Speaker 1: We have our quorum, so we'll get our meeting started. So welcome everybody. It is Monday, November 10th. This is the native school committee and we're gonna start with roll call. Mr. Patel. Present. Ms. Lathers. Present. Mr. Brand? Present. Dr. Fugman. Present. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell here. And I am here. So we'll now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Sorry. Ms. Gomes. Oh, and Ms. Gomes Speaker 2: Present. Speaker 1: All right. Speaker 2: I pledge Allegiance. Speaker 3: Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for Richard stands one nation under God. Speaker 1: And we take that moment of silence to honor our troops or serve us here in abroad. So we'll start with announcements. Any announcements from the committee? Speaker 2: Yeah, I need like 30 seconds just to find it. Speaker 1: Any announcements? Speaker 2: I have Speaker 1: A couple. Okay, great. Speaker 4: This announcement is about our students who participated in the MMEA, which is the Massachusetts Music Educators Association District Competition. This year, 59 Natick High School students auditioned,
which was an increase from last year. 19. Students were accepted to the festival. Two in chorus, two in jazz, four in orchestra, and 11 in concert band. The festival will take place at Milton High School on January 9th and 10th. We are especially proud to recognize sophomore Maggie Lee, who is accepted to both concert band and jazz band. She'll perform with the jazz band at the festival of the 19 accepted students. 13. Were also selected to advance to the MMEA Allstate audition level in January. Most importantly, we're proud of every student who auditioned. These auditions require courage,
preparation, and resilience. Whether or not they were accepted, each student represented our music program with dedication and distinction. Looking ahead, students in grade seven through nine from Wilson Kennedy and Natick High School will audition for the Junior District Festival at the end of January. Speaker 1: Thank you. That's wonderful news. Speaker 4: And a second announcement. On behalf of the Natick Public Schools, we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Natick United for their incredible generosity and partnership in organizing the winter clothing drive for our elementary schools, your team's thoughtful efforts,
provided jackets, snow pants, mittens, hats and boots to students and families in need, ensuring that every child is warm, comfortable, and ready to enjoy the winter season. Thanks to your kindness, our students can participate fully in outdoor activities and recess. We're deeply grateful for your continued commitment to supporting our school community. Acts of compassion like yours truly embody the spirit of Natick neighbors helping neighbors and caring for every child. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 5: I'm ready. So I have a couple announcements from Spark Kindness.
So first of all, starting I guess technically Saturday, November 8th and November 15th is Kindness Week here at Natick and beyond Spark Kindness along with different partners or organizing all and have been organizing all kinds of events and opportunities for all members of community to express kindness and receive kindness. There's a lot of great stuff happening around the community. So I, I would encourage you all to visit Spark Kindness website, spark kindness.org. Take a look at what all the different ways in which we can hope participate in this week. And then in addition to that specifically,
there's an event this Thursday organized by Spark Kindness, I think unrelated to the Spark, kindness to Kindness Week called Raising, caring, resilient, and Values Guided Children in the Age of Anxiety. That's this Thursday, 7:00 PM the high school free Childcare available. It's an opportunity to talk about how to support children navigate and become more resilient. And again, information about that can be found on Spark kindness.org. Speaker 1: Thank you. Any other announcements? Okay, well we have a very special event today, so I'm gonna turn things over to Dr.
Stash. Speaker 6: Excellent, thank you. So we'd like to start off the meeting by one of the explaining that one of the greatest privileges is celebrating students who make, whose dedication and character continually make Natick proud. Each year the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents honors two high school seniors for their academic excellence and leadership. We're fortunate to have both of our honorees and their families here tonight. And I'll now turn it over to Principal Josepha Blocker who will present the awards. Speaker 2: Yes, you can do mine.
Speaker 6: You. Speaker 7: So I have the honor of awarding two very special young people this evening. The first is Michael Kati. Michael is a bright, curious and motivated student. He's achieving at the highest possible level at NHS with an academic record that includes 11 AP courses. His accomplishments were recognized with the Harvard Book Award in his junior year. He has a passion for science and in particular a fascination for the ethical considerations that come with scientific innovation. He has explored this interest with several impressive research internships in which he has
actively participated in research about mRNA vaccines using nanomaterials with neural interfaces. Some of us are wondering what that is, but we will wait to ask you about it later. Michael is also a published author. He and a classmate co-authored a children's book to make concepts of chemistry more accessible to younger students, exploring topics such as Adams, DNA everyday chemical reactions and building blocks of the worlds around us was published over the summer. Michael also holds leadership positions in several student groups, including the Spanish Club Science team and American Red Cross. He's a true go-getter, driven and hardworking
and a most impressive member of the class of 2026. Congratulations. Alright, and our second award winner is Grey Jang. From the moment she entered high school, you could tell that Grace embodied all of the qualities that make a difference. At NHS, she's a leader, determined, passionate, and loyal. She's in the top tier of her class, which is a testament to her academic prowess, her eagerness to learn and her competitive internal drive to do the best she can. Grace has always distinguished herself as an inquisitive learner and one who embraces challenges with her unwavering spirit. Her academic path has been a testament
to her profound passion for math and science, a passion kindled in her early years through participation in math competitions and nurtured by a relentless pursuit of knowledge through her time. At NHS one of Grace's heroes is Potion Lo, a mathematician and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Professor Lo takes on math related ventures to apply mathematics to improving the world. He founded the math education platform Liv, which Grace has worked at since the spring of 2025. And her role at Liv Grace teaches online math courses
to elementary and middle school students. She has enjoyed her time working in this program as she brings math enrichments to students in urban areas and low income communities, along with her impressive academic achievements. Grace's student athlete who has been named captain of the tennis team since her sophomore year. She's one of the top ranked tennis players in the state and is a top recruit for the class of 2026. Grace's ability to accomplish such tremendous feats both on and off the tennis court, is a testament to Speaker 1: Her discipline, leadership, and resilience. Congratulations Grace. Speaker 2: Get more photos. Get more photos. I'm sorry.
We be nice with the school. Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just gonna take a five minute recess just to do congratulations and photos. So congratulations to both of you and we're gonna come over and shake your hands now. Alright, so we're back in session. We just took a little break there to celebrate our two student honorees. So we are going to get back into our agenda and we're gonna head back to public speak. And I know that we have at least three people who wish to be recognized for public speak. So in the room I have Mr. Ostroff, Mr. Ms. Whiteman and Ms.
Vickers. Is there anybody online who wants to be recognized for public speak? Right. Okay. So we'll go with the, oh yeah. Alright. So we'll, Mr. Ostroff, you are up. You have three minutes. Oh, hold on. I forgot our little public speak introduction. So public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility of the school committee. All remarks will be addressed through the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or response to comments by school committee.
Mr. Ostroff. Speaker 8: Thank you. Better chair. I'm Josh Ostroff. I, I'm a town meeting member, former select board and various other things in town. And, and Chris have her introduce herself. So we are here because 25 years ago on Friday, November 7th, 2000 was a seminal moment for Natick when the community came together to pass on the second try a dead exclusion for Wilson Middle School. And that was a pretty important, you know, turning point for Natick, which had never passed an override for dead exclusion or for operating at that time.
And in the years since, you know, when I was on the select board, seeing families around, you know, coming to the farmer's market would ask what attracted you to Natick? And most often it would be the schools, but it takes an amazing community to support public education. And I know Chris was the campaign manager and I was one of, you know, many volunteers, hundreds of volunteers that were, were involved with this and really taught a lot of lessons about how we need to come together behind common purpose and set aside differences to achieve a great goal.
And it was a wonderful moment when it, when it passed, it was painful when previous effort had fallen short by a, a narrow margin a year or so before. But we felt that as time, you know, goes by people sometimes forget the things that happened and we all, you know, stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. So leading up to that date, Chris and I published, had a story published about it. It was in the Natick report and in the Natick Historical Society website because we felt like, you know, just as you do,
we're all creating history. But this was a pretty important moment. So we wanted to just take a couple of minutes to acknowledge that and all the people and organizations that worked on it. What far too many to to mention and then to gift to you. It's too late to vote yes on nine, but we thought this might be something that the district would want to have perhaps leave it at, hang it in Wilson or whatever you'd like to do with it. We freely give it to you. We're not electioneering, it's too late to vote in the 2000 election. So I'd like to just turn it over to Chris,
who I know have say a few words in just closing. I would just want to thank you for the volunteer service you provide and the able professional leadership that so beneficial to the community. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Ossoff. Ms. Weisman. Speaker 9: Thanks Josh. Chris Weisman. I'm also a town meeting member and privileged to have worked with many individuals who helped on the yes on nine campaign. That was what we called it. It was heartbreaking to be a precinct captain when the first override lost, but it really galvanized so many people to step forward and help us.
And I'm pleased that pretty much everybody that's here in this room, you know, committed to education at this point has never had to experience, you know, not the town not supporting building new schools. We've had, you know, wonderful campaigns to build other schools since then and look forward to the opportunity to also support a new memorial when the time comes. It just, it was a amazing experience and we really are grateful to all the individuals that stepped forward. Organizations that helped us to fundraise businesses
that gave the campaign money so that we could be successful in having it be a presidential election. We didn't have to get out the vote, we just had to educate people on, you know, why a no vote was really harmful to the town. Just one little fun fact that happened a couple of days before the election is that, you know, that famous wall on Doug Pond, someone painted us on nine and that's one of my favorite pictures. So hopefully the Wilson community will appreciate our sign.
And again, thank you for your commitment to education and we look forward to more opportunities to continue to support the schools. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We really appreciate your service and I'm sure we'll find a home for the sign. So thank you so much for coming tonight. Speaker 2: Is there another sign? Speaker 1: Ms. Vickers? Speaker 10: Hi, thank you so much. Excuse me if I'm looking at my phone at the same time. I wanna make sure that my sign is ready for its closeup Brinley Vickers Precinct eight this way. This way, this way. Thank you for the assistance.
I am here tonight as a Natick High School cross country track and Field Boosters Club member and part of the Frosty 5K race committee. As a boosters club, we are one of the largest supporting high school students, solely because we were support kids through all three seasons. Outdoor cross country, track and field in the fall, indoor track and field in the winter season and spring outdoor track and field on the track.
We support well over 300 students and this is our fundraiser for the year and we are really hoping that the community comes out for it. It's an enormous amount of fun. We are a certified 5K U-S-A-T-F race course, which I helped do, which was quite fun. It's quite an experience to learn how to measure a course. I will tell you we started the high school, we finished at the high school. We have lots of raffle prizes. I'd like to say a huge thanks to our lead sponsors Strategic Wealth and to all of our downtown sponsors. The downtown community really shows up for us every year.
We really couldn't do it without them. The, their gift certificates and everything are our rice prizes. We are actually one of the most bountiful races out there in terms of our race gifts for our winners and the number of kids. We are close to 600 partic participants. This is our fourth year doing it. And the things that we've done with the money are, we've bought new tents, we've bought help support to buy an indoor track around the gym upstairs for our indoor athletes among many other things.
