Speaker 1: So we're gonna start tonight's meeting. So good evening everyone. This is the January, no, this is not January 6th. This is the February 24th meeting over the committee. We'll start with the roll call. Ms. Flas. Here. Mr. Brand Present. Ms. Collins? Yes. And Ms. Brunell here. And I'm here. And you Speaker 2: Actually, Ms. Goeth. Speaker 1: Oh, Ms. Goeth is on. Ms. Goeth, are you here? Speaker 2: She is she a host. Why she can't Speaker 1: Elisa? I dunno if you are able to unmute now. Speaker 3: Hi. Yes. Present. Participating remotely. Perfect.
Speaker 1: I'd like to make a motion for us to enter into executive session specifically to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or, or litigation. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body. And their chair still declares and I do. I'll take a second. Second and we'll do a roll call. Vote. Ms. Flas. Yes. Ms. Brand? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And Ms. Goeth? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: So with that we'll enter into a executive session which will last approximately an hour. We'll be back around 7:00 PM Good evening everyone.
We are going to resume our school committee meeting for February 24th. We went into, we opened the meeting with roll call at six. We apologize for delay with executive session, but we're back now and I'd like to now ask everyone to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. In a moment of silence, Speaker 4: I pledge allegiance to flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which stands, one Nation under God in Israel with liberty and justice for off. Speaker 1: Thank you for taking the moment of silence. We do so to honor those who've sacrificed for our country
announcements, I have two, but I can wait if others have any announcements. If they're none, I'll make mine. So the first one is on behalf of Serve Natick. As you might recall, they were here a group of high school students who developed a website, a program to promote community service. They're having a big N Impact collaborative event, which is taking place on April 2nd, 2025 at the high school auditorium from six 30 to eight 30. There's a lot of information including registration on Serve natick do org. That's serve S-E-R-V-E natick.org.
If you go to their website right at the top it it says NAIC Impact Collaborative. You can get more information there. The second announcement is on behalf of Natick is United and the cler, the interfaith clergy in town. There is a great program this week, Natick World's Interfaith Harmony Week. It's a week filled with events about, related to all of our different faiths, faith based organizations here in town. If you go to Nat Is United, go to org, go
to events and you'll see the event listed there as well as another one called Addressing Black Youth Mental Health on February 26th. The NI World Interfaith Harmony Week starts also on February 26th and goes through March 4th. Those are the announcements That I have. Any other announcements? Speaker 5: Sure. If he feels good. Speaker 1: We did executive session. I'd like now to open the floor to public speak and I'll do so by reading our policy. As always, public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permanent maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility. The school committee, all remarks will be
addressed to the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or response to comments by the school committee. Anyone here in person or online for public speak? And no one signed up, no emails. So we will close public speak for tonight. And with that we will hear any comments from our representatives starting with our teacher representative. Mr. Wood. Speaker 6: Thank you Mr. Chair. I did wanna make just a brief comment addressing in a not overly specific way, some, some concerns that have been raised on social media recently
that are concerning some of the material that has been coming out from the MTA and concerns that have been raised in our community about the rise in antisemitism. And I just wanna let remind people that while the EAN is affiliated with the MTA, we do not get our lesson plans or our curriculum from the MTA. And I should point out that in Natick, our teachers know how to present controversial and political material in fair and unbiased ways that honors the identity of all students.
And so I would just like to say that if there are community members who are concerned about what is going on in their teacher or in their students' classrooms, talk to their students first and then talk to their teachers. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Our student president, Ms. Hacker. Speaker 7: Thank you. The only update I have is that the flower drive for student council took place the day before break the 14th. And that it was a really great success and a lot of fun to wrap up school before break. Thank Speaker 1: You. Great, thank you. And lastly, our MET representative Ms. Scott.
Speaker 8: Hi. I have no updates to present tonight. Speaker 1: Great, thank you. We'll move now to our consent agenda. I'll take a motion to approve our consent agenda. Speaker 9: Second. Speaker 1: All those in favor? We have Speaker 9: The roll call is Ms. Speaker 1: Goeth. Ms. Goeth is online. Thank you for the reminder Mr. Brand. So we need to do a roll call. Is she there? Speaker 9: Unless she's not there, in which case we don't. Speaker 10: Well she was on Google Meet. Did she come out to Zoom? Speaker 11: She was on Zoom prior Speaker 12: Roll call Can't hurt. I just Speaker 9: Dunno where.
Yeah, if she's not there, we don't have to roll call. Speaker 1: Well, just a roll call doesn't hurt. Ms. Flas? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Brune? Yes. And am I? Yes. And I don't think we do have Ms. Goeth. So the consent agenda is approved. And with that I'll turn things to superintendent for the superintendent report. Speaker 13: Excellent. Good to see everyone. Hope your vacations if you had them were awesome. It's good to be back. Okay. So we're gonna start off with an update on MSBA memorial. We're gonna bring the deck up And then if you can just go, I actually this deck, which is
obviously linked in the agenda, I'm starting to put any prior decks lower down. So we just kind of have it all together. So if it looks like a bigger deck than what I'm gonna present, that's why can go to the next slide. Thank you. So I've shown this slide before and this really just shows the eligibility phase, which formally began on February 3rd, 2025. It formally ends on Halloween of 20, sorry, yep. 2025, that's 270 days. The first step, which is due on March 5th, we've already handed it in, is what's called an initial compliance certification to the MSBA. You can click on there and actually see the signed document.
It signed by myself, the town manager, and the chair of the school committee. This is the first formal step in the MSBA eligibility phase. Just approving that document confirms the district's commitment to follow the policies and processes of the MSBA. It does not guarantee funding, but allows us to continue to work with the MSBA and ensures we remain eligible for potential state support for the Memorial Elementary School project. So that's done. We check the first box, the next box on there is the school building committee that's not due until April 4th. We wanna start that process today,
but we don't anticipate the formal vote on that until March 31st, which is a special meeting that we've we'll have with the school committee after the school committee elections to, to kind of finalize the school building committee. Can you go to the next slide please? This is an overview of what school building committees do. Some of you probably know this very well, others, it's a good reminder. They basically oversee and facilitate school construction projects. They're required for districts invited into this MSBA eligibility period. They have to align with local charters, laws
and regulations of the MSBA. There's a formation and approval process that'll be voted by the school committee and it's due on April 4th. So that's just a big overview and you can kind of link to some of the pieces on the next slide if you wanna read more with the MSBA site. So for today, I'd like to ask this committee to consider voting Steven Meer in as the school building committee chair for the memorial project. And prior to that vote, I'd like to read a bit about Steven and he was kind enough to give me a bit of a bio
and which is attached as well to the agenda. But this is an exciting one to read because he is incredibly qualified. So before we move forward with that vote, I'd like to highlight his extensive experience and service to the native community. His full biography has been attached to the agenda for your reference. Steven brings a wealth of leadership expertise from his career in bio biopharmaceutical medicinal sciences where he successfully managed the process and product development of life sustaining biologic and vaccine medicines. His background includes degrees in biochemistry and chemical plastics engineering, as well
as an MBA completed by certifications in portfolio valuation modeling and project management. His professional experience also includes overseeing the design and construction of new clinical and commercial biopharmaceutical facilities, as well as decommissioning and evaluating potential acquisitions. Beyond his professional achievements, Steven has been a dedicated and engaged member of the N community, serving in both elected and appointed roles. His contributions include time as town meetings member and on the school committee where he served as a member, vice chair and chair.
He's also been a valued member of multiple building committees, including those for the senior community center, Natick High School, and most recently Kennedy Middle School, where he served as chair with his deep commitment to Natick, extensive experience in project oversight and strong understanding of both facility development and community needs. Steven is well prepared to lead the Memorial Elementary School Building Committee. I look forward to his leadership in this role. Should you vote him in and ask for your support and voting him in as chair of the committee? Speaker 1: Any questions or comments as clarification?
Just to add to what Dr. Pash said tonight, we're only discussing the chair. The committee itself, MSBA is actually pretty clear about the roles that are required from other committees. The town administrator, the superintendent. So we're developing, we're inviting people as needed for that, for that committee. We will also have a school committee representative on that com and the building committee, that is the position that I, I'm proposing we choose March 31st when we also do the reorganization. That way we know who's here after the election.
So that will be March 31st. And we're also gonna talk briefly in a second about how community members can also apply to be part of the committee so that, so we'll talk more about that and, but we're focusing on the chair tonight. Any questions or comments about Ms. Dr. SP's ask, Speaker 14: Would you like a motion? Speaker 1: I'd love a motion. Speaker 14: Move to point Steve Myer as the chair of the Memorial School School Building Project Committee. Committee. Second, I get enough words in there if I keep Speaker 1: Going. Question from Ms. Lathers or comment
Speaker 15: I this, I mean, maybe I missed something. Just what was the process for finding candidates? For sourcing, having conversations. Speaker 13: A lot of it was based on kind of a conversation and a recommendation where he came very, very highly recommended. And we met with him, kind of talked to him about qualifications and his prior experience on the Kennedy Building Committee made him an easy choice to recommend to you. Speaker 15: Were there any other candidates that that wanted to be considered? Was there any conversation with the community asking for candidates or participation in any way Speaker 13: For this? No, for the school building committee
that this is a pretty critical role. There is definitely a process to have others added on, which I think we'll talk about in a little bit. But in terms of for the chair, having somebody who had all of that experience here in Natick with all the rules and regs and has run this sort of work, this felt like the right kind of recommendation. We didn't have anybody else come forward and I didn't have any other recommendations for this role. Speaker 1: McDonough, Speaker 16: I just wanna speak in support of Mr. Myer for this role role. He, I obviously served with him on the Kennedy School Building Committee. He's incredibly thorough, very process oriented.
Everyone has a voice in, in, in the process and he runs through it according to the MSBA, but also listening to what the community wants. And I just was very impressed with how he ran through every single, like ran through everything we needed to run through and didn't rush anything, was very detailed in how he went about it. So I feel confident, I know there's a lot of discussion about how this will proceed, but I feel very confident that Mr. Myer is the right person to run down all
of the options that we have. And to ha and it is true that I think having someone who's been through this process now multiple times in Mr. Myer's case will be really beneficial to us. And, and then having the committee be able to decide who else is on the committee will be really an asset. It's a tremendous asset and I was glad that he was able to be able to step up. I actually thought that the Kennedy Building Committee meetings might never end. And here we are like discussing another building committee Speaker 1: Because Speaker 16: They just kept going.
It's quite a process. It's very long. And to have someone commit to what is basically a five year process, if not more, is, is really stepping up for the community. So thank you. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? Thoughts? Yeah. Ms. Brunell? Speaker 17: I don't, Ms. Reer, I, I don't wanna address you, but I, through the chair to, through Dr. Sp. I don't, sorry. I'm very tired. Jet lag. I have a bit of a jet lag right now. I don't disagree.
Or I, I, Mr. Maller was one of the first people I spoke to when I got involved in public, my public position in Natick. And he was fantastic then I, I imagine that he'll be fantastic now I just wanna make sure going forward that we are incorporating as much public participation as possible and that roles are available to everyone. I think in Natick sometimes we get very accustomed to people who have done things in the past and have done them well without thinking perhaps
about the full community and the talent that also lies elsewhere. So I'm grateful to Mr. Miler for stepping forward, but as somebody who I know believes a lot in process, I think that it's important that we follow a process to make sure that the, the rest of the committee. And I do wonder about a position like this, if a co-chair is something that is ever considered. I was trying to read it, I don't know, but I imagine a five year chair position is a big thing to undertake individually. And so I wonder if there is a co-chair possibility and maybe we could talk about that later.
Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? Speaker 16: Can I just respond to that? Sure. I mean Mr. Myer could speak to it too. I don't know if he's gonna say anything, but he worked very closely with the, Speaker 15: There is a vice chair on the committee and that person was also often brought in to have a role in sort of organizing and running the committee. But that was a position that was picked one, you know, from the members of the committee, if that's helpful. Speaker 1: If there aren't any other questions or comments, I just wanted to make my comment also in support of Mr. Myer in this role, the MSBA process.
From what I understand, my very little understanding of it is a complex process with a multiple steps and requiring technical expertise. And so in order to make sure that we have the committee being led in the right direction and consistent with the M-S-D-A-M-S-B-A process, I think it's important to have someone who with that experience as chair. Having said that, I also absolutely agree and have already talked to Dr. Sp and Mr. Myer about this. The importance of community engagement through this process. Not only in this selection of members for the rest
of the committee, but also the committee itself, being fully engaged, engaged in the community, in the process I think is important. This is a committee that does report to the school committee. And so obviously we can set those expectations, we can determine how often the committee comes and reports to us and provide some guidance. So that's my reason for supporting this motion. Any other, yeah, Ms. Flas Speaker 15: Is the comment that, I mean you've said that this committee reports to the school committee and I appreciate, I mean I work in pharma tech
and I understand the complexities of getting anything done. So kudos to you. It's probably very equivalent. I don't feel like there's enough information here for me. I mean, personal recommendations, past experience. I do feel like we tend to lean into people that have already done the job and made it quite a bit. And so I personally don't feel like through this process that this was enough information for me to make. Like I will support the decision, the committee, but I personally don't feel like I have enough information to be able to blindly show throw support in. That's just me. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? And then there's a motion at the table. So we is, oh, Ms.
