thursday the 6th right after the the hearing for for specifically with the purpose that any community members that have questions about the budget can come to that meeting and ask them there thank you
that's G to be 7 pm on the 6th then the only agenda item is the budget thanks Scot that might um okay so that's not necessarily an item for next agenda but um I appreciate you letting us all know about
that um yeah I have something for the next agenda Amy nope actually it's not sorry I can't really go off script anything else for the next agenda and if not Amy you can just
call me later uh all right everybody so I'm not seeing anything else I will build the agenda as we always do with Kirk Kirk and Le's help and then uh let me know if you have anything or need anything in the meantime but uh I'm going to move to adjourn for this evening second oh I think Jackie might
have gotten it so I'm gonna give it to her uh I vote Yes Scott yes Jackie John yes Amy vessels yes Amy Cohen yes Robin was that a yes Robin y yep yes
sorry Lindsay yes shandor yes Sharon yes and Joe we are adjourned everybody 54 minutes