And I really hope the community can come out and support our kids. And it's Natick Cross country. Natick xc and track.org and or just Google Frosty 5K. And you'll find us December 7th, Sunday 9:00 AM at the high school. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Vickers. Seeing no other persons asking to be recognized. We'll close public speak. And do we have motion for the consent agenda? Speaker 11: Move approval of the consent agenda. Speaker 2: Second. Speaker 1: All in favor? Anyone against?
Anyone? Abstaining. So that is approved 7 0 0 And I have a couple of updates. So the first one is about the Johnson school building. So we indicated to the select board that we would like to provide a letter suggesting potential uses or needs by the school department. So I just wanted to talk about the process by which we would be putting that together. And I wanted to propose a process, but also if somebody has a better process, let's put that out there too. I thought we could see if there were a couple of people
who wanted to work on this in a small working group could, we could gather the information. The school department has already provided us some information about potential needs and so those, those couple of people could collect the needs, put them together, bring them back to the school committee and then if we all agree that those are the the things we'd like to communicate, we could then write up a letter to send to the select board and approve it. So we have until the end of the year and I think we have three meetings left before the end of the year. So it should be just about enough time.
So that's my proposal. I don't know if anyone has an alternate proposal or wants to modify Mine. Dr. Speaker 5: I don't have a proposal. Can I just ask outta curiosity? Yep. About what are the school needs, like recommendations? Speaker 1: Sure. Just Speaker 2: My curiosity. Speaker 6: Yeah. So I had written to chair Gors at, back in the beginning of October with two main recommendations that came out of asking our cabinet what we thought would be helpful. They're short paragraphs that could be further explored should the school committee find interest in them. The first one is either before or and
after school programming as a space for that. And then preschool. Those are our recommendations. Speaker 1: Thank you Dr. Bash. So I, I anticipating that there may be some thoughts too amongst the school committee for other things we might wanna do in addition to those. I wanted to provide the opportunity if people wanted to, to give that input. So we don't, we don't have to do that now. I think if we wanted to decide on a process. Yeah. Speaker 12: Are you looking Speaker 13: For volunteers for a smaller set or what do you Sure. Yeah. I mean I'm happy to work on it. You know, I care about it a lot. Okay. I know, but others can too. Who,
Speaker 1: Okay. Because I see it as a gathering of information, organizing the information, bringing it back to the committee and then if we all agree on the points, then writing the letter and then approving it. I see. Mr. Patel, you're also nodding. I'm happy to do it with her as well. Okay. Yeah. Alright, great. Super. So if, if that works, then I would propose by our next meeting if you could finish the information gathering and then we'll come back and talk about it at the next meeting. And then after that, do the writeup and approve it at the meeting following that. Does that sound reasonable? Sure. Okay.
Everyone agree with that? Do you? I don't think we need to vote on this. No. Ms. Collins, I just Speaker 14: Have a question. Yes. So if an individual member has something, are they going to Kate and Jamon or are they going to Dr. Stash to see whether it's in line with the school dis you know, the administration's desire? What? What's the, just so we have a clear line here. Yeah, Speaker 1: So what I was thinking was that they would go to Kate and Jamon who will compile all that information, bring it back, we'll have a conversation with our administration
and then from that come up with our short list of what we want to include in the communication. Okay. Does that seem like a good plan? Okay. Should Speaker 13: Clarify just timeline. Should we just focus on the gathering outside of the administration before the next meeting? Or should we try to gather and then have a quick huddle with administration to kind of sanity check? I don't care. Either way are we gonna have the conversation and I'm totally flexible. Speaker 6: I'd say once you and Mr. Patel kind of work out your plan, we're happy to meet with you whenever is convenient to both of you. Speaker 13: So if you want the best update in two weeks, I'd say make, if you have things to say, I, we have plenty
of time just in the next week or so, let's get, talk to anyone who wants to talk to us. Same for if anyone in the community has anything to write in our questions and then we can try to Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Dr. Stash. If that, if that works, that would be, I think that would help move things along. Thank you Ms. Brunell. Speaker 15: Sorry to make your life difficult here, but it's technically an open, you have to have an open meeting in order to do it. 'cause you're a working group of the school committee, even with two members. So it's, you could schedule an online meeting, but it just has to, if you two are gonna work together on something and we're gonna be sending some things to you, that information has to be available to the public.
Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay, great. Thank you. Did you Speaker 12: See that? Speaker 1: Okay, I'll, I'll add that. Thank you. Okay. And then we just noticed that we missed updates from our teacher representative and our student representative. So apologies Mr. Wood and Nathan have any updates now? Speaker 16: No apologies necessary. Madam Chair. Thank you. I don't have anything to offer at this time. Okay. Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay. And Ms. Gomes, if there are any Met co updates you'd like to make at this time? Speaker 17: No, no updates at this time. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Alright, so the next item I have is just some information. So the planned audio visual improvements are on schedule, which means that in December we will not be able to meet in this meeting room. But Ms. McGrath has arranged for us to meet in the library. So we'll be setting up our December meetings in the library. We should have Pegasus set up, I think, so that we need Pegasus. I confirm the eighth and 22nd. Great. Super. The eighth and the 22nd. So the only thing that is different about meeting in the library is
that we absolutely have to be outta there. The door is closing behind us before nine, so we'll just have to plan our agendas accordingly. In fact, they, they actually said in the email they prefer us to leave at 8 45. So we should be packing up at 8 45 so they can lock the doors behind us. Yeah. So we will look forward Speaker 5: To in January when we come back here. Do you know, Speaker 1: I, I imagine it will be gold plated when we come back in January. I hope Speaker 14: It's not, I hope it's not too Speaker 1: No, I, I don't know. I imagine it'll look exactly the same. Right on. I really don't know. It's an audio visual update
so I imagine it'll be very invisible and it should probably just hopefully just work really reliably. Speaker 14: And when you say the library, you mean the leitz meeting room. Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. And that will be for people Speaker 14: Who are watching and figure out where they're going. Speaker 1: Yeah. And it'll be posted, our agendas will state very clearly where the meeting is. It's a public space. The doors will be open. It's right across the street from where we are now. So. Okay. And then I just wondered if anyone wanted to have a quick update on our goals. We don't. Just putting that on the agenda in case anybody had any goals, updates
or anything they wanted to share about plans or any changes. It's fine if there's none. Okay. I don't see anybody. Okay. And then the last item I have is regarding the Kennedy Middle Middle School post occupancy evaluation. So I emailed everybody on the committee with the date. People responded to me who were available on the date that is scheduled, which is March the fourth. It's a full day meeting. There were several people who were interested, but Ms.
Brunell is available and it seemed like a good fit given that she's on the current Memorial School Building committee to have Ms. Brunell do that and the other folks who are available, I'll put you in as backups in case Ms. Brunell can't make it if that works. Okay. Alright, I'll turn things over to you Dr. Stash. Speaker 6: Excellent, thank you. We already did our recognition, which was such a good feeling. Thank you very much for that. And we're gonna have assistant Deputy superintendent Balone give a very brief update on transportation as it was brought up last meeting.
Speaker 4: So at the last meeting we had a public speak about some concerns around transportation and just wanted to give you an update where we are. We recognize that transportation has been a challenge since the start of the year. And we have been in frequent communication with Connolly Transportation and the challenges we've been having with late buses. Buses missing, picking up children. We've had some meetings where we've actually called the Conley leadership team in to meet with us. There is a driver shortage across the country.
We are no exception. We currently have eight to nine routes that are not covered with permanent drivers. They are in the process of hiring some drivers. We've also had all of those, a couple of drivers who've gone out on medical leave. We're waiting for clearance for them to be able to come back to work. So that's been some of the challenges where some of our roots are a little bit busier with a lot of turns. And when you have a spare driver who doesn't know the roots, that becomes a challenge. We're working very closely with them to make sure
that those drivers get trained appropriately for the roots. It's a constant communication. We're on the phone with 'em constantly. Miss Augusta, Elli Sullivan, who is our transportation coordinator, is doing a great deal of work. We're doing everything we can to make sure that we're keeping families informed and we greatly appreciate the patience and the grace that they are providing to us. And please know that we are very much aware of the challenges that this poses for our families. And we are doing everything that we can to ensure that
the rides to and from school are safe and as uninterrupted as possible. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Valone. Does anyone have any questions about that? Ms. PLAs? Speaker 13: Has there been a con, I think, I feel like there's a conversation a while ago, but have there been any further conversations of investing in technology that like allows parents to know where people are and I think the one I saw recently that someone I know my meanderings has like actually for the dryer, like updates on their route and Speaker 4: We have that capability.
The challenge is that if we don't actually have a permanent driver on the bus, then it's often a bus that is coming from a different bus yard and may not have that technology available on their bus. So it's not gonna be reliable. So to say that we're going to be using it and then have a bus that doesn't actually have that technology available puts us at a a in a, into a challenging situation where parents are relying on it and then not having it. And that creates more confusion. So that's why we have not implemented it
because we don't have the consistency of the same drivers every day or the same technology because if it's not a NAIC bus and it's a Walpole bus that's coming to us, it might not have the technology Speaker 15: Because Speaker 4: Not every district has that built into their contract. So the Walpole bus might not have it and that's a Walpole driver that might be coming to us and they bring their own bus Speaker 6: Ms. Brunel. Speaker 15: So based on the contract, are there incentives that we can put into help encourage better service or are we at the mercy of the bus drivers?
They're able to find Speaker 18: So written into the contract if they're gonna be more than 15 minutes late for reasons that they should be able to control. Not, not the weather, a snow storm, something like that. Or a bad accident that they couldn't foresee and they, they got stuck in traffic, then we can dock the, dock them the morning, morning run half the day for being late. And that's the sort of the main incentive that they're, when they bid the contract, they know that they need to be able to provide the drivers, the vehicles
and honor the services that we asked for. And we haven't changed for what we've asked for. The scope of services is still the same. So I, I believe we have exercised it a little bit. Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Appreciate the update. Okay. That's more of a perverse incentive technically in economic terms I couldn't help but use that. Speaker 15: I mean I guess if we have to, if we have to go back to that clause many times I think it's time to reevaluate if that's effective and what else needs to happen. Speaker 6: We agree. Okay. And it's definitely on our mind and we're tracking things. So, okay.
The last piece I have on this section of my report is on the evaluation cycle. In case you don't know, all educators have to submit their initial draft of their student learning goal and professional practice goals by October one. And they're finalized on November one. And so literally two days later we cut a report and kind of did some analysis on it. This is the first time that we've done this to my knowledge in Natick or really that I've done it at this scale anywhere. And it's a great kind of first pass at how deeply our goals are kind of being represented in all aspects
of our, in all eight of our schools by all different people within our system. And right now, nine out of 10 of our student learning goals are directly aligned to district and school priorities per the contract. It's a student learning goal that can be influenced kind of at the school level. And of course the professional practice can be a very individualized goal. So that's why we measured it on that. I definitely did not expect to see that what I'm calling like 90% coherence for people who get excited about this and wanna read the the memo. It's all posted onto our agenda.