Corset is there. So we will make, we will do a roll call then. Ms. Flatters? Speaker 15: No. Speaker 1: Mr. Brand. Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Brunell? No. And Ms. Corset? Yes. And I'm a yes. So the motion passes. Speaker 15: Okay. Speaker 13: You welcome. So we wanted to, and you know, depending on how this vote went, I asked even if he would be willing to explain the process we're gonna have for a wider public application. The membership of the SBC is very defined by MSBA,
the number of people, the roles. And so they do have a section on there that is outlined for membership of the public that gives some brief guidance on kind of what capacities those people should have. And so we'd like to just give an overview of what we're seeking as kind of, this will be in the engaged newsletter. This will be out on our website. We can certainly talk about it to encourage others with expertise to come in and to, to have someone managing that process was pretty essential with everything else that's on our plates right now, which is part of why I recommended this, this vote happen today.
So if you are willing to come up and kind of explain this process of the Google form or I can, whatever you wanna do. Speaker 18: If you could bring the Google form. Sure. I'm gonna add a few words if you don't mind. Put the button. No, Speaker 13: No. Wrong one. Speaker 19: Okay, there you go. Thank you. So if you wouldn't mind mind opening up the form and I'm just gonna say a few words before we get started too on that. First of all, thank you very much for voting for me to assume this role. I certainly find it very interesting and it's gonna be a lot of fun for everyone who's able
to join the committee and and so forth. If there is, to your point, a couple of points that were in the market here, that if anybody is interested in getting additional information or learning how to do what I'm about to do as chair, I would encourage them to apply and go through the process. This is a very detailed, unique process to be chair and I would be more than happy to try and bring them forward and they can take on the next building that comes up. 'cause I'm getting a little old and starting to think about retiring from these things.
And it's good to bring somebody else in on training. So I don't think it should be a no. I think it can be, let's try and get some, anybody in the community that has an engagement here that we, we can bring them on board and try and get them involved with the committee for the future reference. Specifically related to this committee, I'm gonna kind of describe this in the committee members in my own words here. First. There are about four different groups of people that I've tried and target when we're putting this committee together under the MSBA guidelines, first of all, we try
and need to engage the town officials and that includes obviously the school administration as well as the town administrator. This is one of the bigger projects as typically happens in the town in terms of funding and expense and visibility. So we do try and strive to get a very collaborative, supportive environment across the board. The second group are elected and appointed individuals. It's really important to try and strive to get communication accurate across the different boards. So we typically ask the planning board who gives us and supports permits, the fin com
and the select board to nominate a representative to join the committee as well. What does that do for us? It means that these individuals can go back to their boards and speak to what's really happening on the floor in the building committee itself. It helps strive to fill any gaps or questions that people have besides myself traveling around to talk about all the different challenges and issues that we're going through and whether they're important or not that important. The third group, which is which we're talking about tonight, is we always want to involve some members of the public. And that kind is a little bit of flexibility that we have on
that With the MSBA, usually we'll try and pick two to three people. If we have only two people who don't have the only two people that have the experience and the ability to contribute value, then we'll stay with two. If we have three, then we'll pick, try and pick up the third person as well as a member of the group. Then we have what we call ad hoc members. Ad hoc members and non-voting members. And typically what we've done in the past, we invite the police department or the fire if they wanna be an ad hoc member because there are different times in during the construction and the feasibility study that we need to involve them
and get their participation. So they also carry the messages back too. And then lastly again, we talked about the extended public participation. These are open meetings so the open meetings will be covered and I would, I would encourage you all to invite your neighbors and come show, show up for some of these meetings. Sometimes there's nobody there and sometimes we have to get a bigger room depending on what the topics are. And as Julie knows, sometimes we've taken it to the high school auditorium and we've had several discussions in the high school auditorium with large groups of individuals.
So getting back to the members of the community, we have a Google form that's in front of you right now. And the Google form essentially is a list of what we're looking for, some of the criteria so that we can give you an idea as to what we're, we're striving to fill these positions with. We're looking for you to set, submit to us a brief description of your interest in serving on the committee and why, what can you bring to the table? How can we take advantage of your skills back in the community and in this committee? And then lastly, this is simple, but it's not,
and Julie can speak to this too as well. We need a commitment from you to show up to the meetings. We have to have a quorum. There are always several meetings that we don't have a quorum and we have to take a step back and wait until we can get enough members of the committee to show up. So if you can't come for the next four years to the meetings to enable us to move this project forward, I would encourage you to pass on it if you can. And you're dedicated, I guarantee you it's gonna be a very interesting ride. I can also tell you that you're gonna learn a lot,
we're all gonna learn a lot and we're gonna get this place to a different location and hopefully deliver the school on time and under budget as well. Okay. So what we're looking for is for any interested party to fill out this Google form and submit it before March 12th. So that's the deadline, submit the form before March 12th. I will be taking a look at these filtering. I'll call people, I'll make connections, I'll ask them more questions to try and come up with a recommendation of the participation of the committee. Then we'll be coming back to you right now on 3 31
and we'll be giving you a recommendation of our committee members. After that, then we'll start the process of bringing the group together. Okay. If there are any, if there's anybody out there that is interested in talking to me, please give me a call, send me an email and I don't have any problem whatsoever meeting with you or sitting down talking about what the process is, what the expectations are, what we're looking for from you and how we go about it collectively in the format of a public meeting. Not everybody applies, has meeting experience.
So it's really important that they have that understanding too. Are there any questions? Yes, Ms. Brunell, Speaker 17: Thank you so much. I have a couple questions from constituents that have E that emailed us. We got an email from Econ Natick specifically. And then I have my own question. So one question that was asked is the timeline for accepting and filling the at large positions on this committee, which you've just gone over. It sounds like applications are due by March 12th and that application deadline has been determined by Speaker 13: Really backwards planning off of having it ready by 3 31 and making sure we did the due, had time
to do the due diligence. Speaker 17: Okay. It's asked what backgrounds and areas of expertise are you seeking. So, Speaker 19: Sure. Yeah, if you look at the Google form, you'll see there is a list of check boxes that we're looking for. It's, we are looking, I'm looking for a balance committee to some extent. But if you have experience in architecture, engineering, construction, sustainability, some project management, financial planning, these are the core skill sets that really drive the, the, the committee to a positive outcome.
Speaker 17: Thank you. Additionally, what is the expected time commitment? I know you said four years, but could you be a little more specific? Speaker 19: Sure. We will start off most likely meeting once a month until we start and we get funding. Once we get to the once a month period, we will probably move to twice a month meeting durations. I usually run a very tight meeting, very conservative meeting, very process driven. And it will be about two hours each meeting they will be at night. I will try and balance the meetings between online and in person.
There are some topics we will talk about that are best served in person. So I will, I will make that call based upon what the agenda is. And then I think that will do it. Speaker 13: Can I just add that if, for people who read better than listen inside the Google form is everything Mr. Myer just said where we literally outline kind of that expectation of the role. Speaker 17: Fantastic, thank you. And then just my own question through the chair to anyone else that's been involved in this, is it typical that the, that the recommendations of the members would go
through the chair of the building committee or would that, would the school committee also be involved in looking at the applications of the people who have applied? Speaker 19: Do you want me to answer that? Sure. Traditionally the school committee does not decide on the members of the committee. It's usually done by the chair in the school administration. Speaker 17: And that's typical to Natick or is that typical to MSBA? Speaker 19: I don't know what each school district does outside of Natick. We have done that traditionally across Natick. Speaker 1: Mr. Gillis wants to weigh in as well.
Speaker 20: So in some other places where I worked, it would be slightly similar process. Trying to solicit volunteers and then putting together a committee that would show up really is, is kind of the key. So you can keep the project moving 'cause they, they have to vote to authorize payment so to, so it's fairly important to, to make sure you're gonna have people that are committed to it. You want people that are interested in the project, you and that can sort of bring some level of expertise. And there's a lot of things that go into a a school building project. I like to think of it as 10 million things that can go wrong
and you, as you go through the process, you keep crossing things off the list until you open the doors and enjoy it for a year or two Speaker 4: For a hearing too. Speaker 20: Well it all depends on what your warranty says. Well Speaker 1: Hopefully 50 can we try for 50, Speaker 19: 50 years. Speaker 17: Okay. I would like to just say as a, I am interested in reading the applications of the people who apply and I can do some more research and come back to the committee with that request more formally at our next meeting. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments about the process?
So in terms of how people will get to the form, there is a QR code in the slide deck, but in addition to that we're gonna be disseminating it through, Speaker 13: We'll put it in engage, we'll put it up on our website and we'll put it on social media because this isn't only for people who get our emails right, it's for the community. So I guess if people have additional ideas, we'll go through the town communication as well. So we'll work with Jay from the town. We're gonna make sure it gets out there very, very broadly. And of course I hope everybody here is willing to share them 'cause we wanna just reach kind of waterfall
and reach as many people as we can. Speaker 1: Mr Brand, Speaker 9: Might it make sense for some somebody to go to the next select board meeting and during their public speak maybe announce it? I'm happy to do that depending on when it's, is it right now? I Speaker 13: Think it's a great idea. It gets next Wednesday, Speaker 9: So. Okay. Speaker 13: But I'm happy to keep the ideas coming. Like we are happy to, you know, make a very broad sharing of this Google form in our message. Speaker 1: Yeah, we can share with the town communication department as well to disseminate through their channels. Speaker 16: Yeah. Can I just say one more thing? Sure. I, I did find it really useful with the Kennedy committee
to have folks in the community who had specific areas of expertise but also had an interest in in town government in getting involved and understanding the process. So there were a couple of individuals who were members who had some construction experience specifically in school buildings and could speak to more of the technical nature of it. And then, and then we had, we also did have Jillian come in related to sustainability. So I don't know if the committee wants to consider making her like a member of the team. I don't even know if she has time, but I, I just in terms of the sustainability,
but I did find that those two areas of expertise were helpful to the committee and added to it, it, Speaker 19: It was, we, we ended up doing with, with that specific topic in others like it very similar to the police or the fire or other municipalities that we have here, is we usually put them in an ad hoc request once we talk to them about the commitment and the meetings. They don't want to come to all of those meetings when they're talking about four meetings at the time where we're trying to influence the data of the design engineering. So what we do as an ad hoc, we put them on the list,
the email list, and they will get the agendas as they're coming out so that they have it in front of them so that they can hopefully come and represent their topics. If there are very specific times I reach out to them myself to try and bring them in so that they can get the most value but not be sitting there at meetings that they're not interested in going through design review meetings for other things. Speaker 1: I'll just add, as Mr. Brunell noted, we got actually two sets of emails, one from Etic and one also from the Net zero committee both expressing interest in being engaged. So I'm gonna pass those emails to Mr.
Marler and just, and, and reach out to them directly. I see Ms. Wilson Martin and for another member of the, oh Speaker 21: Yeah, there's a few of us here from the Net Zero committee. Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. He's on and Speaker 21: I Speaker 1: Think And David Landman. Yep. And Speaker 21: I'm Maria McMorran. I'm also on the Net zero committee and I think we're all here to express our, our support for the, the building committees efforts specifically in regards to, Speaker 17: I'm so sorry, can I just, no one can hear you. Could do you mind going to the microphone? Okay. Thank you. Speaker 22: Thank you. Yeah, sorry about that.
And thank you for pointing that out. I wasn't sure when the best time was gonna be to put my hand up, so thank you everyone. My name is Maria McMorran and I am on the Net zero committee and I'm here on behalf of the committee to express our support for the efforts of the school committee as you start this process of forming the, the building committee. And one thing that we would like to express and encourage is our hope that you will look to incorporate sustainability and specifically net zero
goals into your process. I I realize that it is a, a long process and I'm an architect professionally and my experience is that to achieve this kind of holistic type goal, you do want to be clear about that as early as possible in the process and that will get you the, the greatest chance of success. And then I also have a, a few points that Jillian in particular shared with me to share with you all because there are financial incentives
and benefits to establishing these goals early. So just briefly and specifically, mass Save now offers a net zero ready pathway and this pays an incentive per ton for both air source heat pumps and geothermal. And they did have a webinar recently, this is Mass Save and they showed how a geothermal school could qualify for potentially more than $2 million just from Mass Save. So that's Mass save. And then MSBA
has also changed their incentive structure recently, so they now require schools to do more to receive the incentive, but they've also increased the incentive to 4%. So I won't go on too long. I just like to say that, you know, we're working over at the net zero committee to work on the various steps that will help the town achieve the, the goal and implement the, the net zero plan that the town has adopted. And so we see this as a great opportunity to further that work and we're, we're here to help
and encourage and support. So thank you all for your time. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. And I'll just add to that the committee, the, the school committee has made a commitment to support the net zero efforts through our own annual goals and we'll, so we'll make sure that we bring all of that to the process. I dunno if there's anything else you want to add about that. Speaker 19: No, it's all good. And we were talking before this meeting with a few of the representatives out here already. So once and they're filling out the application, the Google form right, right now as I recall. And we will be talking to various people soon.