But really what I wanna do is, is recognize our principals and our teachers. The work far surpassed expectations for a first year launch of this kind. And it really is the work of the school-based teams. A lot of PLC time, many, many collaborative conversations. It could have been a compliance exercise and it wasn't. It turned into real professional learning and their collaboration and leadership may truly are what made this a success. When I read through email the agendas for professional development that they have after school, I am seeing formative assessment. I am seeing the SEL and PBIS work.
I'm seeing the goal work that we laid out as a bridge plan and that they put into their individualized SIP plans. I'm seeing it in those, that's my formative assessment on the system that I see it kind of really living. It's exciting to see. We were at a learning walk today, it Natick high school was fabulous. Saw that at play again. So to see this level of sort of cohesion of the goals with a really independent measure, I think is something we should congratulate our educators and principals on. They did a fabulous job far surpassing where I thought we'd be. I never told anybody where I thought we'd be,
but I, I was thinking more like 60% I, I'd have felt very successful. So there you have it. And we were at 90%. So there's some themes, strong system-wide coherence, consistent use of assessment data to inform instruction, deeper SEL and MTSS integration. A good emerging focus on equity and multilingual learner growth. And then a little bit of refinement needed on non-academic goals, which is absolutely to be expected. Next steps, which is, I actually gave a memo to each of our eight leaders and encouraged them
to share it authentically with their own teams. 'cause I think it's a, it's an incentive to say thank you because there's some hard, it's November, people are tired and this is a great way to say, wow, you did it. Let's keep going. So I know that they will do that in their own voice. And then we'll have mid-year calibration on goals where we check in and we just make sure this is, continues to be alive and well. And I've asked them to kind of do some model sharing. There's a lot of bright spots, let's lift them so that we can kind of be a community of practice. And then just ongoing monitoring. So I could not be more pleased. It's our first measure of this,
but we don't measure goals again until we measure how we did on them at the end of the year. So this is very positive news. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions Ms. Collins. Speaker 14: Was I the only one who couldn't open this memo? I Speaker 1: Couldn't already. If you use the link at the top, there's two links in there. If you, Speaker 11: If you also, I have the same problem through granicus, but if you do it through the Natick Town website, it will work if you wanna see it. Speaker 14: Okay. That's a problem. Speaker 11: Did I, yeah, for this one agenda item, it wasn't opening through Granicus but, Speaker 14: But it's a problem as we go forward. If it's in our agenda, it's got to be available without
running around the town. So Speaker 6: Okay. So we able to open that out. We'll make sure we're double checking those 'cause that definitely shouldn't happen. Did I email this also to I Speaker 14: I saw it. Speaker 6: You're more worried about Speaker 14: Access. I'm more worried, worried about the community. Yes. Speaker 1: For the public agenda. You the Yeah, I was able to open it through the town website. Speaker 6: Fair. Thank you for the feedback and we'll make sure we take, take a look at that. Speaker 1: Dr. Fuchsin, Speaker 5: Is that a comment in a question? Sorry. I I really do think this is a very impressive beyond just the school improvement plan and the bridge plan. Obviously we haven't began yet the conversations with the community about strategic planning.
But I think even if no one in the community sees this, if we ask them what are the most important themes, I wouldn't be surprised if these are the ones that come up to be honest. And I hope you don't mind me saying, but including theme number five, which I know is technically not part of the bridge plan and technically, but family communication and engagement and attendance. I mean, I'm not, you know, you're the superintendent, you're call, but in terms of alignment, but these are not bad goals either, you know, so it's, it's very impressive that even
before you, you did the alignment. But just seeing that these are the, the themes that our teachers care about and teachers are working on are so well aligned with the community, I think is says, you know, like you said a lot, a lot about our, our community, our teachers, sorry, a lot of our teachers and their, the the, the alignment between educators and community members. So I, I'm, this was a great analysis in all at all kinds of levels. I did have a question just outta curiosity. What is the process by which an educator develops a student learning goal? Is it the educator? Is it the educator conversation with a supervisor?
How is that? And also how is, not that we have anything to do with it, but I'm just curious just to better understand how we got there to the alignment and also how do we measure progress? Speaker 6: Yeah, so I'm gonna give my view, and it could be times eight times a thousand maybe to elaborate and get it really specific by school. It started with that bridge plan and I'd they say the kind of elevator speech we did with what we call the road show going around and really articulating what that was and the slides and the visuals that we gave to it, presenting it here. And then our principals did
that again in their own staff meetings. They did it through the department heads in a school as big as Natick High school, but also through department heads in the middle schools as well as coaches. So it was something that was discussed in every single PLC in the curriculum PLCs and the grade level PLCs. It was developed some model language for the different goals and it was completely aligned with people understanding their SIP goal. So if they hadn't presented and really digested that SIP goal, it would be hard to write a goal just to the bridge plan. So it was just this that started last June. So I think how does one measure cohesion right here?
Sitting and doing an analysis on the SIP goal is easy to see, but the process to get there was probably a bit different by school. But it really was about helping build cohesion and investment in the bridge plan, cohesion and investment in the SIP plan, which required understanding the data, massive effort on behalf of our leaders and educators to kind of lean into that and then to articulate the goals and word them in a way that's considered a smart or smarty goal. Again, I'm assuming many, many, many iterations of it
with feedback cycles. And I mean we could invite principal blocker up if she wants to expand upon that on things I'm missing. But it's, it's not something that gets done in a week. There's feedback loops with each educator and their evaluator where they're kind of talking about it, ensuring it's cohesive, cohesively linked. So I've, I've honestly never seen such, you know, such cohesion but also every single goal was signed off and populated. That's this very rare. Speaker 5: So I guess my, so that's really helpful. And actually I was even more impressed
'cause I thought was just a complete coincidence. I was like wow, how did everyone know to do it? But, but there was a whole communication process which is good too. So it was intentional, which is also important. Yes. But I'm just curious in general, even before this year, how in general are student learning goals developed? Is it the teacher on their own? Is it the teacher and evaluator? Speaker 6: The way that DESI writes it, department of Education, they frame it as one doing a data analysis on the students you had last year and the students you have this year. So it's definitely intended to be a very data rich exercise. That's the main piece. But it is, teachers are allowed
to have individual or team-based goals. So that implies conversation with their teaching team or any other team that counseling team, whatever team they may have. So it's intended to be looking at the students now their data and yet also the students before and some depending often more in professional practice goals but also in student learning goals, taking a look at the formative from the prior year and areas of the rubric they wanna lean in on. Especially when it comes to kind of the student performance. Speaker 2: So there is teacher voice in that process. Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely. Speaker 2: Great, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Any other questions on this topic? Well congratulations on 90%. That's very impressive. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Speaker 2: Minus, Speaker 6: Do you wanna move to MSBA? Okay we'll move to MSBA update. I'm gonna switch the order here because I think Mr. Gillis is going, going to go through the whole piece on an update for enrollment. But recent school tours we were able to, we've so far seen technically four schools. We started out by seeing Memorial, which is our own school. But it was a good tour that the school building committee did there on September 22nd we went to the Hastings Elementary School in
Lexington on these visits. The school building committee has the superintendent there along with other leaders, principal custodial staff, facility staff. On last week we had two. So we had November 5th the good no brothers elementary school in Marlboro, Massachusetts. And then on Friday the major Howard Beal school, elementary school in Shrewsbury. And we will have our next meeting on November 17th, which will include a tour of our own benham. So hopefully you can kind of see that we're taking a deep dive in taking a look at the
schools and asking questions. These visits usually we intend for them to be about 60 minutes. They usually go more like 90. So I've been really grateful for people's participation and extremely grateful to the leaders and staff in those schools who've opened them up during school hours and allowed us to visit. They've been fabulous and they've all said if you need anything from us, we are here for you. So I just wanted to explain the schools that we've seen and the one we have left to see. We're very likely to add Kennedy to that as well. I've heard from the school building committee that they'd like to see that. 'cause it's our most recent build so we're likely to do that as well.
So the team's doing their homework is what we wanted to let you know. But I'll pass it to Mr. Gillis unless there's questions on that. Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know if anyone from the school committee who went on the tourist wanted to add anything. Speaker 2: Can Speaker 1: We? Sure. Ms. Brunell. Speaker 15: Sure. I just offhand, I didn't prepare this but the, I was able to go to the Good Now school in Marlboro and it was so exciting actually to see a school in progress and to see just, I don't know, just to see how the building is conducive to learning in a class in for the children, right? It's like this huge project that seems
so out in the distance, you know, but it's like actually to be in a tangible space and you see the kids learning and the kids on the playground like you're like, okay, this is real. This is gonna impact kids' lives. It was, I was really appreciative of the authenticity that the administration spoke with. There was also an OPM along with a US who was really, that was especially helpful I think to hear from the op what's operator's project manager, is that what the OPM owners Project manager. Thank you. So it was neat to hear him talk through
the process of that school in terms of the MSBA timeline because I can look at those slides another a hundred times and still really not understand all of the processes. There's just like all of these different processes that interact and it was so, it was so nice to have him speak about it. And then candidly, the principle, even with the OPM right there was like, we wouldn't have done this, we wouldn't have done this, we wouldn't have done this. So it was like kind of walking through somebody's kitchen after they've redone it and been like, oh I wish I would've done this instead of the right. And so it was like really good lessons learned. I I, I was fascinated by it
and really help glad, like the Memorial Building School committee is showing up in big ways 'cause that it is to drive to the school. It's a three hour commitment and people are taking time outta their work. So I'm just really grateful for the process. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Brunell. Okay. Alright Mr. Gillis. Speaker 18: Okay. In your packet you, you'll see there was a letter from MSBA. It's a four page letter and the short of it is that they approved our request after we submit our enrollment information per their request.
And we submitted some internal documents that I created. I think folks might recall them from meetings back in April. And then shared with the building committee where we were basically asking for, hoping to see if we can get funding for a six section school and about almost 700 students. Knowing that was a bit of a, a reach, but still wanted to ask just in case we went over, we had a meeting with them, we went over all of the factors that go into enrollment as well as sharing the future think report, which they definitely took into consideration
for our conversation. And they came back and basically said that we believe you're pretty close to a five section school with neighborhood pre-case pre-K schools. We differ, you know, slightly on the enrollment numbers but really pretty close. So they do take into consideration and as the letter sort of highlighted out in page three student migration adjustment, they adjusted, they added 40 students to our straight line calculation or rather their straight line calculation outta district enrollment. That was a, a suggestion.
They accepted it, they added another 20 students. And then based on our cohort survival rate, moving from a a five year look back to a three year because of COVID, they'd added another 25 students to our, our rate. I mean, generally folks like to have a class size of around 21 and with the space for 24, MSBA uses a space design for 23 with like a swing the opposite direction.