Speaker 1: Okay. Any other questions or comments on the MSBA process? Well, I'll just say thank you so much for being willing to take on this task. I know it's a huge task and the Kennedy building came out beautiful and under budget and so good track record. Speaker 19: Yeah, thank you. It'll be fun. Speaker 13: Thank you so much. Speaker 19: Have a good day. Speaker 23: Oh sure, we can do that. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 13: Okay, we're gonna, that was great. We're gonna switch a little bit of the order that's on the agenda and move through our budget presentations first.
So if we wanna start assistant superintendent Sue Baloni, our Director of student services, Aaron Miller, as well as Dr. Art Ferguson. We'll be going through two different budgets today, the office of TLI, teaching learning and innovation and student services. We can go with whatever order you guys want to. Speaker 24: Sure. I'll kick us off. So obviously our offices work very closely together, so we collaborated on this presentation. So you typically what will happen is somebody will call me and ask me for money for something and Erin Art
and I will meet and say, okay, who's got the ball on this one? So I'm going to, I think if you wanna go to the next slide, I can actually, I can drive if I can reach it. Perfect. So our budget goal in all things Natick this year is to balance our fiscal responsibility, strategic reductions and budget neutral solutions. And most importantly, preserving high quality education and student facing positions. Kept this slide in here because obviously that is the driver for all things that we're deciding on this year.
So I'm gonna hand it back over to Dr. Ferguson and to Mrs. Miller. Speaker 25: Okay. Alright. So thank you for having us tonight. So Dr. Ferguson and I kind of, we share kind of the office of student supports. You know, my, my title is the Office of Student Services, whereas Dr. Fergusons is the Office of Social Emotional Learning. But there's a lot of overlap that happens with our roles. So here's just a, a nice kind of visual to show a little bit about what our office each cover. My office is the Office of Student Services
and within my office we cover special education, multi-language learning, McKinney-Vento, which is our, our homeless population or our students in DCF care or foster care. Title IX is, is with staff in particular, excuse me, with students in particular is out of my office and the health services nursing department. Speaker 26: And I think on my end I am overseeing much of what falls under social emotional learning and instruction. We're looking at developing an our MTSS framework, and with that comes the integration
of social emotional learning, behavioral supports, and academic achievement. So with that in mind, I think the next most important thing really is my role oversees much of the culture, climate and safety. And as you, you all know, that's been a, a most recent addition to my responsibilities. So the culture aspects of the, the building, both in terms of staff and student and including the safety responsibilities that come along with building management and support, that falls under my work as well. And then increasingly, we are looking at discipline.
I think that's something we've talked about to some degree here that increasingly falls under some of the challenges we've seen around the increase in student dysregulation. We've talked about that over the course of the past few years, post pandemic. And so we're increasingly sort of fine tuning and clarifying our procedures and regulations and rules and code of conduct to make sure we're supporting our students and supporting our staff and supporting our students. And finally, this 5 0 4 accommodations
and ensuring that we're helping our students gain the skills they need and ensuring that they have access to education, educational benefit, and non-discrimination. In terms of five oh fours, in terms of overlaps, Ms. Miller and I work closely together in supporting all our therapeutic programs. And that is primarily driven by all our related service providers and, and psychologists. So our work intersects around helping and supporting staff and ensuring that they have the resources, tools,
and skills they need to support our students. Do you wanna take the next one? Speaker 25: Are we on the, did you just talk about therapeutic Therapeutic support? Yeah, therapeutic support of specialized programs. So as we've talked about here, we have a variety of programs, whether those be academic or social emotional programs for our students with more complex needs. Dr. Ferguson and I and I often meet with those teams together on a regular basis or, or consult with them at maybe at different times. But you know, I think I often oversee a lot of that programming and the staffing and,
and help the special education process. But Dr. Ferguson, with his expertise as a clinical psychologist, he often has some of those pieces for us that can go in and do some consultation with the staff. I also think, you know, I just wanna emphasize from a psychological perspective, psychological services perspective. You know, again, I have the expertise of process and procedure and all those things, and it's really great to have a thought partner in Dr. Ferguson of someone who has that expertise and really being able to look at the assessments and really help understand a child a little bit more from
that clinical perspective. So I think we're really, we compliment each other that way. Speaker 26: Increasingly, I think the work of trauma-informed care has been a part of our focus, and with that we're looking at ensuring that our structures of support, our environment, our community is ensuring that students are safe, that they're building the right relationships, and that we're collaborating with families and ensuring that we are responsive and the environment is responsive to student needs. So that has become increasingly a focus of the work and collaboration we do together. Speaker 25: And the 5 0 4 process, this, this is technically under Dr.
Ferguson's office, but it is again, something that we collaborate quite a bit with, especially if students are maybe not eligible for special education services, but then require some sort of accommodation plan. I often work with the 5 0 4 teams to help facilitate that process, but that is a, a shared goal amongst Dr. Ferguson and I. All right. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about my budget drivers and some of the things that really kind of, I really just emphasize some of the increase increases this year in looking at special education that is, was shared in the budget book as well.
So the first piece is salaries. So salaries make up 60 per 68% of the student services budget. You know, we have student services, gosh, I, we have probably over 200, 200 staff members in student services alone. So between paraprofessionals, service providers, special education teachers, so we are the largest department of, of staff and salaries. So that is just a natural increase given, given colas and, and step increases and so forth out of district costs.
So while we're only projected to have a, a, maybe a few more students that, that are possible students who might need outta district costs, it is important to note that out of district costs typically rise anywhere from five to 7% every year. A couple years ago, if you remember, we had a 14% increase that was post covid. I, hopefully we won't see that again. But we typically, between, whether it's a collaborative, collaborative or a private school, we will see anywhere from five to 7% every year. So that's just a natural increase in outta district costs.
Extended school year is something that, you know, we really do try to be as, as fiscally responsible as we can, but it's important to note students who attend extended school year are most, you know, complex vulnerable children in the district who require quite a bit of program. And that means they require staffing that accomp that is commensurate with what they have during the school year. So we've tried to be efficient in our staffing, but sometimes efficiency is not what's best for kids. And especially in the summertime when we're putting students
in, they're in an unfamiliar environment, they're in a, that might be with new pe, new staff at times. So having familiar staff and appropriate amount of staff is really important. So that has been something that we in intend to have more staffing than we have and had in previous years, given the number of students who participate, most of the students in our programs participate in the full four day programming. So that requires appropriate staff purchase contracted services. So there are services that we don't, we're not able
to hire staff to complete. So for example, some of those things might be like students with visual impairments or hearing impairments. So teacher of the deaf or a teacher of the visually impaired, those are very difficult positions to hire. We have tried, in my previous years here, we've posted those positions and we have been unsuccessful in finding, actually getting a candidate, nevermind not finding somebody, but people even applying for these jobs. So most of these folks do work for con for, for agencies or organizations and they contract with districts teacher.
The vision and audiology services are probably our biggest driver in the sense that we have a lot of students, we have a number of students who have come back from out of district who required specialized schools that for students with visual or, or, or hearing impairments. But we've been, been able to bring them back. But when we do bring them back, we also have to provide services for them to meet their needs. So we have to contract with outside agencies. This has been, this is an expensive cost. There's no easy way to say that they, this is a service that they, that they're able to provide, you know,
charge a large fee for this. So there's conversations in the district whether or not we wanna consider going out and trying to hire these positions down the road again and see if we can get our own internal people that would be the most efficient and the best model for us. But as in the last couple years, we have been contracting services. So this has been an increase every year. The other one is valuation services and supplies. So not, not a huge increase, but typically we spend around $20,000 a year for things like you might be, remember we went to Q Interactive a few years ago when we, all
of our testing, all of our assessment tools are all on laptops, or excuse me, iPads now, where the, where where we do all of our assessments through iPads, that cost is going up as well. And every time we need new protocols, we need to buy them for, you have to buy them in bulk. So, and the number of, so that cost is increasing every year, every year. And our evaluators also are looking for the right assessment tools to to, to evaluate our students. So there are times when someone will say, can you get this kit for us, this assessment tool for us that the district might not have that it's really important
to make sure we're evaluating in all the appropriate suspected areas of disability. So we are consistently buying more kits and protocols to do that work. In addition, I think I talked about this a couple weeks ago with my, with the multilingual staff, mul multilanguage learner staff, we are seeing an increase of bilingual lingual evaluations. We're fortunate that we do have a few service providers that are able to provide those in district, but we don't for everything. So there are times when we there, quite often this year actually, we have
to contract out for that. And that comes at a significant cost to, to get a bilingual evaluation, whether it be in, in, in Mandarin or Arabic or Hebrew, whatever that lang we've done them in many, many languages this year. So we have to, we have, we're, we have to contract out for that as well. So that is a budget driver for, for our office. Alright, that's it for me Speaker 26: And for my budget, it's a smaller budget, a little bit more focused around SEL and mental health. And I'm just gonna go through an order
and outline what those things are. In terms of SEL we've had, we've used several different curricula over the past couple of years and we've settled on one that has much of the empirical support and evidence-based that we'd like to see in, in a robust curriculum. And so that's wayfinder, we've talked about that to some degree and certainly happy to share more information. But what's really important about this piece is that it aligns with our strategic priorities as we're defining them. And equally important is that it allows us to
identify early situations or skills that are needed to develop across the levels in our, in our district, and hopefully lower the referrals for more significant supports, whether that's special education or the supports then emerge when these challenges are not identified early. So a robust SEL curriculum continues to be a priority for us and really important and certainly helps with managing challenges that emerge and cost savings in the long run. Another piece that's really critical is the work that Tracy Gladstone has done around science
of suicide screening that happens at the middle school and the high school level. She has been really supportive of the work we've done here and has been a really strong partner in helping us craft our student support. And so that work continues to be important. We've seen some improvement in mental health challenges over the past year as indicated by our Metro West screening. However, we do see that those needs are continue to be present in our community
and certainly by student report and all the ways we assess data, whether that's through screening or through the vocal or any other measures that we use, we continue to see that this is a need that we have to keep supporting. So the work that Tracy Gladstone does continues to be really important in the district and a priority. In addition to that, we are doing tier one screening, again, this early identification of social, emotional, behavioral, academic needs and gaps that we know our students come in with. And I think it's been clearly the data supports
and most, most of the anecdotal conversations we've had with families and with colleagues are reinforcing the observation that students are increasingly coming in with, with skill gaps that need to be shored up. So the work we're doing around universal screening continues to identify students or groups that need that support and the work that we're doing around implementing a robust SEL curriculum meets that sort of fills that gap and hopefully reduces long-term referral for more significant supports.