But we are, we're pretty close and I guess am pretty happy with, with what they came back with. 'cause usually they're finding ways to whittle it down and this time they found ways to, to work with Natick and I think they, and they definitely took into consideration our past projects with how enrollment came out with Kennedy in the high school. And I, I feel pretty amenable about it. So, you know, they give us the five 70 for K four, they don't want to jump ahead of the school building committee as to whether
or not they actually decide how many pre-K classrooms they want or if they want any. So there would be a, another look at this. Some communities have had pre-K included, others have had to decide whether or not they want to do it as additional space in the building. But I don't want to jump ahead of, of the, the building committee because that's really kind of their decision. When we get into feasibility, we're gonna look at a bunch of different options and what works best for Natick as well as the, the space that we have and taking into consideration a little bit
of our neighbors on at, at lilja and at Brown where we kinda share our borderlines or zones. So all of that will be factored in, but we're, we're off to a good start and now we're in what I like to call the hurry up and wait mode where we've submitted everything back to MSBA and we're waiting to find out whether we get invited to the December meeting or the February meeting for a formal invitation into the feasibility study phase. So with that, if there's any questions, I'm happy to do my best to answer them
Speaker 14: Questions. Ms. Collins? Mr. Gillis, could you just do the basic math example? This is what they originally wanted for just Memorial. What, because I don't, I, that's not coming out to me in this memo. It's coming out to me in the district level. Speaker 18: So in, in their memo, if, if we didn't sort of advocate for the pre-K as well as potential use of what I'll call buffer zones and they're taking into consideration the fact we have modulars at Lilja and Brown, which they don't consider permanent classroom space because a permanent building in their eyes is,
is typically a 50 year life and modulars kind of range from 10 to 20. So they consider that they don't more than temporary but not long term. And since you get one project at a time from MSBA, it takes about five or six years to get through the whole whole process. They were amenable to us considering, you know, some of that for capacity at a new school where we could potentially open and provide some, some relief to other, other schools as an option. So if, if you looked at where we're at now
with about 450 kids, it looks like we're growing but we wouldn't really be growing. We'd be growing Memorial, but we wouldn't be growing necessarily the Natick public Speaker 14: Schools, the district. Okay. That's, that was the piece that, that did a very good job of hiding the district is whatever it is for that group. 14. Speaker 18: Yeah. They had us at, Speaker 14: But some of the, the difference between the current 4 31, which I think is what the enrollment report showed at Memorial and the five 70 is students who
are in what we have now, which is swing spaces and we will continue to have, although they might be the same swing spaces, so that we won't, might not be somebody who's not sitting there going, well where are we gonna get 150 more students? They're currently in our system, Speaker 18: They are in our systems, but Speaker 14: They're going to a different place so that there may not be the pressure to do more modulars or programs at Little Jenn Brown as those modulars Speaker 18: Right. Speaker 14: Reach the end of the years of Speaker 18: Life.
Ideally it would be nice if when we're all done that we don't need to replace the modulars at one or both schools. Okay. Speaker 14: So it's not the district that is growing, it's the size of memorial itself that they're making adjustments to, to make up for the fact that we've got kids in. Right. Speaker 18: And I, I just, Speaker 14: We'll say non-permanent spaces, Speaker 18: You understand it. And I just wanna reiterate that that hasn't been fully determined yet because the school building committee hasn't reviewed options and picked one. So they're gonna look at a variety of options
with help from the architect and the owner's project manager. They're gonna ask questions and the, the school building committee will provide some answers is to what they think will work, work best for the community. But the fact that MSBA is, is giving us some latitude to make the building bigger than it is now is of help. And I think, you know, I'm not a Natick taxpayer, but if I were, I I would appreciate it knowing that, you know, we might have one project that can solve a little more than one problem. Maybe it's only a fraction of, of an issue.
But it take the help when we can get it when the state's gonna pick up a significant portion of the, of the tab. Yeah, Speaker 14: No, that they're amenable to considering these non-project school issues is, is wonderful news because usually the MSBA is not so generous. Let's say they, they tend to have their number and they stick with their number. So I appreciate that they're looking at it more holistically and I look forward to seeing what the school building committee Speaker 18: Yeah, I Speaker 14: Comes back with, Speaker 18: I've been doing this since
before they were MSBA when it was back with the DOE as the School Building Assistance Bureau. And this has been the most positive exchange of information between both sides. You know, they were considerate, helpful instead of just, no, we have our formula and we do what we do. So I, I couldn't be more happy with them. Speaker 14: Good. Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell. Speaker 15: Thank you Matt. Thank you for being able to bring the number up for that. And also I wonder if this memo is going to be on the next
Memorial School Building Committee agenda. It is. Okay. So I will ask my questions there about this agenda and if any school committee members want to go into deeper questions or have thoughts about this memo, I'd be happy to bring it up next Monday. Speaker 1: Mr. Patel and then Dr. Fugman. Speaker 19: Hey Mrs. Sorry, could you just reiterate why the preschool needs haven't been incorporated in this particular letter? And Speaker 18: So we, we put it in our statement of interest Okay. And reflected it in, in what we thought we want to include in the building.
But until the options have been decided and we've selected a preferred option, they don't want to say that it's going to be in there before we pick it. Okay. Speaker 19: So it comes down to the school building committee to tell Speaker 18: That. So I, I'm fine with saying I recommend it, but it's not my call, it's, it's the school building committee. All of those folks vote on the most preferred option. Speaker 14: Can I add Speaker 1: That? Yeah, Dr. Speaker 6: Smash to add to that, At least in our enrollment meeting in the summer, the MSBA were clear and they're clear in this letter that they were willing to incorporate or include a fund funding
for neighborhood pre-K, not all of Natick pre-K. So that's important because if we wanted to build bigger, we might then have to fund it ourselves if it was over and above the allocation received by the MSBA. So lots to be still be determined, but to me that was, that was correct. Right Matt, what I just said, Raya always ask him just to make sure. But that's a distinction. Even though we may have 60, 70 kids in a swing space, the MSBA found our needs based on our SOI to be neighborhood pre-K to pre-K two memorial.
It doesn't mean that's what will get built. That's the SBC has to decide that. Speaker 18: Thank you Dr. Speaker 5: Fiman. So I have two questions. The first one, I think it's just a typo 'cause I can't make sense of it otherwise, in the letter at the bottom of page three, it talks about how their calculation comes up with 1495 students, which makes sense. And the next sentence says therefore a 15, you know, it talks about fluctuation, therefore 15% buffer has been applied resulting in capacity of 1270. Is 1270 a typo? 'cause how do you get from adding a 15%
buffer to 14 point 94? Or am I just not getting it? Speaker 18: Well, is I don't, I don't, my computer just went to sleep mode is 14 70, 80 5% of 1495. I don't, yeah, and I guess they might be close. What they might just, they might just be reversing the, their, their buffer of 15%. Speaker 15: I think it's a subtraction because what they're saying is that you could have more kids than 23 in a classroom. Oh, so the 15% buffer that way. Speaker 5: Well, because, so here's, here's the calculation I was doing and maybe I'm just not thinking about this correctly,
but they're proposing we build a 570 student building in Memorial. They're saying we currently have 1495 in the non-project schools, which adds up to about 2100. And yet our biggest class on the chart above, which was back in 2016. So about 10 years ago it was 2200. I I guess I'm just wondering is the 570 number enough if we were ever to go back to our 2200 students K through four? And if not, is that concern
Speaker 18: Not, not, not really. Because if we build a five section school, which is a, about what, what that would be no, like then Lilja or Brown or another school, like it would be very, very tight to, to squeeze them in and we'd wind up pushing the pre-Ks out. Like kind of like we did the last time we, we kind of got too crowded. But usually you, you, you get a,
you get a forewarning before it grows that fast. Yeah, as usually the birth rate goes up and the enrollment goes up, you know, a little bit beforehand. It usually don't have hundreds of kids showing up in one school year. There usually isn't that much housing turnover in town where you have that many move-ins. But, Speaker 5: So let's say enrollment is let, let's say coincidentally happens to be cyclical. So it's been going down K through four only, and then it starts going back up for whatever reason. And we build a 570 student building as an exec, you know,
based on the MSBA and the committee here, are we not concerned that we could go, we could potentially go back? I mean, and, and I know what you're saying, you're saying it's gonna take several years, but again, so I guess there would be some sort of plan for how to handle a situation where we get back to 2200 students. Well, Speaker 18: I, I think this is a kind of a great foreshadowing of, of a little bit of the discussion that the school building committee will probably have between a, to keep it simple, I'll call it a five section school and a six section school. Yeah. So if we added one more section per grade, how would that look?
How would that fit on the site? How much more does that cost? That's not gonna be reimbursable. You know, do we want to do that? And what, what data gives us reason to believe that the swing's gonna happen again. You know, sometime where, where we could foresee that happening. Right. Because if you don't foresee it happening in 10 years or more, you know, sometimes PE people don't want to pay to over build the, the, you know, the money might people have other ideas.
So that, that would be kind of part of the discussion through feasibility study options. You know how, and I always kind of go by sections instead of numbers. Yeah. Because it's really awkward to run a school where you have, I'm gonna call it four sections to a certain grade and then it goes to five, or you have five sections, then it goes to four. Like, are you always gonna be cycling through a bubble So most folks in most communities, when they pick a design, they pick, they try and pick the same number of, of grades all the way through
and leave a, a classroom or two extra that they can use as a bubble room. Should there be a bubble for one class size as it goes through and, and then the, the principal gets the joy of, of shuffling around instead of having to shuffle every year? Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean my concern is with a high school, with a new high school, back when I was new, it probably lost the smell of new car by now. But people, what I heard, and I was on school committee back then, but everyone was saying, we built it took us whatever number of years to build in.
It was already too small. By the time it was, it opened its doors. How do we make sure, like, you know, we don't know that we're gonna go back up again, but I would hate seven years from now, six years from now, however it takes to open a new memorial school and find out that our numbers kept going up and now that we have a school that's too small, just something to think about. And, you know, I trust the people. I mean, to the extent that that should be something, a concern to raise to the building committee. So, so that's the first one. And then kind of a related question is, so when they were talking about the schools and the other, the non-project schools, they talk about,
you know, there's a phrase they're excluding special ed, music, art, et cetera, other school, other classrooms. I'm assuming that when they talk about a 570 student school, that, or, or as you put it, five section school that refers only to general ed classrooms. We as a committee or we as a community can still say, yeah, we'll only have five sections, but we also want a music room, an art room, or maybe two music rooms or, and just to briefly share Anec anecdotal story, if I may, I was talking to someone from a different district,
an administrator in a different district, and we were talking about MTSS 'cause that's what I talk about. And they were saying how their elementary schools are really old and they were designed back in the way schools were designed back then, which was just general ed classroom with the assumption that every student only spends entire day in their general ed classroom. And now with MTSS, with special ed, with, with specials, kids end up spending ti you know, are pulled out or, or go to different classrooms. They're not all spending the entire day in their general ed classroom. And, and she was saying, but they're buildings, you know, that's, that's what they wanna do.
But they, their buildings aren't allowing that because the only thing, there's space for a general ed classroom. So, so it's big enough in terms of seats in the school, it's not big enough to accommodate for, you know, small group interventions or our class or pulling out kids for social groups. So I'm curious if that factors in also, and I know, I remember the reports you prepared before did have all that accounted for. Speaker 18: So we haven't gotten into the educational programming. We're gonna do that early on before we even start coming up with options.