Mental health referral services continues to be one of the most utilized resources we offer. You know, that interface has continued to be a strong partner costs arising there. Unfortunately, as that need continues to grow, we're looking for other options that would allow us to save some costs. There are other folks that are coming on board like CAR and and Cartwheel who we are looking at exploring to see what would be some of the best offerings and the most affordable given the number of referrals
that we have within our community. And finally, this professional development, which we know is critical to meeting student need. And as a result of that, some of the funds and the budget that we've outlined for my office provides some PD for staff and for counselors and psychologists. So they continue to have the level of training and expertise that they need to support our kids and the diverse needs that they present with Speaker 25: You are up first Speaker 26: As we move forward. Some of what we want to project ahead continues to be
as we think about saving costs and, and managing our fiduciary responsibility, we see an increase and increased need to continue to provide robust structures for social, emotional, academic learning and development. This will continue to grow as our students continue to present with multiple different needs and support. So as we move forward, we would like to be sure that we're accommodating and visioning some of the resources and supports, whether that's financial or structural
or systemic, that we need to be supporting students, the diverse needs they present with. Speaker 25: Okay. I I, before I kind of talk about the, the couple bullets, I just wanna, I, I wanna be mindful to, to say that these, these bullets here are just things that Dr. Ferguson and I were thinking about from budget driver perspectives. It's no way not, there are far more things from a, from a student services lens that we know we are focusing on with, with Sue's office as well in terms of instructional models and,
and re remediating those gaps that we know that are that exist. So I just wanna be mindful it's not, those weren't strategically left off there. This is just about kind of the budget drivers thinking about financial implications. So I think a couple weeks ago when I was here from talking from a special ed perspective, we talked a little bit about, about an elementary therapeutic program so that both sides of our of of town have that kind of pipeline to the middle schools to, from a, the, the therapeutic learning center model that's at Ben Hem mirror that at one of the, at at
across town as well. So students are able to stay in their neighborhood schools. So that's what that bullet refers to there. The other piece I think we talked about last time was identifying the need for some more, some more robust middle school programming. We talked about kind of maybe making a, a program parallel to our North Star program at the high school and, and the, you know, the driver behind that is, is thinking about students that otherwise may have gone outta district already or could go out of district that the cost savings that, that could lead to. If we did have a more, a,
a more restrictive program at the middle school level, I do think there are students that we'd be able to bring back to the district if we had more of a substantially separate program to service those students. Next one's your start. Speaker 26: One of the things we've identified as a critical component of supporting our students is the need to develop a more unified and effective code of conduct. And we see across the board when we have students who are struggling to regulate appropriately, we see an intersection of resources and teacher time
and administrative time being devoted to supporting staff and supporting student behavior. And I, I think we've identified a clear opportunity to codify some of the, the work systemically that we're doing across the district and make sure they're very clear guidelines and prescriptions for how best to manage students. This includes restorative practices and includes a whole PBIS and some of the other pieces that I think we need to layer in developing a more effective multi-tiered system of support. And a code of conduct is very much a part of that. And so in collaboration with teachers, in collaboration
with the, with the union, we are working on developing a set of paths and, and sort of guidelines about how well we can, how well we can develop a system and a process for making sure we come to the right product that we think will help all of us be better able to manage what we're seeing in the district. Speaker 25: And finally, again, we talked about this a few weeks ago, but as our multilanguage learner population increases the need, the, the possible need for more support, maybe more staff, but staff isn't the answer to everything. Really thinking about what type
of professional development do, do we need to look at? What type of supports do we need to support our teachers in educating student English language learners. So just that is a, that is a growing need. So to, to be mindful of that. Speaker 24: Great. So as Art and Aaron shared, a lot of it comes back to MTSS and looking at the big picture of how everything fits together. So our offices work very, very closely together to think about how we're supporting every learner who walks through our doors. And obviously when you think about the office of TLI
that's thinking really about the general education curriculum pieces and the professional learning for all of our educators to support every learner who walks through our doors. And then Erin and Art are thinking about some of those specialty areas in addition to how we support the general education and how all that works together. So the big budget drivers for my department, obviously are the instructional materials and the professional development supplies. But the bulk of that is the instructional materials. So any consumables, any of our online platforms, any
of our digital tools are online textbooks. Those are huge drivers and they make up at least 36% of my budget. But that also includes a decrease of $225,000 for next year, which is a hit. But we will make it work and prioritize things. Professional development is another 35% of my budget, and that also includes a decrease of a hundred thousand dollars for next year. So that is really bringing in consultants and professional development providers to ensure
that our educators are provided with the, the tools and the strategies they need for implementing curriculum, whether it's new curriculum or stand standing curriculum that they have. Thinking about the, you know, the implementation of our new math curriculum when we think about the literacy audit and the, the work that we're doing with, with that, but also thinking about some of our, even our specialists, Erin's budget is limited around
what she can afford for professional development and arts as well. So there are times when I'm using some of my grant funding or some of my operating budget to provide for professional development around those areas. There are some salary positions that we've cut out of my budget. So there is a decrease of over $200,000 for some of my district wide positions there. So you're all aware of those. And then testing and assessment. So, you know, my office pays for
our Renaissance learning, which is our district benchmark assessments. It pays for some of our, the PSATs and the SATs and the aps. And so some of those additional things that our district needs support for my, that comes out of my office as well. So, coming back to projecting ahead, Aaron's and Art's top thing was MTSS. So that continues to be the key driver for us in thinking about RTR one instruction being the foundation
for all high quality instruction that happens in our classrooms. We need to make sure that the foundation is there before we think about pulling kids out for tier two and tier three and special education. They all need to be guaranteed that high quality instruction within the general education classroom. So how are we doing that and meeting their social, emotional and academic needs. The literacy audit continues, and I'll be coming to you next week with an update on that. And we'll be thinking about adopting,
you know, potentially a new curriculum, but thinking about that high quality instruction materials as well as professional development that's gonna need to go along with the implementation of that. As Dr. Sp has talked about a lot, and we'll probably be talking about tonight in her entry findings, we've been doing a lot of learning walks. So Ms. Miller, Dr. Ferguson and I, the principals, Dr. Sp, we've been doing learning walks across the district in looking at consistency and expectations in support of standard space instruction across the district. So that will continue and we'll be looking at professional learning around that
across the district. Mr. Wood and Mrs. McEnany and I have been having lots of conversations around our evaluation and the training that needs to happen to make sure that we are clear and consistent in our expectations and supporting and evaluating our educators that our evaluation process is for supporting and growing our educators and that it's not a task of compliance and that it's also not a task that we do to punish someone. This is a, a, a tool to use to grow our educators
and to support them in their practice. And that's what it needs to be. And so we need to provide the training and education around that. And then, as you know, through some reorganization, we intend to add a director of curriculum and instruction to support the office of TLI. And the goal of that is really to be looking at vertical alignment of curriculum, common assessment expectations, and professional development across the district. And that's where we are. So as a team, we're open to your questions. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments?
Ms. Fornell? Speaker 17: Just really quickly about the contracted services that has been brought to me in the past about ways to, as a cost savings measure to contract services. And tonight you spoke about it as a, something that actually augments the cost of the district. So could you just speak to that from your lived experience? Frequently constituents come to me and say, why do, why do we have in-house physical therapists or in-house speech therapists? Why aren't those contracted? Speaker 25: Oh, it's a, it, it would be an incredibly
greater cost to contract out out services. We are very fortunate to have highly qualified service providers and we've, we've been able to hire and retain those people for a, a number of years hiring out the issue with contracted services is that you're not just paying for the service, you're paying a fee for that service. You're paying travel time. You are paying, some of these companies now are doing flat fees. So like if there's a student that has a 15 minute consult for vision, the company might say, well regardless of that,
to make this worth it for us, we're charging you an XA flat fee for the year, regardless of how much an hourly costs is. So if we were to ever contract outside for all these services, the the cost would be astronomical. Speaker 17: Thank Speaker 25: You. Yeah. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? I'm not sure what you said that inspired Mr. Brand to leave, but Speaker 16: I I have a comment. Sure. I'll be quick. Sure. I just was struck by something that you said Dr. Ferguson, about like systems and processes and the role that you've built and the systems and processes that you've put in place. And I just, as we think about the budget,
I don't think we can lose sight about how important like systems and processes are. And there have to be people to, to do those sorts of things. It can, it's not just about like a teacher in a classroom. It's building these systems that support the teacher in the classroom and that support all students. And I think we'll see later that we have and Dr. SPS entry plan that we have some inconsistencies in our systems and processes and it's so important to have the, the people in place to, to do this work
because I've seen the growth that you've been able to achieve in the short time you've been here with the things that have now come under your direction. And, and we just never had any of that really before in a, in a system and a process. So I'm grateful for the work that you've done and I think we need to continue to support that in your area and across the district. So thank you. Thank Speaker 1: You. Any other questions or comments? So I'll add mine. I, I always appreciate hearing from, well from you both
and from all three of you. To Ms. McDonough's point, I completely agree. The field of education has evolved a long way. I like to compare education to medicine as two fields have evolved. It used to be a hundred years ago, if you wanted, he called a doctor that would show up to your house with a small leather bag. 'cause that's all medicine needed at the time, right? And now we need, we have hospitals, we have eeg, EG mechanisms and E-K-G-E-K-G, and and x-ray. And the same is true for the field of education. And it, the field of educational hiring years ago was a teacher in a classroom. Today we talk about building robust education systems
with data, with best practices, with evidence-based practices as you brought up in terms of SEL curriculum, multi-tiered system of support in particular is a system that really helps us to organize all the supports we provide the whole child. So it really helps us think about the whole child, academic, social, emotional, mental health, behavioral. So building those robust systems is such a critical part of what we know from science, from education science works. And so having you all lead that way to build robust systems is important.
I'm glad that we are talking about in the context of budgets because on one hand this will cost money. On the other hand, your slides also demonstrate that there's a hard work to also figure out how to cut cost whenever we're cut, cut where costs could be cut. And just to clarify something that you said, Ms. Miller, the decreases that you mentioned are regardless of the override, these are cuts we're making that you all are making even when override passing. Just to really adjust the budget
while the same time building robust systems. So that's, that's exciting and that's important and an important message to communicate to the community. So thank you. Thank you. Speaker 27: Thank you. Speaker 13: Thanks so much. Okay. So as we close out kind of tonight's presentations around budget, I just wanna remind us that we've already heard the tech, I think we heard it on January 6th. We've extensively, I think in these settings gone over the override no override budget today. We went over teaching and learning and innovation as well as student services.
For next week we have on deck non-instructional. So that would include like fees, transportation, athletics. If there's something else that this team would like to hear prior to moving in towards approving a budget, we'd love to hear from you so that we make sure we get them here and are prepared for them to present to you next week. Speaker 1: I actually had a, can I add a comment? Yes. To all that. We have a timeline as Dr. Pash was indicating that would end in a, the committee voting on a budget March 24th. Fin income has asked us to look at possibly shortening
that process by adding an extra meeting. So I'd like to propose, and I'm not sure where Mr. Brand went, but I, I'd like to propose that we add another meeting. So as you all know, during the break I sent you all an email with a doodle poll and then I checked it back with Dr. Stash. It looks like March 11th, is that right? March 11th. 'cause March 12th is the, originally I had them both, but March 12th is the form the last form. Correct. So would March 11th work as
a possible And I believe, if I remember correctly, that would be the open, I forget the order of meetings. I think it's, that would be the one right before the budget vote. Which means it would be the public hearing. Public hearing. Yep. So we're gonna hear the second part as Dr. Spto said, next Monday, a week from today, third or fourth part. Third and fourth part on Monday. And then I'm proposing that we add March 11th as the public forum. Yep. Ms. Collins. Speaker 12: So if we hear things on March 3rd, which is what was
Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 12: You're saying March 10th is the public hearing. Speaker 1: March 11th. Speaker 12: March 11th. The Tuesday is the public hearing. Kathy, I don't think your Speaker 14: Microphone's on. I can't hear you. Sorry about that. It was originally scheduled. March 11th is the public hearing and finance committee is asking us to vote on the same day that we do the public hearing. Speaker 1: No, no, no, no. By having an extra meeting instead of voting on March 24th, we'd be voting on March 17th because we'd be moving the public form from March 17th to March 11th.
So it's just taking the last meeting and putting it earlier in the calendar. So it's still the same number of meetings just earlier. Speaker 14: Same number of budget meetings. Budget meetings. Not the same number of meetings. Speaker 1: Yes, you're right. Yes, you're correct. Speaker 14: Just wanna be clear. Speaker 1: Yeah. Which I know is a busy time for all of us because of all the forums and, but I'll take comments. Yeah. Thoughts. Speaker 17: I can, I cannot be there, but I will be at all the other budget meetings. So I'm It's okay with me. Speaker 1: How do other people feel about adding another meeting? Speaker 15: I may not be able to attend either, but a public hearing.
Speaker 16: So the idea is the public hearing's on the 11th and then our la our then we vote the budget on the 17th. And that's our last meeting before the, Speaker 1: Yeah. And that way we, the concern with Def Fin Dres actually did the chair, Mr. Gilmore shared it with us here last time was they want to review the final approved budget. Speaker 16: Oh, before the 24th? Speaker 1: Well usually they do it before town meeting I think this time because of the override. They wanna do it ideally before the override. Oh, I see. Vote. Yeah. Ms. Collins
Speaker 14: Remind me, is our notice for public hearing seven days or 14 days? Oh 'cause if it's 14 days it's gonna be published tomorrow. Speaker 1: You thinking seven? I think so Speaker 14: Most public hearings are 14. That's why I ask. Okay. Speaker 17: I may be wrong. Speaker 1: Again, I'm raising it as a possibility. If we can't do it, we can't do it. Speaker 17: Yeah. Just one thing, I I, our committee, we have voted a number for the school committee budget. So we are committed to staying at the number that has been publicized at the override level. So I understand fin Comm's desire to under, to know the nitty gritty of that detail.
But we have committed to the number so for override purposes and I think that's because we have had so much information about this budget up until now. And we are continuing a process that's been here for years before, before we possibly make changes over the summer to our budget calendar. So we're, we're trying to, we're basically having a foot in both worlds where the budget is already prepared. There's been so much work, like precise work done on the budget and now we are showing good due diligence of doing the process that we've always done in the past.