'cause we want to build a school that meets our program and we want our program to have some flexibility. So whether it's a half classroom or a third size classroom for a small group, you know, and it could be labeled as special education or reading intervention or MTSS. We want that flexibility and the, you know, the educational team and, and a couple of our leaders are here and the principal, they're gonna probably have a lot to say on what they want to go into the program as well as, you know, space for some special education programs
that might help keep students in district to be considered into the design of the Speaker 5: Building. And I guess my question is this memo from the MSPA does not preclude us from doing all any of the planning. Speaker 18: Absolutely not. The MSVA is pretty familiar with the fact that that schools are gonna have art, music and special needs spaces. So Speaker 5: The five 70 is just chairs in general ed classrooms. Anything else you do Speaker 18: That, that, that's sort of the base of it. Yeah. And they know that the rest of the school day need needs to be programmed for,
but that's our choice and they don't get too prescriptive. Okay, Speaker 5: Good. Thanks, that's helpful. Speaker 1: I have a question about that. Are there, is there any guidance about what is like sort of general practice for things like special ed space or special space? Speaker 18: MSVA has a kind of a range for square footage for what they'll reimburse for most spaces. Okay. So typical classrooms around 900 square feet. Typical kindergarten classrooms around 1200 square feet, art classrooms, a thousand or so. And they understand art classrooms have half a dozen sinks.
So gym, depending on how many kids you have, how many teaching stations the gym is sized out for and age level makes a difference. So they, they kind of have standards that have have been in place since the nineties class class, you know, space size standards that really haven't changed too much. It's just we would tailor it to sort of meet our program. They don't, they don't assume everybody's gonna have the same number of art music in, in small group classrooms. Got Speaker 1: It. Okay. Speaker 6: I can add a little bit of anecdotal on
that will I think help with this. This is all part of what gets outlined in the educational plan. The school we went to last week was a phenomenal example of deep intentionality built by the community of what they wanted to see in terms of how their children would learn in school. I mean other people were there too. When I see some heads nodding, I was incredibly impressed. We've seen some other schools where they were very open to say we didn't really use that space even though we thought to use this space this way. So we, by going on these visits, we've kind of learned
how much work has to go into that ed plan. This specific school is happy to meet with us and show us the, this what they consider kind of an exemplar plan to match vision. You know, their vision was every space in the school needs to be accessible to all students of all abilities. That was critical to them. Also, they wanted the natural light to come in. They wanted, they were very intentional about how their students gathered as communities, how their classrooms where they would have two classrooms and in the middle was a half classroom with doors that went in and they didn't use, just say this is a special ed room
or this is a multilingual, it was whoever needed that space and could flex in. And so to me that that really lifted for me what a vision can bring and what values can bring into how kids learn in the design of a building. So we've seen some good examples through our travels and it puts that pressure, I guess, on us to, once we're in the feasibility, I know we all kind of want this to be done already, but it's gonna, it's gonna be a lot of intentionality and your voices will be included and need to be included in this. So that ed plan, we're gonna go visit with these people
and kind of see the process that they went through to get it. But it really excited me about the process that we're gonna go through. Speaker 1: That's really helpful. Thank you to both of you. Any other questions on this topic? Okay, thank you so much. Okay, Speaker 6: Let's see. So we're gonna head and do you wanna do finance next or subcommittee? Yes. Yeah, let's do finance next. Okay. Yep. So we're gonna go through Mr. Gillis and I have just a few pages. Normally I'm not sure this is kind of when we normally present such numbers, but we felt like we wanted to, Mr. Gillis has been working for the last, I don't know, two months probably on developing
the FY 27 level service budget. And so we'll bring you through that together. It's just a few slides. So this is really before we have a number from the town. The last time we saw a number from the town was in the plan that kind of went through last year. So as we go through this, we developed as a team an FY 27 mission and context. So I'll read it. This is the first year following the override. We're committed to being fiscally responsible and respectful of the community. We're recognizing the budget neutral reallocation will be necessary each year to meet evolving student and staff needs.
This level service budget aligns with historical increases and addresses, new district needs through corresponding offsets, keeping the overall impact of needed services to advance student achievement in a budget neutral way. So that's really the commitment that's centering. Thank you. That was, that was a reach for my eyes these days. This is just an overriding mission and context. It's early days. I don't anticipate this changing and that's to compliment the school committee budget principles that are in the budget book that have not changed yet. Next slide please. Here you can have see
the level service budget. We are at 5.4%, which would be a level service. So think about like the programs we had last year. They're the same this year. The number of headcounts same last year as this year. That's what we mean by level service. If everything was just running that was in place last year runs this year, it's not level funding, which will be a cut. It's level service. So you see it go to 5.4%. We have the numbers there. It would be a hundred million, a hundred six fifty nine, twelve. We didn't put FTEs there yet because we're still working on that. Still finalizing those. You can see the historical on the left.
So in FY 24 it was 5.4% right in line with where, what our numbers this year in FY 25 it was 4.2% last year with the override was 10%. And this year I think through the many things we did and thank you to this committee for the commitment to that fiscal responsibility, I see it show up thank you to our leaders who kind of really made the new salary scale work and we kept within the budgets that we thought we were going to. So I see this as a, a great story in terms of having our level service at 5.4%,
which it feels very reasonable. Big considerations. We had new contracts for every one of our units. They started this July. We absorbed all of those into this analysis. I should say we, I should say Mr. Gillis, our mix of educators changed. We shared that memo with you a couple meetings ago. We linked it again here for anybody who hasn't seen it yet. But we, where we really showed the, how our number mix of our educators along our scale have changed. We've absorbed operating costs and F-D-F-T-E reductions from last year. If you recall, we cut 10 positions. Those were all not in this budget this year. And we anticipate a user fee review. We haven't done it yet.
We'll do that with the budget subcommittee. Key drivers continue to be the same things. Our salaries, which it should be our transportation contract increases as well as our out of district tuition projection. A full presentation will come in December. So this is kind of like just a very high level, although Mr. Gillis has two more slides with some more detail on it that he can go through. We have some more, oh, oh this is an old deck Speaker 18: Linda. I'll make sure you've got it. Hold on. Yep. You have it. Speaker 6: It's posted correctly. Yeah, I Speaker 12: Was gonna Speaker 18: Say the one that's 1110 se Speaker 6: It's posted correctly to the agenda. Budget
Speaker 18: Preview. Yeah. Speaker 12: Pardon? Slide. Speaker 6: Yeah, so I can see it on mine. Speaker 12: Oh, Speaker 1: If you open the other link in the agenda, the public link, it's there. Speaker 12: There you go. Speaker 6: Okay. She's got it. So this is on the posted agenda, just FYI. So we're on slide four and Mr. Gillis will take us through slide four and five. Speaker 18: So here's kind of the summary with the seven roll-ups from the school committee broken out in salary and non-salary. And we're looking at a, a total increase of about 5.4 salaries around 5.3%.
You'll see a couple of numbers percentage wise that might jump up at you a little bit. Athletics and activities we're taking the, the coaches' salaries that we were charging to the revolving out of there. Putting it into the, into the general fund and making sure that transportation and then like, I'll call it the other, supporting, supporting costs, you know, for the games, whether it's the officials or the, or the league dues and the other things that, that stuff is all hitting the revolving transportation for athletics is
around $300,000. So we're keeping that in one place instead of spreading it between two. You'll see a little increase in transportation where we added a half person. And the reason we did that is because we had a vendor that wasn't able to provide a monitor for an OUTTA district trip. So we did it. That's what we're doing now and that's what we project to be doing. 'cause it's, it's working when the vendor can't provide the service, you know, it, it's still incumbent on us to figure it out and we were able to do it this way. We're not really, we're in the transportation contracting business.
Not in the transportation business. But that's, that explains how we get there. There's numbers off to the side that we'll go over. You'll see the increase like health services, some of that is explained in the note below. And then the tuitions, that is definitely the, that 10.4% is definitely an early draft number. Aaron and I have not met to finish refining it, but if we go to the next slide and kind of give you the notes about the numbers. So majority of the increase is for attendance and security services is also in the health services budget.
So we're, we're putting some more requests came in to, to put some more money into that because we've got some deficiencies that we feel we need to address as the school department works with both town facilities and it to, to bring that together. The other things are really kind of listed out there. You know, again, I, we got budgets in on Wednesday last week and going through, putting them finished, putting everything in, which is not fully reflected there,
but pretty confident we can live within the 5.4% and then there's a a, a preview, we'll probably have some budget neutral, you know, changes in in program a little bit to improve our quality of services and student outcomes and I'm sure the superintendent would we'll be happy to expand on that in the near future. Speaker 6: Can we thank you so much. Can we go to the last slide and that kind of illustrates what Mr. Gillis is saying. So district leaders prepared their departmental and school-based budgets. Those were due last week. District
and school leaders are preparing a neutral budget neutral recommendation. We're gonna go through the same process we did last year where we'll first go through cabinet, then we'll go through principals, we'll make sure we bring the union in on that as well. And then we'll present it to you as a recommendation. We're calling that sort of budget neutral or reallocation of resources to meet strategic needs that we think are there. We're gonna reconcile that budget recommendation to the school committee budget principles and the bridge plan. We will outline reductions in case we are not in case this is not a number that's feasible for the town. We're hoping it is. That's level service.
That's why we're coming out with it now. But we wanna just be careful and then we may have recommendations for additional need. We wanted to come in at the level service and if we have any additional recommendations we'll bring them to the committee for your consideration. But that's our process and we linked in the budget calendar, which we are in line with right now. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions? Speaker 2: No, Speaker 18: Thank you for saving your questions when we're over at the library and have to leave at quarter of nine. Speaker 1: Okay. No, thank you very much Mr. Gillis. It's great to have that preview of a lot of work to come. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 6: Okay.
You've been waiting a long time. We're gonna go over capital. So Mr. Gillis and Ms. Wells, Mr. Roach will go through a bit of capital. We plan to go through capital related to facilities on the 24th at our next meeting. Our facilities person is on vacation this week, so we're gonna hold the facilities piece until the next, the next meeting. Speaker 18: So Dennis, come on up. They've gotta be getting tired of, of hearing me in the budget packet. You had the multicolored like long chart and all the, everything in green is basically a request from from Dennis and he can elaborate on them.
The things in blue, I'm, I'm sort of representing the, the school committee and the things in the tan color are facilities that we'll discuss in the next meeting. It's, I think there were about 18 pages to this. You, you've gotta be getting tired of me and Dennis has been here a little while. So if you've got questions on technology first and then I'll go over the six things for the school committee that I'm representing you on and principal blockers here to talk about the high school and that request. So I'll turn it over to Dennis. Speaker 20: Good evening. Dennis Roach, chief Technology Officer. So the capital plan you see in front of you goes over
a number of things that are reaching its end of life. Nothing really too glamorous but I'll just give you a couple of the highlights. The biggest line item in fiscal 27 is our virtual server infrastructure. That is physical hardware and software that runs our entire school district. So all our educational programs, our security systems, a lot of dependency there end the vendors basically end of life lifeing that hardware that it runs on. So it's an opportunity that we have to replace those systems.
In addition to that we also have projector replacements going on district-wide. It's a multi-year effort and we'll be starting and fiscal 27 with the Wilson Middle School is first on the list and then we go down through all the elementary schools. The other thing for physical 27 we're looking at is replacing switches in our wiring closets. So every device that attaches to the network needs a connection to the network. We've typically deferred this many years out because a lot of the switches we get have lifetime warranties.
So there was no immediate need or desire to replace those. Some of those units have been here almost as long as I have. So we've gotten over 15, almost 20 years outta some of them and it's, it's time to start replacing them even though they have lifetime warranty, the vendor's starting to have trouble locating parts to honor that lifetime warranty. So they're starting to discontinue honoring those things. So we don't have a choice but to start doing that. Once we do the first school or two we'll collect some spare stock so if there are any kind of issues we'll be able
to stock some spare parts. Not all of these things will be recycled immediately. If there's any value in anything we have here, it would replenish our spare stock to help us until we get to all of our schools. But the whole essence of what we do from a capitalist perspective is to retire things before they become problematic and unsupported by vendors. There's another line item here to speck out a number of sound and projection systems at the high school. Keep in mind the high school opened in 2012. We've already upgraded all the classroom projectors at the
high school, but there are four specific spaces that we use for big types of events. The high school auditorium, the cafeteria, the lecture hall and the gymnasium all have some very high-end expensive sound and projection systems. The one in the auditorium has already failed and now has a loaner projector in its place until we can replace it long term within appropriate unit. And these spaces are also rentable spaces available to the public. So we want to keep them in good operating order in addition
to running of the high school. So our plan is to take advantage of the company that's currently doing the meeting spaces right now in town hall, the select board and the library. And if those experiences turn out to be as good as we expect to extend the accessibility capabilities they're building into these spaces to these other high school spaces as well. So we have consistency across the board. And last but not least, security initiatives. There's an awful lot of security initiatives we have going on. I'm not gonna get into the details in an open session
regarding these types of things, but we need regular investment each and every year for security and I would be happy at an executive session to brief you in more detail if you wish, more details on, on things like that. So I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions Ms. Collins? No, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to set up. Oh okay. Apologize Mr. Brand, Speaker 11: It wouldn't be, you know, a, a presentation for Mr. Roach. Without a question from me, just a real easy one.
My assumption is for the projector replacements that memorial would be last on the list. Speaker 20: That is correct. Speaker 11: Right. So we might not, or unless they're reusable Speaker 20: That one might fall off the list obviously as things materialize. Correct. Speaker 11: But, and but are they reusable? Like if we did end up getting there before there was a school, could we take them down and reuse them or? Oh Speaker 20: Abs, absolutely. Anything from any building much like when Johnson closed, we had a lot of equipment in there that we've taken down and reused. Great. So yes. Speaker 11: Okay. That's it. Nice and easy. Speaker 1: Okay Ms. Brunell, so
Speaker 15: These are the requests that we'll go through the town capital budget budget? Correct. Okay. So I just wanted to separate that 'cause we just spoke about the FY 27 budget for the schools, but this is a different line item. Correct. Okay. And then when I heard you talk about the, I saw one item that looked like it was actually for 2028 when I see that $500,000 or like the, when you were speaking about the auditorium and the cafe that's that's out Speaker 20: There. Yeah, like the first first part of that is to get the design right and then we have in fiscal 28 the actual
implementation. I see. Okay. Speaker 15: Thank you. Speaker 20: And and bottom line is they might help us refine those numbers further. They might go up or down depending on what capabilities get added in. Okay. In other words, they might find the sound systems might be sufficient to last but the projection systems might need to be replaced immediately. Yeah. So that would change the scope but what I priced out is estimates and replacing all of it. Speaker 15: Okay. And then last question, this is ultimately decided upon decided upon by Mr. Erickson because it's part of the town budget.
Am I correct on that? Speaker 1: It's a great question. By town Speaker 15: Meeting, you're Speaker 6: Right. Yep. By town meeting. So we have been asked originally in our original plan, I think we anticipated a vote on November 24th for this. We got an email from the town I believe today or maybe last Friday where they don't, they feel like the capitol requests that have come in exceed what will be available. And so they're going to ask us to go through a prioritization exercise again, which our cabinet is going to do this Wednesday. And then we'd love to meet, I just sent you guys the email with the budget subcommittee to kind of talk about these
and get your input for that prioritization prior to delivering it back to the town. So there's a little bit of choreography here, but ultimately that proposal Yeah. Is all funneled through the town. Speaker 15: Okay. It would be helpful to be updated on when we think about that prioritization, what was budgeted in the town FY 26 capital fund and then what the free cash number was on top of that. Because it does get a little confusing to track capital expenditures and what money's available because half the money, more than half the money comes
at a a time when we're not all looking at the budget. Do you know what I mean? It's a Speaker 18: Fair ask. Speaker 15: Okay, thank you Speaker 13: Ms. Flas And then Dr. Foxman. I like how the bottom here for per per fiscal fiscal year, it says, you know what the subtotal is that we'd expect the capital expenders to be. Do we have any historical data from the previous 'cause you know we see it's up to 5.7 down as low as 2.5. I mean do we have a historical running tally? Speaker 18: It's another fair ask noted. We will, you know, ask the town to give a, a history
of the last few years of what was appropriated and what is still available. Speaker 15: Sorry. So just to be clear, 5.7 is out of the 5.7 that's at the bottom. It they're encouraging you to reprioritize that number or for us to submit less than 5.7? Speaker 18: Well we're not the only department that submits. So all the other departments in town also have some capital requests. And what they're saying is that they don't have enough money to meet everybody's year one requests. So we need to prioritize and figure out what,
and it's not just the school. Yeah. But I believe all the departments need to prioritize and sort of make, make, make their case so to speak for what should go forward for 27, what gets deferred till 28 or 29 or or out years. Okay. I don't wanna speak for everybody, but of all the requests on there, usually there is some flexibility where things can be delayed a little bit and then there are other times where you really don't wanna roll the dice because if things break and then we can't operate the way we're supposed to operate,
you know, people would question kind of the choices made. Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell, did that answer your Speaker 15: Question? It did. Thank you. We were Kathy. So the, and the free cash has been certified so this will help. Ms. Collins is saying about 3.9 was was Yeah, 13.9. Sorry. Yeah, 14. Okay. Thank you. Makes sense. Speaker 5: So I am curious about the part, 'cause this all makes sense, but then you say, well we have to prioritize. So now we we're not gonna get all this. First of all, I'm just curious, so there's an MPS ranking column that currently has six numbers with the blue.
Is that, are those numbers just for, among those six things, like how do you price those six things and eventually it is, Speaker 18: I should probably shade that for the blue and then for for the other ones. You know, Dennis, I, we, we did talk about it, but this town hadn't requested that we prioritize yet. I, I prioritize 'cause they had asked in the last couple of years as a draft, but you know, we, we want that feedback from the, from the school committee. Speaker 5: But so for example, school furniture replacement is number one. That's just number one among those six,
not among the entire list. Correct. Yeah, that's what I was curious about. Speaker 18: Yeah, so we, we'll shade over the different priorities between the, the three school asks, which I'll, I'll deem school committee it and then school facilities because it, it is shared, but Dennis has always sure, you know, requested for the school department and then facilities is shared with the school, but they also have other things that, that roll into some of those requests or are broken out.
So we haven't met with it with all the departments yet to see how things have updated. We just, we had to submit I think by Wednesday or Thursday last week and John Marshall was pulling everything together and then, you know, sent, sent out a, a notice either Friday or Monday saying that, you know, it's more than what we have to do everything. So I still need you to prioritize. Maybe there was a little optimism that every, that we wouldn't have to prioritize, but I
Speaker 5: Yeah, no I was just mostly curious if those blue shaded things had numbers because that was on top of everything else but it wasn't, it's just, so eventually the exercise will be to go through that same ranking column for everything rather than just a blue, right? Yeah. So this is not necessarily a question for now, but just in anticipation of this kind of prioritization coming back to us as I was thinking, 'cause as soon as you mentioned prioritization, I was like, oh, what would I prioritize? I guess for me, I'm thinking about what, what's the information that would need to be able to respond or to be able to come up with my own thinking.
So for example, my two things right away are prioritizing security for students and then it says roofs. I mean, you know, that's some pretty important to have, but in neither of those situations do I know yet, you know, is security something that is maybe can wait or is the roof, you know, 10 years away from falling apart? So maybe we can't, you know, so just what is the level of, so it's not just what is the item, but also what is the level of need, you know? And if we need to go through a second session for security,
that's fine, but just to better under stand, you know? Yeah. I mean because if the elevator's about to break tomorrow and the roof can hold 30 years from now, then maybe we do the roof, the elevators first, even though Right. Technically doesn't seem like it should be a priority. So that, that's the information that would be helpful. I, I Speaker 6: Mean I think we can add when we do the exercise what our rationale is. Yeah. Which would include that. Yeah. Speaker 18: Yeah. So should we shift into the, the blue? So there were six asks and the first one, the easy one to prioritize was school furniture replacement.
I think folks understand that school furniture kind of gets replaced after the building's either really old or when it gets a renovation or new addition. And so we've got some furniture at Ren Brown that's been there since the nineties. We've got some furniture at Benham and Wilson that's been there since it opened in the early two thousands. A lot of furniture warranties are generally fif 10 or 15 years. We're well past that. At, at Lilja a couple of years ago we started having a lot of student chairs break
and when we did this two years ago, we replaced all the student chairs at Lilja because they were failing and, and having problems. And so principals usually don't complain if one or two things go, but when there starts to be a small pattern, they'll, they'll reach out. This is something that we should probably be alternating every other year. So it's, it's a recommendation and it's one of those things that seems like the town could be able to afford if you wanna move it off of number one. I understand, but numbers one, two, and three on here are all for FY 27, 4, 5
and six are in the out years. So the second one is the high school practice field at 2.4 million. I just want go over some reasons why, why it needs to be discussed. And even though there was a vote at town meeting, right, you know, per the athletic director, nothing's really changed in the, in the need for the field. We still don't have enough field space and we have to limit practices and games on that field because it isn't always in safe condition for the players to use. We do have some cost estimate and early design plans,
but to finish that, finish the design bidding and get a contract ready could take seven, eight months. And so every time we wait it makes it a little bit harder because generally this construction's gonna happen over the summer so that we're not pushing out and sort of whole programs for, for a whole season. The construction can be done over, over a, over a summer break. We could do it over a spring or a fall, but then that makes, makes things very challenging for the athletic department waiting each year per the
designers cost about 5% and town meeting made it pretty clear that they want to review this in a more inclusive open way. And so I guess I'm, I wanted to put it out there for the school committee, how do we want to proceed and as well as, since it's not just a school ask, you know, it's a, seems to be a town ask since when we're not using it. There's a lot of folks in town rec department, youth sports, like other pe you know, other groups, other users that would appreciate the space.