So I understand Fin Income's desire for us to vote before the override, but we, we actually already have, we have voted the number already Speaker 1: And I'm happy to provide that response if that's how we feel. That basically give fin income the confidence that we've already Yeah. This budget has been through multiple sets of eyes, our eyes and that while we're going through the process that, so I think that's, that's a fine answer to give back. And instead of, I'm assuming you mean instead of adding the additional meaning, that's
Speaker 17: How I feel. I mean I could, I could see us having questions. Kathy and I submitted questions from the budget working group that resulted in about a, a, a difference of maybe $350,000. So, and that and that those were just questions about specific details and needing more information that wouldn't change the budget by $350,000. So I, yeah, I do not see anything major happening that FinCo should not feel like they already have what they need Speaker 1: That the budget book that they have is the budget book that they
have. I think that's what they're looking for. Speaker 16: Are we still adding a meeting on the 24th? Speaker 1: So that was, that came out of the Speaker 16: Right, 'cause the, if the public hearing's on the 17th, we can't vote the budget on the 17th. So we have to vote the budget right. Speaker 12: Public hearing was the 11th. Speaker 16: Not if we don't have, Speaker 1: Okay, so the original, sorry. So actually there, can you post this? So I think the 24th, that was an idea to add that meeting, right? That's not normal. Regular meeting. Well, Speaker 12: So Kathy do you wanna talk about that? Speaker 1: So that came, the timeline came from, Speaker 13: Linda's gonna actually post the timeline in case it's helpful. The one that was presented in the recommendation budget.
I can't remember what day I presented that. They're all blending. Yeah, on the 3rd of February. So we'll post that Speaker 16: I remember it 'cause I was trying to have my last meeting be on St. Patrick's door. And then you added a meeting, Speaker 17: We added it based on the recommendation of Ms. Collins because of the one Speaker 1: On the 30. On the 31st. That's what you now Speaker 17: Look at me. It's actually because of Ms. Collins, because of the recommendation to not vote, have the budget hearing. Speaker 1: So I'm just saying Ms. McDon my proposal, I mean not even my F incomes proposal would have you finish at, it's in your email. Email. Sorry. I'm not sure that that's the most critical consideration.
Speaker 3: Critical. Speaker 1: Anyway, we're gonna see in just a second the timeline as it stands now. And that will make it clear what Lisa has Speaker 16: Her hand up Speaker 1: Too. Sorry, Elise has Oh yeah. Ms. Goeth. Speaker 3: Hi. Yeah, sorry. I think I just missed, maybe I missed it. Why, why does FinCon need us to vote? Like what, what, how does that affect their process? Speaker 1: So the fin my understanding and others can correct me Fin comm's responsibility is to review the budget that the school committee is submitting in essence to town meeting so that they can determine their position on the budget.
So they wanna make sure that they're reviewing a final school committee approved budget as opposed to a budget that might change. So for example, if they review it tonight or this week and next week we decide to change it, then they'll feel like they'll have to go back and re-review the budget. Does that, okay. Speaker 3: Yeah. So that just doesn't feel like what we've done in the past. 'cause it feels like that we've previously, in previous years, my experience has been the fin income has reviewed the budget as along the way
they've never reviewed the final approved budget. Don't we always vote after they've approved, they've reviewed it. Speaker 1: Ms. Collins Speaker 14: In the past they have held subcommittee meetings through the process, but their recommendation to town meeting has generally come after we vote a final number. And that is their responsibility is a recommendation to town meeting. That's what the charter says. Speaker 3: So it should have nothing to do with the override Speaker 14: Vote. Now if we are not planning to increase our number,
and from what I've heard, and this is all rumor on the street, they don't plan to issue a report specific for the override. I'm not sure why we're twisting ourselves in knots as much as I respect them, as much as I spent 12 years being one of them. It just becomes a lot of moving parts and I think that's where things drop. Speaker 1: So just to review, so this is the schedule on the screen as it stands now. So I think the March 24th meeting was added as an added meeting.
I'm not pushing the idea, but just to clarify, what I was recommending is, is moving the 17th to the 11th and the 24th to the 17th. But we can just go back and say we cannot do that. And we instead, as Ms. Brunell said, provide a pretty confident view that the budget will stay as is. Is that Speaker 14: I I have nothing but time to go to meetings. Apparently. I just can't tell you right now whether
I'm available on the 11th. So if that matters food for thought, if it doesn't matter. Well Speaker 1: I already heard two other members cannot make it. So if it's gonna be a hardship for the committee to convene, Speaker 14: I just don't know if I can at this point. Speaker 1: Yeah, what is that? I'm trying to read your, Speaker 9: At the moment, my calendar is open that day, however, and I don't, I don't want this to be obnoxious, but you know, that happens sometimes if the idea is that we would twist ourselves our meeting schedule so that a different committee might not have to do that.
But the expectation is that we would do it. That just doesn't, it doesn't feel that necessary to me. If, if, if there was a change and I'm not, again, not speaking for anybody, then they might have to meet again. That's the, i I don't like that. That would be their choice. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 9: Okay. Right. Speaker 1: Ms. McDonough, Speaker 16: Just to be clear, I mean we're adding a meeting on the 24th so everyone would need to check their calendar to make sure they can do that. 'cause that is not in the list of school committee meetings for this year. Speaker 1: So that's a great question. Does everyone have the
24th on their calendar? Sorry, that Speaker 14: One I'd already added. Speaker 1: Mr. Brunell. Speaker 17: So the public hearing, just wanted to circle back to that is seven days. We need to have that published in seven days. It's section 38 and in mass general law and the 24th was added just in so that we were not voting the budget, although we have a possible vote on March 17th. So we could vote the budget on the 17th so we could solve two problems with one stone.
Speaker 1: So I'm hearing the consensus of the committee is to stick to the timeline as was decided. I don't hear any, any objections this Right. Okay. So, so, so this is it. Sorry. So now I heard Speaker 28: Objections. What? I've heard a lot of objections to the 24th. Speaker 16: I'm objecting to the 24th. That's fine. I'll be here. Speaker 14: Okay. And I just don't think it's good practice to do the public hearing and vote the same night because what's the point of people showing up and voicing their opinion if we're just gonna say thank you very much.
We did that once in my tenure on this committee. It was really bad idea. Speaker 1: Unless everyone comes here to say you have an amazing budget. I'm just kidding. Speaker 14: And, and frequently there's nobody at the public hearing, but that's when they're noticed to provide input. So we may, they might be here doesn't mean they're not gonna provide input. Speaker 1: Well, so as it stands, we have the public hearing on the 17th, we'll plan on having a meeting on the 24th and we can always figure that out then. So sorry about that little sidetrack. Speaker 13: Not, not at all. So I'm assuming there's been no input
to me in terms of anything additional you'd like to hear next week. Okay. Did Speaker 14: Just one question. Catherine, did you get answers to our questions? Speaker 13: We, we were on vacation and we just arrived back today. Okay. I just, I just wanna make sure so we have answers. I, I didn't missed an email. That's, no, that's and Matt wasn't here until this evening. So we'll do it tomorrow. Speaker 14: That's, I just trying to make sure I Speaker 13: You didn't miss anything. Didn't Speaker 14: Miss an email. That's all. Thank you. No rush. No, as C said, it's not Speaker 13: No, we actually have the answers. We'll just get you tomorrow. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Speaker 13: Good. All right. That was fun. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 13: I'm like do I go over the override piece just
to get it over with or do I move on to the entry plan? I'm gonna go to the entry plan. Great. Okay. Camera roll. I, we keep calling it the entry plan. It's technically, do you want me to click? Yeah. It's technically the superintendent entry plan findings. So I wanted to frame this as for expectations of people listening and people who read this, it really is framed as findings. It's not supposed to be all of our next steps. It's not supposed to consider even some deeper analyses that might come from this plan. It's meant to really illustrate a kind
of comprehensive look at, at findings from a listening tour and from from an entry plan. I also wanna frame this as a really unique opportunity. Districts mainly have these when a new superintendent comes in and spends several months taking a really deep dive and looking at things. And so, you know, I sort of felt it was reminiscent of doing my dissertation. And so I felt like this sort of deep dive and report out, I think happens fairly rarely in school districts. And so it was really my true privilege to have this opportunity to kind of learn and to listen in the last several months. I also wanna mention that the format of this, it isn't,
isn't only according to me it was something that that I modeled on the NSIP process, which is the new superintendent induction program. And they were the ones who kind of came, helped give some exemplars and an outline to this. Here's what I'll be presenting, which is a brief introduction, a reminder of what that entry plan process was, which is really almost methodology. Some findings of strengths, findings of areas of growth, and then concluding thoughts. Speaker 29: Bless you. Speaker 13: So these were the key questions that I actually asked when I was interviewing people, people
and talking with people, but also and in surveys as well as just when I was looking at documents. What are the strengths of our school system? What are the biggest challenges that we face? What aspects of the system are essential should be safeguarded or preserved? And what should be prioritized? What should we do? First big question. 'cause there's plenty to do in any school district, anytime. Here's an overview of the entry plan process. I went over this previously, but it's important just to kind of go through it again. The data collection and community building started the day. I really landed here July 1st of last year and then went through January.
That included interviews and focus groups, student surveys, materials review, and then classroom and school observation. I'll go through each one of those pieces. Then some analysis and reflection. I used AI really well in this uploading kind of massive responses and helping make sure that the themes that I found really crossed and corroborated across all sources. So we didn't have outliers as part of this fact checking with stakeholders from the union to principals to consultants,
to my own coach, to school committee members. This was really important to make sure that this would resonate and, and and feel right to people. And then today findings and priorities. Priorities and kind of setting the groundwork will happen after this meeting. But today is the report on findings. So starting with this is all around like process or methodology. There's the 235 interviews I did, they were probably at least a half an hour long each. So you can kind of know what I did this fall. The highest percentage was families. So 35% of our interviewees were families. Then staff and students you can read, write down the list.
This involves everybody who said they wanted to participate based on mind. 90, 90 outreach. We said yes to every single person who said they wanted an interview and then some as well as people we reached out to on our own. We also took a look at kind of who didn't self-select in and say hey, I want an interview. And you could see in the blue box there, people we reached out to are on our own such as pairs or admin assistants, our nurses, other people, our ESL teachers, just to make sure we really heard all voices. I did a student survey asking the same questions that I just showed earlier,
but in more kid friendly language. It was all fifth through 12th graders in the district. And that purpose was really to gather their voice and perspectives. They were very open-ended questions. They could kind of answer as long or short as they wanted to. I thought it was all gonna be about like school lunches wasn't, it was actually really very, very thoughtful answers. I say that glibly because most students, that's what they love to talk about. 2,846 students did that survey, which is a huge number. 47% of them were from the high school. Nine 29% from Kennedy and 24% from Wilson also took a look at a lot of documents.
You can kind of see them there. District planning and policy documents, those are everything from MOUs or memos of understanding that we have to collective bargaining agreements, school committee manuals to school operations and instructional practices, professional development, school handbooks, faculty handbooks. Also looked at student performance data, pretty much everything available from benchmark data to MCAS data to discipline data, AP data, et cetera. Evaluations and compliance reviews. So on the teacher side, teacher admin, evaluation docs, program evaluation, special ed program evaluation.
We looked at redacted exit interviews as well. And then facilities, budget and operations. We've been deep diving into budget for the last couple months. So that was readily available. But facility reports, emergency and safety plans. So a really deep dive on materials review. And the last piece is, this was the joy of the last four months. Truly was conducting 41 learning walks where kind of went to a school for 90 minutes every three weeks. Probably went to each school. So each school was visited four to six times. And as of today, 41 learning walks that I went on
but often went on with members of central office and always the principal and his or her team focusing on instructional practices, operational practices, how the curriculum was delivered. It was just a joy to see our teachers teaching and our kids learning. So that was a real highlight. So that was a methodology. In terms of findings, we'll go through strengths first and then I'll go into areas of growth. I wanna mention that at the end I'll give a QR code to a 27 page report. If you really like reading, it's kind of written all of this in like more paragraph form with a lot
of data and tables. I'm not sharing every bit of the data in this report. That's not how I've seen it presented previously. And we do have limited time, but I want to assure everyone, if you get excited about data, there is ample data available. If you wanna go and take a look at the report, me too. So the first one, which was resounding, is I, I wanna say the theme of this whole report. I hope it's heard this, it's kind of hard as a new superintendent to come in and even name areas of growth. And I say, I say them humbly, but I also say the theme here is to deepen the excellence of our district.