How do we want to do that? We'll hold questions for one more and then the last one is also kind of a joint ask with the facilities department, a resurface the Mahan field parking lot, we get a parking fee at the high school. We've been collecting it, it does pay for a little bit of morning parking lot supervision, but the, the fund's growing and anybody that's been in that parking lot knows it's, it's, it's getting pretty beat up and it'd be preferable to get it fixed. And this is something that's been deferred for two the last two years, be preferable to get it fixed
before somebody hurts their car hurts themselves in the parking lot. And I'll pause there because the other items are in the future to talk about. So do we have questions on one, two or three or discussion thoughts? Speaker 1: Ms Sure, questions from the committee? Ms. Brunell? Speaker 15: Okay, thank you. For this, for this list. I, I guess I don't, I have questions about the field and the process based on the vote, but I'd actually first like to start with the classroom expansion request at the high school. I, and I know that we haven't talked about this
before tonight, but given the numbers at the high school and what, I know people talk to me all the time that I would like to see that prioritized over other things. I don't know what, what it's gonna take. So I don't know exactly what I'm asking, you know what I mean? Like about the, about the two classrooms or four classrooms. I'm assuming you're talking about modulars at the high school. I guess I just, that that seems it's important. Speaker 18: That seems to be the initial thought. It, it would be a hard fit to get it in and ready for the start of the next school year.
It takes time to come up with plans, exploring options, things of that nature. That doesn't mean that there aren't other people that share your sentiment but I, I moved it to FY 28 because it's not that quick or that easy and there needs to be sort of some, some more analysis. But I'll, you know, we, we can talk about that one. We have the principal here as well. I did summarize in there, you know, how the building was designed and how many kids we have in there
and I think, I think at times we can fit them all and then other times it's not so easy. But GI if you want to join us Speaker 7: Thank you. Yeah, we put that in because as you all know, the building was built for about 1350 and we've now are upwards of 1650 and we've sort of hit our capacity. We're in every room, every block as you know, if you have students at the high school, the study halls canceled classes are largely in the auditorium or the cafeteria. We right now have a room that does a lot of our sort of response intervention, team intervention that has
like five different programs with barriers up in one space, which is less than ideal. And right now we're trying to do a rotating configuration for students who require separate settings for tests, just regular assessments per their IEPs and finding spaces is a challenge. And so we are, we're definitely doing an interesting Tetris puzzle right now. So as Mr. Gillis said, when the initial plan for the high school looked at, you know, what would be
the expansion plan should the high school have to expand at some point in the future? They looked at building off of the preschool through the preschool parking lot and into the preschool playground area. That's not going to be functional for the setting of a modular right now because we need that parking lot to be sustainable. And obviously the preschool needs is playground. We abut Doug Pond in the back and we would be wanting to do this without obviously taking field space. So we have a meeting set up with Deb SCH to look at the plant and walk around
and see where they could be and see what the size could be and what that would give us over time. Obviously the un the unspoken piece here is that there is, the preschool is in our building. We love having them there. It's my own personal source of joy when I need to see the littles. We do have a program where students can get a preschool certificate by doing that, but we would be obviously prior to doing this, be open to exploring if the preschool and their other plans being outlined that allow the preschool to be in another setting. It would be sad to see them go,
but it would avoid this incurring this additional cost if we could recoup that space. So that's sort of the other variable that is sort of the unspoken piece that's in this proposal is that there is sort of a cost benefit analysis. I know you spoke about Johnson earlier in that prioritization. I know memorial is a whole other conversation that's happening in parallel, but these things are sort of interwoven and I think that's part of what Mr. Gillis is talking about around it's not as easy as as ordering modulars and plunking them down because there's a lot of considerations about how where,
and there's also this piece around, but I would've been remiss if I didn't name that we need a something because we are definitely at capacity. We're sort of, we've used all the creative solutions we have to accommodate our ever expanding size. So Speaker 15: Okay, so the trade off of a hundred thousand dollars eventually what whenever it has is having more flexibility in the high school. Like I'm trying to think like what is the a hundred thousand dollars eventually buy us, right? It buys us space at the high school so that you, you're not playing the Tetris,
there's potentially you have an actual study hall happening instead of all the kids in the auditorium kind of thing. It also, it sounds like the modulars are maybe not doable because of space could Speaker 7: We're, we're doing, we're doing an analysis of that that's sort of a, a project that's in the works right now is analyzing where would they be, what would be the maximum size, what would that get us, what would that cost us? So we're outlining all of that now just to have it in our back pocket around Yeah. What it would look like. But I sat down with,
with my admin team and we really looked at like, do we have any other nooks and crannies we could expand? And I mean Dennis and I talked last year about could we get rid of three book rooms and knock down the walls to make a classroom, right? And so at every place we sort of came up against, there would be a large cost at changing things then there's a cost at modulars and then there's the other costs that I'm not aware of that exist with transferring the preschool to various other settings. That's
Speaker 15: What that was. My next question is what would it cost to rent space to get the preschool out of there sooner than later or what? Speaker 18: So I, I mean that's where the a hundred thousand dollars like placeholder for next year is to help us study all these options like capital budgets were, were due, this was an ask and not one that we could flush out in a matter of a couple of weeks to finalize for FY 27. Speaker 6: I'd also add, this is the first time the school committee is seeing this on a capital plan. So it's a fairly new idea and the reason it's not in next year, even though we all feel that urgency is
because we need to be diligent about not only the proposal that's on the table but all the other, let's say other options that might be possible. Yeah. And it affects a lot of people. The preschool's very much on our mind for so many reasons. Yeah. Memorial Johnson, you mentioned the mo, you said it so eloquently. So I think our point in putting this on the capital plan is that we're out of space. We know we need more space. This is a short term ish solution, but honestly also to start the narrative in a formal space
that that high school's too small and putting it on the capital plan really memorializes that and doesn't make it go away anytime soon. But we do need some time to get the voice of this committee and you know, a lot of other smart people thinking about it. But that's why we put it on right now to be transparent. No, I appreciate it and we appreciate your questions. We just don't have all the answers quite yet. Speaker 7: Okay, Ms. Collins. Speaker 14: Thank you. Our parking lots, like roads pretty much in the Mr Chenard used to do a, a visual that looked like it came out of shell Silverstein where it would, it would drop, it would drop, it would drop
and then it would fall off the cliff because you got to a point where it wasn't just the top you had to do, you had to go all the way down to the bottom and do it. And I'm just trying to understand like the cost of postponing doing a parking lot Speaker 18: To some extent, yes, but usually people don't let them get quite that bad where you're generally, you got about six inch, five to six inches of pavement and the top couple of inches are what get removed and replaced and the subbase generally stays,
but if they, if if they get too cracked and the water gets in freezes and expands, freezes and expands, freezing expands, then other things get pushed around and you wind up having to do it costs you a lot more to do it. So yes, you're right, but usually it people are, are damaging their cars and complaining before you get to that point. Speaker 14: I can remember one particular tank trap that I fell in a couple of graduations ago, so it's not that new a problem. And in terms of the field, Speaker 12: Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 14: I've heard different scenarios and about funding this and I'm just wondering is this truly in the capital plan or is this capital which needs to be appropriated but coming from a different source other than capital expenses? Speaker 18: I think that's a pretty fair question and I, I can't, I can't say what other partners or funding sources would be there, but generally when you have more groups partnering up and contributing to something that tends
to accelerate the chances of it getting done sooner rather than later and more people happy with it. Speaker 14: Okay. I ask what I'm, I'm wondering, you talked about the prioritization and, and I don't, I'm just trying to understand how this, that, how it plays in, in this instance if, you know, so Speaker 18: I, I didn't take that into account, but I did take into account that we did a, a, a early study analysis and preliminary design with a cost estimate for the field with options for different field materials as well as natural grass like cost options.
So we have that information but it's getting to determine what do we really want and when do we want it done and pay for it is kind of like the next question instead of letting it hang out there. So I put the, the whole amount on there, it, it could very well be less from the, the taxpayers and I think it's, it's it's multiple stakeholders participating in how we proceed. Speaker 1: Yes. So Ms. Collins, after town meeting,
there was such a robust discussion about the need for fields. I mean there was this discussion about the advisory moratorium that really devolved into, you know, multiple stakeholders, multiple town meeting members, really acknowledging that we don't have enough field space in town Speaker 14: Granted. Right. Speaker 1: No argument. So I think that's, that's that's the, you know, we, it had originally fallen off the plan for this year because of lack of funds. But now given this idea that there may be increased need, I think we, we want to entertain the idea of perhaps partnering with the town on this. And I don't know Dr. Bash if you wanna speak to that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can say a little bit more to that. The way that the submission system works for capital, only one department enters the ask and so we agreed with the town that we would put it in because it's historically been listed under the schools. That said, I feel like given the discussion at town meeting, given the questions around ultimately who pays for this field, it is absolutely not just a school endeavor to me. And that's being sort of initiated from my understanding by what might be sort of a stakeholder group that sort of advises the future of this.
And so although we submitted, Mr. Gillis submitted it under the schools because that's where it's historically been. I actually even today wrote to Jamie and I've Mr. Erickson and I've actually spoken with him to say I really want this to be published in the external facing documents that get listed on the town site is a shared item between the school and the town. And so that's what I've been advocating for heavily and I do have, you know, let's say informal agreement around that to, so to the extent you agree and wanna discuss that more widely, I really think it's important for people to see it that way. And, Speaker 14: And that's kind of where I was going with my trying
to understand with my questions is I don't wanna be in a position where they say, well the schools can have this much money and of that 2.4 is for this field because it's not just a school expense. I don't want us to bargain a to say that that's part of our requirement when we're discussing what we need in capital is part of the town of which we are a part is my editorialization there. Speaker 6: I have the same thinking and I also have thinking around the use of those fields, like it's way, it's far more than just the schools. Yeah. And so to,
and obviously there's a desire for more voice, which I think is something Natick is great at and sometimes it might slow us down, but we do appreciate voice and community opinion and so to me I wanna honor that and how it's presented and and how the decisions get made. Also, it's a lot of work and if that's all only on the schools, that's also a good chunk of our time and I'm frankly concerned about it. Speaker 14: I'm set. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Yep. Mr. Patel and then I do see someone online, but we'll go to Mr. Patel first. Speaker 19: I just wanna add on to the conversation. So it seems to me from town meeting
and this discussion today that the town is failing to meet three critical needs, right? Clearly the fields preschool and afterschool care and it seems sort of obvious that maybe reclaiming Johnson for educational school purposes to meet these needs would go a long way to address a lot of those concerns. So I mean I agree with Dr. Pash and how she mentioned earlier that we need from the school side, I think we need Johnson for preschool and afterschool and it would maybe go some way towards the fields too.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Patel for that. I, I think that the, the, I think there are two separate issues in terms of Johnson is a space that's not under school authority anymore and that there are these I agree, I agree with you. I think we all agree that there's these town wide needs for after school care, before school care that, that we're also discussed at various forums. And the Johnson workshop that I attended and you attended that was, that was talked about quite a bit. So I think there's a lot of partnering that we have to work towards here with the town on what the needs are
and you know, how, how to achieve them. But yeah, I I wish we had a magic button where we could just push it and get everything fixed in one, one go. My Speaker 19: And it should, should be noted. Right. But MSBA doesn't consider the town needs. Right. With as, as Dr. Pash mentioned that if they do reimburse for pre-K it will be only memorial needs not town needs. And we know obviously the high school needs that pre-K space at the high school. So Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I see Dr. Fon. Speaker 5: Yeah. The question related to that, I actually was,
I meant to ask you before, but then we switched conversations so, but I'll go back to it. To what extent is the challenge of meeting the afterschool care and pre and af before school care a matter of space versus staffing? I mean I'm sure it's both, but I'm just curious if we had more space magically, whether it's Johnson or whether it's whatever. 'cause I'm just cu I'm just curious like to what extent is it, is it actual space or staff? Speaker 6: Do you wanna start Mr. Gillis? Speaker 18: Sure. I think initially it's staffing because we, we could have
some more kids in pretty much all the buildings as we've got some space, whether it's classroom space or gym space or art room, whatever. But if we don't, if we can't get the staff to supervise the kids, then we can't expand the, the program. I'll defer to the superintendent. Speaker 6: I think he's right. I would say staffing. I also think that the afterschool needs of a community aren't only owned by the schools. Yeah. Yeah. And so I want to make sure, and I think we deliver fabulous and competitive afterschool and before school care. It's an excellent program.