It's not to revolutionize, it's not to pivot really hard, it's to deepen the excellence. And so think of that both in the strength section as well as in the areas for growth. Academic excellence and innovation was a resounding piece that our stakeholders, our students, and our data show. So there's a very strong academic foundation. We have above the state averages in the Department of Education's accountability measures. Those are measures that incorporate student achievement, student growth, graduation rates, and our progress towards closing achievement gaps. So we range there between 72 to 88%,
which means we're outperforming 72 to 88% of schools. This is a very high measure right over a third of our NHS students take AP courses and we continually exceed state averages and national averages on our SATs. We have rigor, rigorous and specialized learning programs. We have AP courses, we do dual enrollment where kids can take college credit. We have a lot of career connected learning. We have hands-on programs, whether it's our hydroponics lab, our filmmaking courses, our STEM initiatives. And we have a lot of focus for continued growth around structuring, strengthening instructional alignment
and targeted supports, expanding our access to those AP classes and supporting our students with disabilities and multilingual learners effectively. So this is a resounding area that I kind of wrote a quote there. We moved to Natick for the schools. I don't know how many times I heard that our, our stakeholders families really could not, I didn't go to a single meeting where people weren't mentioning the strength of our educators and our leadership team. The next one, a commitment to success for all learners. So here, expert educators and high quality instruction, continuous professional development and collaboration.
We have Nils, we have PLCs, we have lots of structures for that and many evidence-based strategies for differentiated instruction. We have a continuum of services for our kids. We have things like Wilson Reading, which is a very evidence-based program for literacy. So we have several of these things already in place. Flexible and student-centered programs, many research-based interventions for SEL as Dr. Ferguson, mark mentioned earlier, we've adopted wayfinder. We're really doing things that are structured and verified. I talked about sub-separate programs, co-teaching pullout, so a continuum of services for our all of our learners.
And then an emphasis on growth and independence. We service kids from early intervention to transition planning. And then we have many targeted supports for our students with disabilities. And all of this was representing a commitment to suc success for all learners. A quote from one of our stakeholders said, highly dedicated staff who really care about the kids. And that came through the next strength. Strong community partnerships and student wellbeing. It goes without saying. We have many beautiful partnerships with Spark kindness, Natick 180, our police department and more. We provide mental health services and community engagement
and family supports. We're very grateful for our community support. It was something I noticed with the first day stepping in here we have embedded social emotional learning. So integrated into instructional framework to build on resilience and positive relationships. I think Dr. Ferguson and and Ms. Miller talked a lot about that. Programs like No Place for Hate and Inclusive Sport teams like unified sports are fostering a feeling of belonging and respect and are kind of and experience all of our students are feeling as a, as a sense of belonging. And then the expansion
of our mental health and SEL supports. We've added 2.1 positions since SY 22 and continue to, you know, really strengthen our counselors, our social workers, our psychologists, strengthening access and implementation to support all of those students. The next one, holistic student growth and extracurricular opportunities. We have seven more than 70 student led clubs. More than 36 competitive sports teams. A thriving arts program that involves theater, coral, instrumental. I've heard them, they're fabulous. So just an amazing arrangement of opportunities for kids to kind of expand their experience in
school, not just academic. There's so much more that goes on here. Enriching school experiences, really making sure we're giving kids leadership and engagement opportunities, fostering creativity and teamwork and then expanding this not just at the high school level but more in the middle school level and elementary level as well. So those are the strengths and they're, they're broad and they're foundational and they're felt by our families and our students. I'm gonna go then into the areas for growth. I really didn't wanna have six themes, but I do have six themes. That sounds like a lot, but hopefully they make sense. I'm gonna go through each one of these kind of with
that same Chevron piece. The first, you have quite a bit of data attached. Again, I'm not showing the data, but I, the story is set in the data. If you wanna take a deeper look in that, I'd advise going to the report. The first one is around strengthening coherence between central office schools through vision and data. And this one, My eyes don't go that far. There's been a bit of historical siloed structure and limited capacity. The central office teams have operated in silos. That can be a good thing, right? We're getting our jobs done, we're really moving forward on the tasks of our roles.
And I've worked in central office for a long time now and there's very, very clear tasks that each office has to do. But we do better when we can move that and we have more coherence when we work kind of across those silos. Staff members are also very spread thin. I think it's a very lean structure in the central office. I felt that this year for sure that's made it difficult to kind of align efforts to drive some cohesive supports, a lack of a unified vision and data integration. So district lacking a clear vision for continuous improvement that impacts coherence. I'd say this is mainly around instruction and data.
I think we could argue and you might hear later on some capital, our capital investment strategies. There's many things we can do just around improving continuous improvement and having a really clear vision for that. Departments and schools operate in parallel, which can lead sometimes to inconsistent or differently time strategies and then data usage while improving for sure. I hope you've seen that over the course of this year, how much data we presented to this group. It's something we can continue to improve just to help inform decision making and then to ensure that alignment across improvement efforts and variability and implementation and outcome.
Sometimes when there isn't a very clear vision from the top, it can lead to implementation variability, a lack of alignment or variability in that across schools. I'm gonna put some meat to this as we keep moving through. So this is kind of a top picture idea. Think of it as an umbrella over the total, but it's worth kind of spelling out as one theme. Lastly, that lack of coordination in data and resources can make tracking progress and measuring impact difficult. So that's the first theme. The second one is around meeting the academic needs of all students. And this has three buckets. One is student performance.
We're a very high performing district. So this is under that lens of deepening our impact. We have a lot of progress with variability. I just mentioned our accountability percentages, I think it was 71 or 72 to 88%. That's variability we're we're not quite on like all in the eighties, let's say are just more flat above state averages, but behind peer districts. So when compared to our darts, which is what Desi's group of schools that they would compare us to based on enrollment and resourcing, et cetera. We are 10 out of 11 in our high school and seven out of 11 in our grade three to eights.
And we have persistent persistent gaps for our students with disabilities, multilingual learners and low income students. And those gaps are greater than the state. So where the, you could anticipate some gap between the performance of all students and then certain subgroups of students. Our gaps are bigger in Natick than they are for the state. Again, you might wanna mine the data in the report that I have 'cause it's very explicit. And then inconsistent special education and EL support can limit access and student outcomes. So that's a student performance. The district curriculum, great progress made here in alignment, but there's still some inconsistencies.
So strengthening rigor, coherence and differentiation with high quality curricular materials. That's jargon. It's DESI jargon for like vetted instructional materials that there are organizations like mass curate or ED reports that evaluate curriculum and rate it and it's rated, not meets it's rated partially meets. It's rated meets. And so we aren't meets on all of our curricula. And so that's something, I have a table that outlines that if you're interested by curricular subject and by grade level new math and literacy initiatives supporting great improvement,
the the math, the teachers are killing it. I see one of our teachers here today I've seen teach and and just beautifully rolls out the math curriculum and I've seen that across all of our schools. So great progress there. And you're gonna hear from Ms B next week when she presents the efforts around literacy. So as much as, remember I came in July, a lot has even changed this year on this. And the last one, instruction and data. So incon inconsistent instruction without a district wide focus. What I mean by that is like saying here's our rubric that we at Natick use around instruction.
Here's the aligned coaching and professional development and here's our target areas very well and succinctly named that everyone can wrap their heads around. And that isn't top down. That is something developed in conjunction with teachers. It's very critical to make sure there's buy-in incredibly strong staff. I wanna, I mentioned it as our strength, I still mention it here, but just needing more alignment in PD and supports there. We mentioned curriculum, instructional vision. So our staff have done an incredible job even without those things. Our school improvement plans. I think this team went through the journey this if you've been watching, we went through the journey where originally there's a history
of lacking data-driven goals and school specific plans. We had more like grade band plans. So I kind of said we're already addressing that and it's already becoming improved. But that was one of the pieces that came out of this. And then opportunities to expand on formative assessment. We have lots of great benchmark assessment just in the classrooms I was watching. Really seeing that formative assessment come alive in class that helps target differentiated instruction and and addressing student misconceptions as they happen. Okay, theme three, supporting students, social, emotional and mental health needs lots of progress.
Noted again, we're on deepening excellence. Not that this is broken whatsoever, this is around deepening progress. There's been, the data that we have from Sabre from the Metro West Health surveys really show a return to pre covid letter levels in our data here. We presented on that a couple weeks ago. Mental health has improved but EL and sped, our data shows that challenges remain for some of our subgroups and we have some persistent bullying concerns and discipline fairness. Dr. Ferguson talked earlier about the need for a code of conduct that cuts across all.
So you know, our discipline guidelines sit in our student handbooks, not overriding the across the entire district. And then we've increased the staffing supports for student wellbeing. So that's great. Great. On the mental health side, in terms of SEL gaps and inconsistencies, I think we've had a great focus in this area. Many wins. The places we'd like move in on next. There's been reduced SEL time in elementary. There's been other challenges in what the school day is, is is addressing mainly an intervention, some inconsistent curriculum use as there's pressure on how
to use time in a short school day. And then engagement gaps again for a multilingual low income and special education students. That's really around relationships and a sense of belonging. Again, you can read all this and match it to data in the report. And then challenges in access and community engagement. So our SEL resources and representation in curriculum can vary across schools. When I met with the students of color at the high school, they were really articulate, beautifully articulate about, they were happy to see representation in their classrooms. So if they were often around like very traditional figures
like Malcolm X or MLK and they didn't go into kind of deeper representation or more current representation, that's just one example I'm sharing where I think our students would have a great voice in helping round out what that means to them and what they'd like to see. Families want clearer communication on SEL goals and mental health. They wanna understand more about it. And then just people really mentioning that our leadership transitions. And I would say that could even be at my level, right? We had an interim fantastic last year, we had an outgoing superintendent the year before. And then that's just one layer of leadership. But leadership turnover can really affect how our schools,
how our, how we function and how much we're able to kind of, if SEL and mental health needs are so reliant upon strong relationships, then the more stability we have there, the better theme four, strengthening systems and structures to support student success. So here we have three buckets. One is around, a lot of this really came out of those 235 interviews where we are really hearing the stakeholder voice come forth. Leadership turnover and inconsistent communication impacting stability and trust. So this idea of like communication really rising up is an
important way to build trust. And then having those relationships with consistent leaders. We talked about lack of an unified instructional vision and how that can cause some variability across schools. And then we all know there's an outdated strategic plan. So I think this will be part of this, I hope can feed into a strategic plan going forward. This was something that came out a bit more from parent voice with technology use and management. So there's a feeling of inconsistent enforcement of acceptable use policies. I'll say a lot of this, don't forget many of the families I've met with was early in the fall and since then we have rolled out our new cell phone policy
and I've seen it go incredibly well. You've been updated here. I actually think this has been improved. We'll touch base with people again, you know, later in this year to see how, how families are feeling about that. I think there's also just how personal laptops are using, those are the stories I was receiving. But again, I think lots of progress has been made here. A lot of parents concerned. It's, it's interesting, many parents concerned about what they called excessive screen time or a lot of digital homework. I'm not saying the answer is just flip and don't do that. I think we just need to go and learn more before we make any sorts of changes. But that was what I was hearing in terms of reporting,
just raising engagement and equity concerns about whether everybody can reach that. If it's productive for everybody. And then some redundant tools. Well with our cuts, I think those will be going away. So as much as people were mentioning that, I think that'll be taken care of. School systems and facilities. So crisis management plans, lacking clear documentation and consistent emergency procedures. They exist, they're very well run schools, but kind of making them really documented and consistent across the schools is an, is an opportunity. Discipline practices, we've talked about that. The need for a district wide code of conduct
and then no long-term capital plan, which can result in some uneven resource distribution in building inequities. Do I still have you two more to go Theme five. Fostering clear communication and inclusive family partnerships. So really bringing forth families and the critical relationship with our families who ultimately are our customers, right? We wanna make sure that they feel connected and they're in triangle of, of the student, the teacher or school and families. So strengthening trust and transparencies. What I was hearing from many of our families early on is
that families were, were, and maybe still are relying on social media and informal channels due to gaps in school communication. I'd like to think that's gotten a bit better, but I really have no pulse on that. So it's something we're gonna look into. Deeper messaging can be seen as aspirational but not reflective of real experiences. So this is an example of families would tell me they'd receive a a newsletter and it would kind of say all these beautiful things that were being done in their, let's say I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it and 'cause it's a story that came from the interviews, but where they would say, oh well it said, you know,
my kid was doing win and they were doing this, this and this and it was amazing. And then she would talk to the parent would talk to their child and the child would be like, oh, I just did study hall that day. That's a, that could be a one off. Okay. But it's this, the what the point I'm trying to make is that there can be an aspirational message that doesn't sync with what the kid is saying and parents don't want that. That's what I'm saying. Parents want more substantive communication. And this was even down to like curriculum nights. They wanna hear a lot about what their kids are gonna learn and what that classroom's gonna run like. They want that really substantive story from the school
in terms of improving responsiveness and alignment. A past disconnect between central office messaging and school experiences. I think that's a little overlap of the story I just told that I hope I don't get in trouble for unclear communication processes for school specific incidents. We've actually written an emergency kind of communication plan that I think will roll out here and and get a little bit more feedback on, especially with regard to that unclear communication sometimes or processes for school specific incidents. So do we tell everybody at one school or for everybody in the whole district? And so we need to just lock in a communication plan around
that so people know what to expect. And then challenges, many families lamented that getting into after school program and transportation can be challenging. And we acknowledge that after school isn't always something that a school district runs. We happen to have it as part of ours. Many times it's parks and rec that do it either way, it's what our families are saying they need. And so we'll get some attention on that. And then enhancing inclusivity and family engagement. So addressing concerns around antisemitism and microaggressions with consistent follow up. Replace reducing disparities in PTO resources
and extracurricular access. And then improving collaboration in the process for students with disabilities and IEPs to support families. So these are all around like fam, they have some overlaps with other areas, but they're all, they're all really about just improving how we communicate with and partner with families. And then the last one, which we've heard quite a bit about in the last few months, it's school committee is just securing sustainable funding for academic excellence. The first one around fiscal health and sustainability. We have a funding deficit, a structural deficit within the town. We made for this year altogether 1,000,050 thousand of
of cuts and we used 2 million from reserves. I'm not gonna belabor these points, you're very well aware of them. And then an additional 1 million in reductions in FY 26 strategic resource allocation. You've heard about a bit of a realignment of resources that could continue as we strengthen and we drive cohesion across this. But really to strengthen curriculum data use and multilingual supports. We talked about our budget. We have a budget neutral reorg that we talked about in this meeting before and we've talked about in many forums. And then ongoing role adjustments as needed to kind
of make sure we're meeting student needs. That's really what all of our changes should align to. And then the potential override and community impact that vote will happen. Now we know for sure it will happen in March, 2025 and without it a $2.8 million deficit would require 41 position eliminations. Transparent planning and town collaboration are key to sustaining quality education. So those are the themes to frame concluding thoughts. We're committed to student success and community support. We have so many strengths, we have opportunities to kind
of deepen those and strengthen our practices and the quality of experience we have for students and families. The findings here, the next step in the spring is to come up with a one year bridge plan. So like a plan for next year that should be shown in our school improvement plans that will draft the spring. They will be very collaboratively built with with educator voice principal voice, central office voice. They will not be made in a vacuum and they'll be responsive to these findings. And then we aim to evolve those strategies, making sure they're equitable and exceptional and down the line. I think this will all fuel kind
of a longer term plan, but that won't be for next year. We're gonna get a bridge plan for next year and then dive into the longer term planning. But I just wanna thank everybody who participated in this, who member checked for me who read all my drafts. Thank you very, very much. And here's a QR code that'll bring you to the very detailed 27 page report should you wanna read it. And there's also a link in the deck, so I'm happy to take questions. But that's the high level overview. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments Ms. Collins? Speaker 14: As a former researcher, I just wanna say how impressed I am that you got between 82 and 93% of our secondary students to give you input.
Speaker 13: I wanna thank the principals and the staff for that. Truly Speaker 14: It is incredible. Speaker 13: Yeah. Speaker 14: And good input, not just on school lunches. Speaker 13: I know it's true though. I, Speaker 14: I know, but truly I wanna chicken nuggets, right? Speaker 13: The students and the staff at the schools made that happen. So thank you. You're right. But I can't claim the credit on that one other than writing a survey Speaker 14: Eight, it's always more than half the battle. But thank you for this. I am one of those weird people who will look forward to reading the however many page report it Speaker 13: Is. 27. Speaker 1: Who's counting? Speaker 13: Me? Speaker 14: Kidding, kidding, kidding. I think it gives us a lot
to think about and hopefully for those people who are watching and and will view this really good reason why we're asking for an override. I don't have kids that I moved here for the schools, but to keep them up takes the whole community. So we've got some things we're doing really well, some things we're maybe not doing so well and money isn't always the answer, but many of the things that you outlined it, it is because, you know, if we lose 40 teachers, it's gonna have a marked import impact.
Pardon me. If we can't get our curriculums and materials that we need and such, it's So thank you and thank you, Speaker 13: Thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Brand. Speaker 9: So I would echo everything that Ms. Collins just said. I think this is great. I have one question. Well, it might be a comment, it might be a question it based on my understanding. So we feel free to add a question mark at the end. I'll make it a comment as it relates to data
and particularly the line data usage is not fully integrated into decision making. Does that include, is is it part of the process before any survey, before any effort, before anything that you wanna measure, is there a discussion about what do we want to learn from this? Meaning a a, a movement towards, and this is without any judgment 'cause I'm not part of those discussions, but like a movement towards proactive data collection as opposed to reactive meaning at the end saying like
what can we learn versus what do we want to learn? Speaker 13: You're kind of, you're kind of asking about what a process that Harvard Grad School of Education built called data wise where they're actually asking more like what's a learner center problem we wanna kind of solve And they're doing a bigger, like meta questioning. I'd even start a a little differently here, which is, and I think we're doing it through those school improvement plans where we're really trying to target down to student level data for a targeted group. And so that we can quickly turn it into
action around intervention. So I think it's gonna take both, it's gonna take like that really tight look on what we can do, quick improvements around for the students. 'cause the one thing you learn when you're in education is a year goes by and you don't wanna miss what you could have done for any kid. And so that's why we can't ignore that really tight look at data. But that bigger picture is exactly the point I hope we get to. And I think there's great appetite here for it. We just need to find the time and give the structure so it's well worth everyone's time when they're sitting in that meeting and they're looking at that data. I don't know if I answered your question, but I think there's both
Speaker 9: No, I think it, I think it's a good answer. I just think like in, in my work life before we take on any project is we plan into it. What are we hoping to learn at the end? Because it does drive what kinds of things we should be looking to collect. Even if they, 'cause it's obviously much harder to go backwards. Yeah. And then wonder, we've seen presentations sometimes out of our control, out of anyone's control where it would've been nice to have more information to properly analyze that We have no ability yet. So to just, I, I like all of this
and that, that just being able to be mindful about it for a moment at the beginning to say, here's a little piece of like meta information or something that we can collect now that might be useful down the road, I think would be, because I, I love all the data parts of this. I mean, I love all of it, but like the data in particular I think is, is great. So Speaker 13: Just to close that, I appreciate your question and it's making me think about how we can frame our school improvement plans that we deliver to you this spring with those questions in mind. And I think you're gonna see us come from both of those angles.
Speaker 9: Great, thanks. Yeah. Speaker 1: Any other questions or comments? Speaker 16: Well, I'll just comment because I know this was a lot of work, so I'm not gonna not comment on this. So I first, the first thing I would say is what a valuable exercise this was to do. And I know that we, we did it because you're a new superintendent, but I just think as a district it's incredibly valuable to have someone new come in and look at all of our systems and look at what has been done in the past and look at the academics and where they've been and all of the other things that support our students
and to have a new idea for moving forward. So I would just thank you for doing that because it's been tremendously enlightening. And the second thing I would say is that I read the full report and the way that you've been able to present the data in a way that is digestible and coherent to the average person who doesn't live in the data world all the time is incredibly valuable because it allows us as a committee to talk about what we saw over the past five years or what's happening
and why we need, why we need to move forward in this way and what types of supports do we need. And so being able to communicate that out to people is incredibly valuable, especially right now with the override. But in general to tell people where we're going, it's because you can read this document and you can understand it too. So thank you for that. Speaker 13: Thank you. That means a lot coming from you as a writer, Speaker 1: Ms. Brown. Yeah, Speaker 17: Thank you. I echo everyone's thanks. And I wanna say that I'm particularly impressed, although not surprised given everything that you said in your interview and, and why we were so happy that you took the job.
Your ability to see the precision in things that are so data driven, like the academic needs of students, and do it in a really brave way. I mean, this is hard to look at to be honest. And it's, and we have to be brave about it. And I appreciate that you've taken the look at the DART schools in addition to the state's, the state average, because people don't move to Natick because they live in Massachusetts. They move to Natick because they want the results that they know Natick can get and that's should be comparable to our DART schools.
And I think that that's an incredibly brave thing to do. We all know that you can manipulate data to tell you whatever story that you want it to tell you. And you've done, I think you've done a very good job of telling an authentic story about not only our strengths but also the opportunities. So in, you have that piece, but then you also have the student voice piece and the family voice and the teacher voice. And I just am, I am so grateful that you have this holistic view that extends into
the aspects that we've heard from Dr. Ferguson about the bullying that's happening in our schools. And specifically for students who are asking to be held in the safe, welcoming environment that we promise them. And I think that this type of report is going to move us in that direction. So thank you for looking at all of our students. Thank you for looking at their whole person and their whole experience. Speaker 13: Thank you. Speaker 1: Any other comments? So I'll make mine Oh, oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, I keep forgetting Miss. Sorry, miss Elise, go ahead. Oh, but you're on mute.
Speaker 13: Oh, she's muted. You might have to turn her up. Speaker 3: Okay. I'm on muted. Sorry. Yeah, no, thank you so much for this report. I, I have to say, reading it, you know, it was, it felt so much like a picture of native public schools, you know, it really felt comprehensive and truthful in all the good ways and in all the challenging ways. And I'm just so grateful that we have this as our starting point for our work going forward. So thank you so much. Speaker 13: Thanks Elise. Speaker 1: So I'll go last, I will echo a lot of what was said just
to how impressive this is. First of all, I'm wondering if this is your second dissertation. Should we now call you Dr. Doctor Bash? No, Speaker 3: Make my brothers do it. And that's, they, they still won't even Speaker 17: Call me doctor. Speaker 1: They don't need to. They don't need to. But yeah, this is just a, an impressive, first of all, I'll say, I never said this to you, but when you came in and said you'll do 90 interviews in 90 days, I, I must admit I was a bit skeptical. And you had how many to 2 35? 2 35. And that really shows the commitment that you had to this process. And by process, I mean really engaging the entire community. I loved that rectangle in this slide that had the,
who are the people that did not sign up because those were the people that we oftentimes forget to ask. And yet they have so much valuable information. So you going, being so proactive in gathering that their feedback as well is so helpful. Also, echo was said about data. Oftentimes district will focus on what data they have, what data sources they have. They'll, you know, you'll go to a district and they'll say, we have this and we have that. We have dibels, we have Renaissance. But one thing is to have the data. Another thing is to use it
and to actually use the data to tell a story. And, and I think this report does that beautifully. I know that you've also brought that to the district, more brought beyond this report too. I've heard it come through loud and clear through a lot of presentations to really, really apply the data to data-driven decision making and, and, and to tell the story that of, of our district. There was one thing I wanted to pick up specifically, even before you said it, I was, I had in mind as I was reading it myself, I don't know if this was one of the comments I made to you, which is why it resonated with me.
But it had to do No, but it has to do with the outdated strategic plan. I don't blame us as a committee for having that strategic plan. We were planning on working on one and then the pandemic hit and they were decided to go back to it when the pandemic ended and the superintendent left. It didn't make sense to have a strategic plan with an interim superintendent. But, but this is, as you said to me, and this is what I'm really excited about, such a strong foundation for building that s plan that we so badly need.
Yeah. And that I've been looking forward to for the literally three years now to work on a Sergio plan. So I'm excited that we have such a strong foundation for it. And I'll add something that your immediate pre predecessor, Bella Wong said, she obviously only had a very brief glimpse, but she said, Natick is such a strong district, now you're ready to have someone come in. This is what she said when she was, we were looking for superintendent. You have such a strong district, now you're ready to take Natick to the next step. And I think you as a superintendent and this report as the foundation for it is,
is exactly we need to do that. So that's, that's my feedback. Speaker 13: Thank you. And honestly, couldn't ask to work with better people. What I always say about Natick, like there's high will, high skill, like the, that is the teachers, the staff here just super high will, high skill and a deep collaborative nature. So it's as ESA who works with us from Meco 2.0 and, and she's so talented. She's like, it's just about like knitting that sweater together and threading it all together. And it's a, we'll get a visual going at some point about that. But I also wanna thank Linda for all the effort you did
to schedule those 235 meetings and, and so gracious with everybody. So thanks for that too. Okay, Speaker 1: Override. Speaker 13: So I'm not gonna belabor this other than to say Linda's gonna put it up, but I basically just gave you an update on the additional three memos that we've released, which have been released to the school committee. And they're linked here for anybody else who wants to read them. They're also published on the Natick Town website. So we had an additional, I have to do my math over 50 questions.
So a total of 104 questions that we've answered to date. There's no resounding new themes. I'd say the biggest new theme, because remember we just had two different public forums. We had one on January 21st and February 11th. And so that brought out quite a few questions around position impacted by this o If there were to be no override, I'd say that was one of the bigger themes that came out. Mainly around like some of the positions. There were a few questions on kind of fee opportunities, a few questions on how, how we set up goals,
what happens to RTI. So a lot of what if questions I would call it, if this override weren't to pass, what would happen. And so I'd encourage people to read them. I don't think I need to deepen any of that analysis here, but we're grateful for the questions and happy to continue to answer them as the public gets informed so that they can feel informed for their vote. Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll just encourage the public for those of you watching now or delay to keep asking questions. We also have one more forum on March 12th. I'm sure the information is somewhere. The library, the library to attend that as well.
And there's, I think tomorrow actually there's a yes for NA forum as well that you'll be there. That's in Zoom. So there's a lot of opportunities to learn more and to ask questions. Yeah. ESP Brune, Speaker 17: I just think it's important we update the community that the slick board did vote on the override and they voted a $7 million number that does not impact the public native public schools portion of the, what is planned for the FY 26 budget that impacts other areas of money that would to go to stabilization funds and capital planning.
So I just wanted to reassure everyone that with the $7 million override, that does not mean that NA Public Schools is taking a bigger hit. But it's really important, especially given the entry findings tonight. Speaker 1: And your comment was actually a great segue to a question I wanted to pose to the committee now that we have a ballot question. This is the first of our meetings in which we have a, an actual ballot question. I went back to the memo that we received from our attorney about what the school committee can and cannot do when there is an override vote.
And there was one bullet in particular I want to read because as you all know, because open meeting law, I can only ask this question out in the public, in the public meeting the the bullet reads, the SW committee may vote to take a position on the ballot question and issue an official statement reporting that position. Obviously we're not gonna do it tonight, but I'm wondering if peop if just gets people's reaction, does the school committee do we wanna move towards taking an official position? I'm seeing a lot of heads nodding Second as Speaker 17: One member.
Absolutely. Speaker 1: And as the rest of them are nodding. So I think we're, yes. I would also be willing to take volunteers to a volunteer to, to draft a memo if, I mean, not memo a motion so that if we want to put some meat to it, Ms. Brunell, so you know, you can write it, you know, you're not gonna be in touch about when you're ready. We have a meeting March 3rd and we have a meeting March 17th so we can decide when is the right time and put on a vote. Yeah, let's put
Speaker 17: On, okay. Are there other bodies that can take a vote as well or could support the override in a public way that are part of the school system? Speaker 4: I, Speaker 17: What is he chopped liver? I'm asking through the chair Speaker 1: Superintendent. I don't know the answer to that question, but if anyone has the answer, but anyone in a spot Speaker 6: Seen as I've been called upon, yes, the, the EAN can certainly make a motion to endorse the override, but I can also assure you that members of the union are already starting to line up in order to do some work canvassing
and supporting the override. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, comments, thoughts about the override? Quick? Do we, should we move to the calendar? You fix, Speaker 4: I'm ready to move my calendar update. Speaker 17: So Speaker 24: We had a little typo. November 11th is Veteran's Day and we actually had scheduled November 10th as the day off. So we switched that. So we need to revote on that. And then there was discussion about listing all of the holidays on the back and a statement
and there was some back and forth. So it was suggested that we put, and I'm sorry I can't actually see it well from here, but that we put Speaker 17: Thank you. Speaker 24: A state notification on the front of Lunar New Year being on February 17th. So we did that and Speaker 4: It Speaker 24: Looks beautiful. It was so we added that under June just in the box there. And those were the changes that we made and did not add statement or list of any holidays in the back. So, Speaker 1: So we decided, I think to decouple the two ideas,
the first page and the second page. This is just a calendar. And I believe that the decision was to work on the school handbooks, I think to put more information on. Speaker 24: I believe that was the suggestion. Yeah. Speaker 16: The Speaker 24: Priority obviously for us being the dates and what you wanna do. Yeah. Around the rest of it is up to you. Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'll take a motion to approve the, can I corrected? Yeah. Speaker 16: Can I just say Sure. Something about the calendar, and this is the last thing I'll say, and I won't talk about the calendar ever again, But I had made the recommendation not to include the chart
or the statement on the back. 'cause I, I felt like it was confusing, but what, but what I did wanna say and, and we do recognize lunar near, it's not a day off and I, I just want to, God now I forgot what I was gonna say. Change your mind. I think it is, it is what is most important is that we make sure that families and students understand that our policy JHA, allows them to take a personal observance for religious holidays. So we do not, we were sort of, I think overcomplicating this, like if there is a need
for someone to have a day out of school that we do not offer policy. JHA is the policy that allows students and families to do that. There is a lot of, so that is the the key thing I think that needs to be communicated. You know, there was talk, does it need to go back to the policy subcommittee? No, we've, I, I don't think so. We've already voted the holidays for next year. If there's anything additional people just need to use policy. JHAI think there's a lot of flex in terms of the Muslim holidays. There's actually a lot of variation.
So for example, like this year, like some guidance just went out where I work and it's, and actually Eid outfitter could fall on Sunday or it could fall on Monday 'cause it's based on the sighting of the moon. So it's possible that, you know, and so they don't actually know that until like may, March 29th. Right. So I just think the committee should be aware of that. Like I consulted with the Muslim chaplain and I asked him about this and so I just, I think we should know that. So in terms of the eat all ha I would say
to students if they observe it, we know that it's not a huge majority of our students that they should ask for that it's a three day holiday. It's not one. So there, and again, like we we're, they're a little unsure of when it, when it actually happens because of the sighting of the moon. So I just wanted to share that as context for why I think this calendar is the right calendar to approve and then you can use that moving forward for all the calendars that you'll approve in the future. Speaker 1: Yeah. Ms. Collins, Speaker 14: I also wanna note that there's a provision in
the EAN contract. I believe in the other contracts, but I'm sure of the EAN. 'cause I was looking at this morning for personal religious observance of a, of a educator unit A or unit B educator. I believe that it's also available for other units, but I just, I happen to notice it today. And do you need a motion? Sure. To approve the calendar as presented? Speaker 24: I I just wanted to add one thing. Sure. If I could. I think for me, the issue or the challenge that I am concerned about with the calendar and not listing the other observances is that
we have a commitment to families. And yes, it's a policy, but we have a commitment around homework and assessment expectations. And if we're not clear about what those religious observations are, they may get lost. And so we just need to find a way, and maybe I can work Jefferson with one of your members around how we make sure that that is front and center for our educators so that it doesn't get lost for those who are unfamiliar
with all of the observances that may happen for our students. So that there's no anxiety around. Because for some kids, they're not going to go to their teacher and say, I have a religious observance, or I celebrate this holiday and therefore I'm not going to do my homework tonight because they want to do their homework because they don't want to have to have that conversation with their teachers. So that's the piece for me that we need
to be clear on so that we're inclusive of all of our students. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. I've heard that I too, that when you have homework due the day after a holiday, the child spends a holiday doing their homework rather than celebrating their holiday. And that's something we wanna avoid. I also like to reiterate Ms. Collins comment too, that that level of respect is given both to students, families, and, and educators to serve on the community has that opportunity to remain true to their traditions. Speaker 16: However, the holidays we observe are
the ones on the calendar. They were not like the other ones. Like, like the chart had like Hanukkah, like you can be aware of Hanukkah, but if you need like an exemption from homework, we're not telling teachers to not assign homework during Hanukkah or to not assign homework during Ramadan. Like that would be impossible. So I'm not totally understanding what you're saying, but we can talk offline. Like, so just so I'm clear, like the holidays that the school committee has approved are the ones on this calendar. Speaker 1: I, but I think the policy is if I
have a religious holiday Speaker 16: That I'll be Yes, but I don't, I guess I'm just not understanding the, the additional, but Speaker 24: So if a Jewish holiday happens on a Tuesday and we come back to school on a Wednesday, if they assign homework for a Wednesday due on a Wednesday, they, there can't be an expectation that that homework is due on a Wednesday for those kids. Speaker 16: Okay. Yeah, I understand that. I just thought you were talking about like other holidays that are not on this calendar. Okay. Speaker 1: But I think, I'm assuming if a student has a need to ask
for an exemption about an assignment, so for example, Hanukkah as a Jewish person myself, we don't spend that much time per evening. But Passover the first night is a much more elaborate tradition. So if I'm a student and I wanna ask my teacher can I not submit my homework the night after the day after Passover? Right. The policy covers that. Right? Speaker 24: It absolutely does. But that's something we have to be thoughtful around because if we're not those holidays that are considered the most religious holidays that we're not making note of, for example, Passover
and the Seder that the kids are celebrating that are not marked, that they're then going to be expected to bring in their homework or have an assessment the following date, that's going to be a problem. Yeah. Because they're not going to not do it. Speaker 1: So your point is to raise awareness to our educators and our community overall point. We'll take it. Did do you make a motion? Speaker 13: I did make a motion. I didn't get a second. Second yet. Second. Speaker 1: All those in favor? We have to do it. Roll call. We have to do a roll call. Oh, roll call is right. Yes. Ms. Flas? Yes. Mr. Brand. Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. McDonough?
Yes. Ms. Brune? Yes. And Ms. Goce? Yes. And Emma? I, yes. The calendar is approved. Reapproved, the last item is finance committee. Is that your committee? No, no, this is that. It's an Speaker 16: Committee on Speaker 1: The update on the finance. Oh, income. Oh, duck fin income. Speaker 13: I know there, I mean I didn't actually prep anything for this, but we do have our education subcommittee meeting tomorrow from five to seven. Oh, we just learned about that last night. Speaker 1: The question is do we need representation? Speaker 13: I sh I wanna be fair, we had holds on our calendar.
We learned where the do date was locked in. I don't, I don't want that to be misinterpreted. Sorry, what did you say? Speaker 1: Do we need representation? Because we have one of you will be there. Is that Well Speaker 13: Yeah, we'll be there. We'll Speaker 1: Be there. We'll, yeah, but there's also the override, the forum, Speaker 13: It's five to seven. Oh. And that forum's seven to 30. Speaker 1: Oh wow. Speaker 13: I'm so lucky. Speaker 1: Yeah. So fun evening. Yes. After a little warm up tonight too. Yes. Tonight's in a row. Miss Brunell, Speaker 17: Is that the only meeting you have scheduled with the ED subcommittee? Speaker 13: I think so. Is it? Do I Yeah. With Ed subcommittee? Yes.
That's the only one Linda would know better. Where, where I go. Speaker 17: No, that's great. Speaker 13: Great. I mean the plan right now is to be, we sent them the decks for every presentation we've presented here. That's fair Game March another in March, March 4th for that subcommittee. Yeah. Okay. FinCon Speaker 3: Education Speaker 13: Learning. I know the FinCon itself has a meeting from seven on tomorrow, but we're the subcommittee from five to seven. Speaker 1: With that I'll, that was the last time I wanted Can I just, Speaker 3: Can Speaker 1: I just ask? Oh, sorry. Thank you Ms. Go.
Speaker 3: So for, for the subcommittee meeting, do we have school committee members who are gonna be there? And if so, do we have less than a quorum? Speaker 1: So is anyone playing an attending tomorrow's meeting? It Speaker 17: Doesn't need to Speaker 9: Be less than a quorum. Yeah, we just can't deliberate, we can't Speaker 1: Debate Speaker 17: Deliber. Speaker 1: Deliber. So if you go don't talk to each other, Speaker 3: I'm saying that maybe we might wanna say something. So if people wanted to go and say something, we should be less than a quorum. Right. Speaker 9: I think as long as it's something that we've already discussed publicly, then it's still okay if it's future business. Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry, say again Ms. Cor, Speaker 3: We haven't voted on the budget. So anything discussing the budget would be future business.
Would it not? Speaker 9: I'm not going so I can't go. I can't Speaker 1: Go. Yeah. I can's one. No. So there's at least three. Anyone else not going? So Speaker 9: I don't think we'll have a problem. Speaker 17: It looks like they're diving into the student services and the tech budget. They do have the full budget on their agenda, but they have those two specific budgets in their agenda. So I would, Speaker 13: I mean they probably had to post it prior to our sending them every budget that I just wanna get as much done as I possibly can tomorrow. So we sent them everything we have discussed in this group. So yes, that's what's on their agenda.
If they were, are able to move forward to others, we've given them what the data is, but if anybody is interested in attending, Linda has the zoom. Speaker 17: Thank you. Speaker 1: So I, it doesn't look like there'll be a quorum tomorrow, but if there is, we just need to remember school committee norms. I mean, sorry. In open meeting law. Not to deliberate unless you and you want, we can't provide comments on behalf of things that we've already decided. Oh, did you leave? Oh no, there you go. This is me on the screen. No, no, it sounds great.
Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Great. So with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second roll call. Ms. Fathers. Yes. Mr. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Yes. And I'm IS Thank you everyone and have a wonderful evening.