I don't know that we'll ever have the capacity and the staffing to do it for the whole town. So that's a, I actually anticipate this coming up when we do our long-term plan and our strategic plan because it came up in my entry plan. But to answer your question very simply it's staffing in my opinion. Speaker 5: Yeah. And I don't want anyone interpreting my question as not being in support of you, the recommendation to use Johnson Space for after school. I just wanna be realistic that even if we get the space, it's more than just a space that we would have to tackle. Speaker 18: So are we, are we gonna migrate
through the the last couple? Give a hand up if you want. Sorry. Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. Actually Ms. Vickers, I'm gonna hold your question for now 'cause we do have a couple of other agenda items to get through and we have a presenter who needs to leave at 8 45. So if we have time we'll come back to you. Speaker 18: So just moving backwards before we get to the good news. Number five for fiscal 31 long range facilities master plan, an updated enrollment study. Again this is a placeholder. We could do this a bit sooner. I wouldn't recommend doing it before we finish the preferred option for the new memorial. It's just, you kinda get pieces of the puzzle in
and anywhere I've been or anywhere I've seen the the, the new school, the one that's a few years older or less really isn't gonna change. When you have a a new master plan, the master plan is gonna factor in everything else kind of around your, your new space. So you design the, the right space for your programs for that, that building and whatever else you might be taking on that, that fits under that roof. And then you kind of revise your master plan there afterwards. And then the last one is new memorial school. This is really just an update so everybody understands
then MSBA a's feasibility and schematic design fan could, could take us between 20 and 28 months. It's their schedule where we've got things that we need to iron out and that's kind of why there's that eight month range. 'cause not everybody is, has got the same amount of options to do so. And then once we do, it looks like FY 29 is when we would bring the preferred option before the voters with a, a price tag and renderings and the, the program, you know, how many sections, how many different small classrooms, how many art rooms,
like all that stuff would be factored into being able to get a, a good price and we'd be updated then. So that's sort of the good news, but I just did it in chronological order of when we'd likely to be asked. Although the long range facilities master plan could be done sooner if the committee is interested with all the other things on the list. It just didn't move to the, shouldn't be taken off the list, but it just didn't move to the top for me at this point. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Gils. Any other questions on the other capital plan priorities? Ms. Brunell, are
Speaker 15: We able to get a copy of the community? What was it called? Kathy? Community Engagement survey. Yeah, the C community engagement survey. Will that ever be presented to the school committee? It wasn't something that the schools did. It was something the town did a few years ago. Was something else. Was the human services human? Yes. Thank you. Human resources or Human services. We can invite them. I think we should the, like that's, I've never seen that publicly presented, so I would like to see that. Speaker 1: I don't think it has been publicly presented. Speaker 15: I'd like to request that the school committee receive that at a meeting this year. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll reach out to the select board chair.
Speaker 15: Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, can we move on from capital? So this is gonna be coming back to us many times and we're, we'll be having a vote either at the meeting on the 24th or the first meeting in December on what we're going to put forth as our priorities. So we'll have two more meetings potentially to discuss this. So I think we have a good, good start. So I'm gonna turn things over now to Mr. Brand for policy subcommittee. Speaker 11: So thank you. So the, there are three policies that were on our agenda tonight. Two of them are second reads.
So, and the those two we have on the agenda to vote. The second one, graduation requirements is contingent. Doesn't make sense to vote on it until we vote on the first one. That's why they're in that order. So I, I don't know if we have anything, this is a second read. So we talked about this at our last meeting. I don't know if we have anything, Ms. Palone, you wanna say anything about it or principal blocker? You wanna say anything about it? I Speaker 15: Don't think Speaker 21: There's anything to say. This is a requirement of Desi. Speaker 15: Microphone, microphone, microphone. Speaker 4: I don't think there's anything to add beyond
what we discussed at our last meeting. This is a requirement from desi. They made changes as a result of removing the MCAS requirement. We have to Speaker 15: Prove Speaker 4: Competency and mastery. And Mrs. Blocker and Dr. Cole harms worked very diligently with their department heads and their guidance team to come up with the requirements. They've worked also collaboratively with their job alikes across the Commonwealth to be fairly in line with other districts.
There are a few differences because not every town uses finals or other means of measurement for mastery, but this is the second read. So unless there are questions, Speaker 15: Move approval. Move approval of new policy. IKFE. Competency, determination. Second. Speaker 1: Any questions or discussion? All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining. So have new policy. 7 0 0 is the vote.
Speaker 11: So the the next one, graduation requirements. If that is just a policy that refers to the new IKFE that we just voted to approve, to Speaker 13: Move approval of the revision to policy IKF graduation requirements. Speaker 1: Any discussion? All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining again, vote 7, 0, 0. Alright, thank you. Work. Speaker 11: All right, so the, the last one is the career technical education, which we talked about
at the last meeting as well. Now we have a policy. Ms. Palone, do you want to say anything about this one? That's a good statement on this one. On the process left. Speaker 4: Yes. So this is a requirement from DESI that was handed down to us. I emailed you all last week to let you know that we did receive the extension in, Because this was actually due on November 1st, which was a very tight turnaround to be able to get it in front of you for two reads. First of all, build it, then get it in front of you for two reads for submission.
So we did get the extension. So we built this CTE policy. Just as a reminder, this is a requirement to ensure that every student has the opportunity to explore all pathways before they move into high school so that they know what all of their options are as they move through our system. And to know what their options are, whether it's to go to Natick High School or to go to a career technical high school and to explore what their passion areas are,
what their strength areas are while they're still in middle school. And so that en encompasses the opportunities to learn about the career technical high schools that we have in our area, as well as to provide them with lessons related to career exploration. So currently we're using My cap, which is a DSI recommended curriculum, and we start that in seventh grade. So this policy outlines all of those pieces. It also has a requirement that we come back
and review this policy every three years. Our students actually visited Keef Tech on Friday. They had a wonderful time. And the other piece to know is that while it is a requirement, it's also a requirement that Keef Tech pay for our students to go and visit them. So this is at no expense to us any career technical high school is required to also have a policy which talks about what their application processes are and how they are going to host and encourage students to explore their opportunities.
Speaker 13: Ms. Lathers, I think you said this last time, but just remind me and I know that it's different 'cause it's not ours, but the, the Aggie's not mentioned at all. Speaker 4: The Aggie's not mentioned because they are not within our districting, but it, any school that a student may explore that does not fall within our area, the students can go and visit and that would not count as an absence. And we would also support making sure their records get to that, to that school and that we support them through the application process.
That's a requirement of the policy. Speaker 13: And is that, is that it? Is that in there you mentioned, okay, remember that part? Speaker 11: So I think tech, Speaker 4: So under under three it says middle school CTE score towards, it says student participation in CTE tours will not be counted as an unexcused absence. It doesn't specify what schools it's, it says the first bullet. General. Yep. Speaker 11: So we don't have an action item for this. And I think even though we talked about it, the last one, this is probably technically our first reading of it. Correct. So maybe our next meeting we could vote this
and we'll be ahead of our extended deadline. That Speaker 4: Would be wonderful. Yeah. And just so everyone is aware, in order to get the extension, we had to create a timeline plan for this year. So all of this is well underway and our timeline will maintain for years to come. So like I said, the kids have already visited the school, they've already heard about the opportunities. And as soon as the application process starts, our guidance counselors will be supporting them. We already have a list of students that intend to apply
to either Keef Talk or to the Aggie. And we're already in the works with that. So I already have a list of names of students who intend to apply and we're supporting that process. Speaker 2: Great. Speaker 13: I see. Questions Mr. Patel. And then Ms. Brunell, Speaker 19: Just a curiosity question. Do they come and do a presentation first? Like how would a student know about Keep Tech without going to a field trip at this first thing? Speaker 4: Yeah, so our guidance counselors provide the education around that through collaboration with the Keef tech counselors.
And then they, the entire grade level goes and they have prior to going, they learn about all of the different career opportunities and then they get to select what they'd like to visit when they go there. And then our counselors actually on Friday, some of the counselors who weren't chaperoning the field trip and taking them to ke, we actually had some who attended an event at Aggie so that they could learn more about that program and come back and educate our students about that.
Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell, Speaker 15: I was just curious if anything has changed based on the, this policy changing or we just doing everything that we've already done. 'cause it already fit into the policy. Speaker 4: Everything that we've already done fit into the policy, which was great. We were actually quite a few steps ahead of many other districts because we had already been implementing the My CCAP program. So a lot of schools have been trying to now piece that in, but we were ahead. So that was the biggest change for a lot of districts that I've talked to because they hadn't been
implementing that piece. But the rest of it was already things that we were doing. Speaker 22: Okay, Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. We'll look forward to having that come back to us next time. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: So then I just want to, I see we still have our member of the public online. Was that everything from you, Mr. Brand? Okay. Ms. Vickers, did you have a quick question or comment? Speaker 22: Yes. Thank you. Brenda Vickers precinct. I just to go back to the capital conversation and the field, I just wanted to say I attended the select board meeting two weeks ago
where they brought this up again and previous school committee member, Ms. McDonough was there as well, speaking for public speak about the importance of field and the select boards spoke about their interest in putting together the advisory committee that was suggested by the, the moratorium conversation on turf fields and the wish to have expediency with that with all of the stakeholders. So I, I do hope that there is a conversation
between you guys and the select board for that. I do think that it was a significant vote from town meeting expressing interest in not having a turf field and as you already said, and also a significant interest in doing that field. As a sports parents myself, I also have an interest in that field being done. And so I do hope that there is a way to work with the select board and have this conversation so that we aren't waiting another year for the cycle
and that perhaps we can have a more thorough conversation about what a, a natural grass field would look like, so that it's not costing the town so much because I, I do think there is an extreme concern regarding the money. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Vickers. Okay, one last motion. Motion Speaker 22: To adjourn. Speaker 1: All in favor. Okay. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody.