Speaker 1: We have a guest who will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I Speaker 2: The flag of the United States of America Speaker 1: And see the republic Speaker 2: For which it stands, nation under God, indivisible of three, industrial Speaker 1: All. And take that moment to honor our troops who are sing us here and abroad. So go to announcements. Any announcements not related to championship soccer players? Sorry. Yes, Dr. Staff, I have a very brief one that came in after we posted the agenda on Friday.
We learned and we, I wanted to let the committee know that the MSBA board will meet on Friday, December 12th at 10:00 AM and Memorial School is on the agenda to vote the feasibility study phase. This meeting is earlier than we expected. We thought it would be in the spring, which is encouraging news for our timeline. And as a reminder, this is really an important step, but not a final project approval. And it will require continued collaboration with the NSBA. But this is great news. Wonderful, thank you. So now we'll go to public speak. 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 any 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 the statement. We have nobody in the room. Nobody emailed me in advance. There's no one online. So, we'll now close public speak and we will go out of order a little bit and we will turn things over to Dr. Stash. Good evening everyone. It's my great pleasure and immense pride to welcome our high school varsity boys and girls soccer teams and their coaches to tonight's school committee meeting
as we recognize their extraordinary season and remarkable accomplishments. This year, our student athletes made history. This is only the second time in Massachusetts, division one Scholastic sports history. The both the boys and the girls soccer teams from the same school have won state championship ships in the same season and on the same field. By the way, this is a truly exceptional achievement for Natick high school athletics. In a moment of great pride for the entire NAT community, I also want to extend heartfelt thank yous to Natick Youth Soccer for the foundation and support they
provided for the players over the years. I love looking at Instagram and seeing so many of you on teams from your youth that was really cool and speaks to the power of that, those soccer organizations in town. The success we're celebrating tonight is the culmination of many seasons of dedication, coaching, and community involvement. Thank you as well to NHS Administration, our teachers and staff, our students and coaches in this school committee for the ongoing support you provided to our programs and most importantly to our student athletes. Your encouragement and part and partnership help make accomplishments like this possible. So at this time, I'm pleased to invite
NHS assistant principal, Dr. Erica Cole harms to share a few words on behalf of the team there at the high school and help us to recognize these outstanding teams. Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm so proud of you guys. So I am here on behalf of Principal Blocker, also our athletic director, Tim Collins, and our assistant athletic director, Matthew Custodial, just to introduce the amazing teens that we have here and the support that they have. So our girls soccer program is led by the Varsity Co-coach
and NHS teachers, Carrie Ann Daley and Denise Tribiano. Our JV coach is our NHS Assistant Athletic Director. Matt Custodio, the ninth grade coach and NHS teacher Lynn Talia. This year, as we've said, the team won the 2025 Massachusetts Division one State Championships. The girls soccer program has had a historic 10 year run, highlighted by the team winning three of the last five Division I state championships 20 21, 20 23, and 2025. Excuse me. Joining our coaches are our captains, Lydia
and Nicole Preya and Abby McCauley and their teammates. Can we give them a round of applause? Our boys soccer program is led by Varsity Coach and NHS teacher, Danny Joseph, assistant Varsity coach and NHS alum, Josh Arno, JV coaches, and NHS teacher Iver Ford and the ninth grade coach and Ben Hem elementary school teacher, Jack Moriarty. The team won the 2025 Division one State Championships for the first time in school history and in dramatic fashion, having a win, having to win two of the five games in overtime
and double overtime on the path to the state championships. Joining our coaches here tonight are our captains, Luke Dockery, Brady Esta, Luca Avila, and their teammates. Dr. Sp already thanked the Natick Youth Soccer Organization, but it would, I, I just would like to express our thanks to them as well as well as the Central Administration School Committee and NHS in general for all of the support. So thank you guys so much. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. And now, Mr. Bruno. Okay, so if you'll indulge me, I've known many of you since Kinder Kick, so I just wanted to say on behalf
of the committee, congratulations. If you guys, if you could put the camera back on the players for just a second. I have a couple questions for you First, and these are just simple. If you did kinder kicks, can you raise your hand? Be impressive. How many of you played in the Natick Fall Classic or when you were little? It was called the Natick Columbus Day Soccer Tournament. Almost everyone raising their hand. How many of your parents coached you over the years? Yep. And how many of your parents volunteered at the tournament or brought orange slices to a game? So I did bring orange slices for you in the back of the,
the back of the room for one final celebration of orange slices here in Natick. Although maybe some of you'll play Bay Spring Bay season this spring. 'cause I think you probably you can. Now, I just wanna say that much like Dr. Stash and Dr. Cole harms just shared, this really is a community celebration and having the privilege and just the excitement of being able to be in the parade on the way home as a fan with some of your biggest fans in the car riding behind you and watching the police and fire pick you up at the Dairy Queen
and bring you into town. As one of your parents said to me the next day was one of my proudest moments in Natick. Not just because you won, but because you had an entire town behind you. And you, both of your teams have overcome a lot in the times that you have been playing soccer. There are times ahead of you where you're gonna have to overcome things. And I hope you rely on this experience in high school to know that you can dig in, you can work hard, and you can really achieve things that you were not expecting to achieve. I know the girls have had so much success, but nobody thought you included thought at the end
of the season you were gonna be holding that state championship TR trophy and you did the boys. The tra the program has been transformed and it does not surprise me that most two, not just two, but many of our most beloved teachers at the high school are your coaches. So for a committee that is invested in a sense of belonging to me, that showed as both of your teams held up trophies with people beside you that you deeply respect and that deeply care about you. To me this is a moment where the system worked. We had parents and coaches and teachers and volunteers
and kids that all cared about the same thing. Not about winning, but about development. And for you proving who you were at all the times on the field. So I just wanna highlight that for you. And one more thing. You know, when we came into the high school, literally it was like a moment that you could write about in a book The Sun was setting behind the high school. Somebody tipped off Representative Linsky there, you were met by the state representative ready to invite you down to the State House. I just asked you again if that was something you'd be interested in. It sounds like the teams are interested in that. So we don't want this celebration to end for you again, not
because of the trolley, but because of all of that, it's signifies for you hoping that this will be a metaphor for you as you continue in your lives. Some of you are gonna continue to go on and play sports at the division one level. Some of you are gonna end up like the rest of us did in rec leagues, adult leagues. You know, you can be athletes for life and make healthy choices. You can become coaches for your own kids one day or in your own towns. You can volunteer in your school committees. The things that you learned on the team are everything that makes a town great. And it's just been such an honor as a parent, as a friend
of your parents, as a, I literally like the biggest fan that Saturday I've attended the World Cup. In 1994 I saw the women's team beat Germany and Canada. The Saturday, the two teams won the state championship was the most exciting day in sports that I've ever seen. Mostly because of my relationship with all of you. Knowing what you've put in. It's just, I'm so proud of you and I just hope that you don't stop here, that you continue to be champions. We are Natick a town of champions. So keep doing it and keep showing up. Thank you and congratulations.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Anybody else like to speak on this topic following that? So thank you guys so much. I'd like to just take a five minute recess so that we could take some pictures if that's okay. But thank you guys so much for coming today. Really excited to have you here. Okay, we are back from recess and we'll now move to another agenda on this. Okay, when you're ready, we also can go. Dr. Cole Harms is gonna stay and discuss the donation memo
letter to the school committee. And then in the consent agenda if you a field trip. So if you did choose to pull any of those, that would be good to do that pushed please. Okay. But we can do it in whatever order you want. Okay. So then let's go to the consent agenda as possible. Have a motion for that move to approve the consent agenda. Second. All in favor. 6, 0 0. So through the chair, if you want, I can start in on the donation memo, letter to school committee, and Dr. Harm full harm. You can cover that. Okay, welcome and thanks. Come on up.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Two times in one night. This is exciting. The evening for me. So the second reason that I'm here is to highlight the generous gift from an anonymous donor to support the students at Natick High School. Before I begin, I, I would like to just recognize while not present in per in person, many important partners were here in spirit and I think it's important to acknowledge them too. Principal Joseph Blocker, our athletic director, Tim Collins, assistant athletic director, Matthew Custodio, science Department Chair Dan Amp, our PTSO President,
Chris Therian, and our athletic department administrative assistant, Robin Blain. As you may remember, last year, an anonymous private donor contacted the Natick High School PTSO, with the intention of supporting both Natick athletes and our STEM programs through a generous three-part donation totalling $250,000. Last summer, the school committee approved the first installment of just over $110,000. Since then, Natick High School has used these funds to purchase robotics equipment, STEM classroom resources, and apparel and gear for our fall athletic teams.
The donor has now offered the second installment of a hundred thousand dollars. We are requesting the committee's approval to accept and allocate this next portion of the tion to continue strengthening our STEM initiatives and our athletic programs at Natick High School. Speaker 1: Thank you. Any questions from the committee Speaker 5: Knowledge? Speaker 1: Could we have a motion to approve acceptance of this donation? So on the agenda, we'll have to improvise language, Speaker 4: Move to approve the donation on the December 8th school committee meeting as presented
by Dr. Cole Harms. Speaker 1: Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Anyone against anyone? Abstaining. Right. Accepted. Six. Thank you very much, Dr. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And on the record, I just wanna say what a rare and powerful gift and, and we feel incredibly thankful for it and responsible for spending it very, very wisely. And I'm sure we'll be looping back to give the story of that. But it's a great validation in the first gift and how it was spent, which is I think what
inspired the donor to continue the funding. So very, very, very grateful. Okay, so thank you for indulging our change of order of agenda items. So we'll now loop back to updates. So we'll start with our teacher Update You wish. Thank you Madam Chair. I don't have anything to offer at this particular time. Thank you. And our student representative, max. Okay. Do we have, okay. No one representative. Okay. D Alright.
Okay. Mr. Superintendent's report. There are two more items on my report and I'm going to hand it over to deputy superintendent Susan Baloni, who will give us an update on the professional development day that we held last Monday. And was organized by her team, run by her team where all of our staff attended. And so she, there's a memo attached and she will give you the highlights, but very proud of you and your team and the wonderful day you sponsored on Monday. Speaker 4: Thank you. Yeah. So last Monday we had our full day professional development, which was our Mills Day Natick Innovation and Learning Summit.
It was a full day that started with a keynote speaker, Carrie staff from Yes. And she came in and talked to the staff for about an hour. It's a lot of humor. And brought an uplifting message to our staff, which was the feedback there was that it was very positive, uplifting a lot of humor. People left that session and stopped me in the hallway and told me how wonderful it was. We did. In the memo, you'll see that we did give all staff a survey.
We gave it to them just before the end of the day. So they had an opportunity to fill it out before leaving. And on a scale of one to four, they rated her at 3.6, which tells us that they found it very positive. From there, there were three one hour sessions that staff had the opportunity to select. From. On the second page of that memo, you'll see that every session that they could choose from was directly aligned to our district priorities. And so staff had the opportunity
to select from those four areas. Many of these sessions were actually presented by our staff, but we also brought in folks from outside of Natick Public Schools, whether they were vendors of ours, or Dr. Ferguson brought in some providers to give sessions on district priority number one, psych safety or social emotional learning. Ms. Miller also brought in folks to present things related to instructional excellence and support systems. So there was actually three one hour sessions
directly targeted to our para professional staff, which was excellent. We also brought in Lynch Leadership Academy from Boston College to work with our building and district leaders for a three hour session, which was great. They actually said that they wanted more of Lynch leadership, so we'll be working with 'em to bring in more of that. So overall, the experience I think was positive. The overall rating for the workshop sessions was 3.1, so I'll give that as a win.
Some of the feedback was that the sessions were too short. Some of the feedback was the sessions were too long, so, you know, we'll, we'll work through that. And there was an appetite from reading through the feedback that they, they wanna see more alignment in cohesion connected to the district priorities as well as the school improvement plan. So that's something that we've already started talking about. You know, meals day ends at three o'clock on Monday, and at three 30 we're already talking about what the next meals day will look like.
So we really wanna to think about how, now that we're really focused on the school improvement plans being really targeted to each building community, how we can meet the needs of each individual building through our full day professional development. So those are things that we're already talking about as we start planning for next year. Any questions? What was the feedback about the EIN speaker? Sorry, we can talk offline. Any questions for mc? Biddy, miss Brunell, I just got some feedback from parents
about the day, the, the day being off the day after than, or the week after Thanksgiving. So I was cur, I know that we're not talking about the calendar feedback to, for committee members, to source with people that you know, or to invite anybody in the community to speak to us about that day off. There are some districts that now take more days off before Thanksgiving. I, you know, this calendar, Julie, I didn't know you were gonna be here. I didn't know I was gonna say this, but this calendar will continue to be, you know, something we're gonna have to work hard at in the coming years.
And so I am curious about choosing the day after Thanksgiving to be another day that people have off. Frankly, I was ready for my children to go back to school. Thanks. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can start on that. Sue has more history because I think this has been the day that it's fallen on before the exception is when there's a voting day where it moves into September. But I think it's something we can, honestly, as a superintendent, I'm indifferent of. Whether it's the day after Thanksgiving or is the day earlier, front loaded PD is important. So assume I feel differently and we haven't discussed it,
but it is important to keep our families needs. We probably have 50% of the people who loved it and 50% who didn't. I don't think it's a matter of consensus. I think there's probably some strategy in the timing, but voice matters. So, so if the, you know, if it's something that there's an overwhelming feeling around that day, it's not a hard thing to change. But we do need the PD day, whether it's then or whether it's early. Speaker 4: I can also speak to that. We actually had a working group around Nils, the timing of it with members of the staff.
And we talked about whether or not it was something that we wanted to do before the start of the school year, or if it later in the year was better. And overwhelmingly it came back to that was that, that that timing worked the best for people before the start of the school year. It was really hard because they're ready to focus on the students who are coming into the room and getting ready for the start of the school year and welcoming their students. And then later in the year is the time where they're really focused on, you know, middle
of the year assessments and you know, the end of the first semester moving into the second semester. So the January timing is really hard. And the overwhelming feeling was that that was the perfect timing because they have their feet under them, they're on a roll now, they're ready to start learning some new strategies in order to inform the rest of the school year for 'em. But again, always open to conversation and suggestions and thoughts. And obviously we want our family
collaboration on this and what works for 'em. I, that day has been in place for many years and I believe before I was in this role that there had been an analysis of attendance. Obviously we can't do that now because it's been so long that that day has been placed. But that, that Monday after Thanksgiving was always a lower attendance. I can't speak to whether that is accurate or not at this point. Speaker 1: Thank you for that perspective, Ms. Albo. Any other Speaker 4: Questions or comments from Good, Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 4: Okay, Speaker 1: Moving on to the last item on my report.
We attached really something for the school committee to take a look at. It's not yet ready to share because we're waiting on a QR code. That would be something that, you know, I, last time we were here and talking about the strategic plan, there was the desire for a one pager that sort of explained what we're, what it is, who we're engaging, why we're doing it. So this is what we came up with and we actually cleared it through TLA, which is our consultant. We're working with that Dr. Ner was part of the editing and creation of this. So we feel like this is a great draft. We're open to feedback as we kind of, the last step we have
to do, unless the committee has additional feedback, would be to add the QR code. So other than that, I think we just wanna make sure that we're handing you a document that when you do your engagement, you'll be able to use, the one thing here with that QR code is that the, it's really for a survey window in January, it's pretty clear, but if people try to get on it right away, we'll probably have something on the landing page that says, this opens on this day. So that might be something when you're handing it out to people to explain. But otherwise we're gonna do quite a bit of communication
around it through caregiver emails later this week through staff emails, through student emails. So we're well on our way to kind of getting this thing launched and we're grateful for the partnerships. So we wanted to get you the one pager. Thank you. Any comments or questions from the committee? Dr. Fugman? Speaker 6: I'll wait until the subcommittee, 'cause maybe this is a better SUBC updates, but now that we have the flyer, which I think is great that just 'cause I provide feedback, it was great
before I provide any feedback. But this really, this really captures in a very concise and very clear way, sorry, what this project is about and how people can be engaged. So now that gives us something very real, very concrete to plan our community engagement activities on. So I'll wait till then till we get to there to that element of the agenda. But just wanted to preview as, as we're looking at this, how, what are some ideas we might generate to get this out to the community?
Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell, Speaker 4: Can I just make a suggestion that if this, the survey is not gonna be open until January, that instead of a QR code to the survey, maybe there's a QR code to RSVP to one of those events. So then people get an email that reminds them my, my biggest fear is January 26th and 27th is gonna come so fast and you're not gonna get public participation that you want in on those days. And Natick always shows up, it always surprises me, but like right now things are flying at people so fast
that I just really wanna make sure people know that they should hold those dates in their calendar to come to those sessions if they're interested in Speaker 1: The, Speaker 4: You know, so Speaker 1: I can, so great suggestion. We haven't even thought through the kind of lists we're gonna do for that invite or even whether we have a QAA place, a landing place that would then start do the logistic logistical piece you're talking about. Okay, so I'm gonna take it as a suggestion, just see if we can't operationalize it. I forgot to mention that the reason the, it's very simple
to make a QR code. The reason we don't have one, we have one to the templated survey we received, but it's very important to us. We have 60 different languages spoken in town and we wanted to make sure that we could readily translate it. And so Sue is working on moving this over to thought exchange where that's an easier process for the end user, which is our families. And so that's the reason for the delay is just we wanna get that. And we had a meeting, you had a meeting today with the team there. Speaker 4: I didn't make it to that meeting, but the, they typically use a different platform that requires translation outside
of the survey platform where we use Thought exchange, which allows you to translate within the platform, which is much easier for the end user to just click a button and have it translate automatically for them. So I'm pushing 'em to actually use our platform. So there was a meeting today, I just didn't make it to the meeting due to conflict. So they're putting the survey into our platform into cloud exchange so that our end users will have the capability without any issues to be able to translate.
So then any of our parents will have easy access to that survey. I think that's excellent. I think that we're probably gonna get more parents involved and I appreciate you taking it. I, you know, as a, as a suggestion, I think you're, we're gonna have more people attend if they actually are SVP. Speaker 1: No, I hear you. I just don't know how to answer it for you. Okay. Right now. So I don't think it's, I I don't think there's any reason we can't do that. Okay. It's not my forte. So for me to be able to kind of know where it's gonna land on the website, know how it's gonna communicate back and hold a spot. Yeah, I just need to work on that
and that, by that I mean we, the whole team, so Okay. Yes, we're taking as as a suggestion, but a very reasonable one and one that you're just ahead of us. Okay. Speaker 4: Thank you. Nobody's ever said that to me on the school committee. Speaker 1: Any other comments on the flyer itself? I just wanna thank you guys very much for putting this together. So be super helpful for us and I really like Dr. Ton's suggestions I think should move right into discussion about community engagement and discuss how we're gonna use this. You want to lead us off on that Dr. Fix right now? Speaker 6: Yeah. Oh sure.
We're gonna do the, oh, sorry. Sure. So I know that, I think I know that we originally had two separate goals that were both about community engagement and there were two separate teams that met to discuss community engagement. We merged the goals back. I think both groups generated a lot of great ideas. I know ours did. And so this might be a good opportunity for us to just brainstorm ideas. I'm happy to take the lead in terms of taking notes, I mean I know obviously my grad's taking notes too, but just to take notes about specific action steps
so we can all take, so the ones that I know we've already discussed before, I know Mr. Looked into the farmer's market, we talked about the New Year's Eve on the Rail Trail event. We can organize the table as we've had in the past. This obviously could go there. So we talked about social media. So obviously there's the regular Facebook forums on Facebook. So I don't know if you just wanna generate ideas. The one thing I will say is as we're thinking about how to engage the community, I like to just emphasize
who is the community, the NA Public schools community. So we're talking about educators, all educators, whether they live in the town or not, are part of the NA public school community. Obviously all students are part of the community, whether they live in NAIC or in Boston through the Mecca program. Parents are obviously part of the community. Community members who are not, who don't have children in the system right now, but live in IC taxpayers, they are all part of the community. So we're talking about casting a broad net and getting all those perspectives. And obviously Dr. CIA and MS correct me if you disagree,
but I think that is kind of what we thought about as the broader community. And I know that part of the goal that Mr. Patel and Ms goes and I talked about is what are both overarching or kind of broad engagement tools like you know, social media, but also what could be very specific targeted outreach to specific communities who might be harder to reach. So those are all the ideas that I think we could generate. Mr. Fornell is absolutely correct that generate end of January before we know it, especially with the holidays. So it'd be good to generate some ideas and start to move with them.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I think that's a really good structure. So I think that the physical ones, I think Ms. Bruno, you signed the second farmer's markets in January, right? The rail trail? Has anyone looked into that to see if Speaker 6: No, but I was gonna do, I'll, I'll email organizers. Okay, now that I saw that they already are looking for Speaker 1: Participants. Participant. Okay. Hope it doesn't Speaker 6: My participants like tables or Yeah, Speaker 1: Organizers. Fire pits. Yeah. Okay. We, Speaker 6: Sorry, go ahead. Speaker 1: I do we wanna also Speaker 4: Hold a coffee hour in January.
I'm just looking at our spreadsheet for April or for community outreach. Speaker 1: Yeah, we had talked about doing like a coffee at like the community center. Community senior center. Like during, like during the day, right? Like not an evening event is what you're referring to. Yeah, Speaker 6: Somewhere in our group with Mr. Patel, Ms. Gums. I think we had assigned ourselves a couple of different groups so we can revisit that. I can send it back to my notes. Back to, to the three of us. And again, this is something very practical, very concrete that we can each send to our groups. So I think it includes PAC and the senior center.
There was one group associated with LG bt, the L-G-B-T-Q community. Speaker 7: Yeah, I have, I been to many of the meetings I'll able, so for the last couple ones they've done, but I can certainly hit the next one. Yeah. Speaker 6: So we can revisit those as well. The ideas that we had. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm wondering about Coffee with a purpose too. Like all of the, all of the community organizing groups that are active, like during the election cycle and they would be interested, looks like Ms. Bigger. So be happy to invite us to Coffee with purpose. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Again, I'm happy to coordinate if people wanna send me ideas and I know we had a spreadsheet at some point Yeah. For people to sign up. Oh you are, you're looking at that. I just was, Speaker 4: I mean it's not, Speaker 1: It's not Speaker 4: Perfect way to sign up but Speaker 1: It, I Speaker 4: Mean it's good enough I think Speaker 6: For us to sign up to day shifts. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah. Speaker 1: Mr. Patel, Speaker 7: We have any sort of materials we can sort of bring to Farmer's Market or the rail trail, some like something the calendar or, Speaker 1: Well we'll have the supplier. So I think that will be our main tool because it describes what the, what the strategic plan is
and then all the kind of the key activities around it. Speaker 7: A budget book or something? No, Speaker 1: If you, if you would like to, yes, you could tell I, I'll get you a physical copy of last year's budget book if you don't have one already. Yeah. So you think that, are you thinking that perhaps people would have questions beyond the scope of the strategic plan and want to know more about like smooth video? Speaker 4: Yeah, Speaker 7: I think in general just have some sort of materials to them to cruise through if they want to, you know, or for us to look through and sort of like some, or for specific even maybe a QR code, any resources that we have that they can look into.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good idea. Yeah. All right. So if everyone wants, thank you very much Dr. Fuman for volunteering to support Speaker 4: Advance. So Speaker 1: Everyone wants to just email shy directly ideas and then we can report back on this at our next and last meeting of the year. And then hopefully we'll have a plan in place to take a lot of action in January. Speaker 4: And can I just say that people could also access once it's done shy, do you wanna send it out and people could just put, you could just put your name right into the spreadsheet. Yeah, I'll update
Speaker 7: It and send it back again. Speaker 4: Okay. Happy to do it. Speaker 1: So I had put community engagement update on the agenda for this purpose to have anything else we wanted to talk about under that topic. I thought this was sort of the big, the big fish that we want to, Speaker 4: This covers a lot of the goals that we, that were in the goal that our group has met with. But at some point we did talk about an Instagram account. If we were gonna do that, this would be the thing to do it around Speaker 7: With the open meeting log. Can we just create an account or is does that have, is there a process where Speaker 4: We can just create an account? Yeah. We just have to be careful not to debate.
I, I mean I hear the last time was to open up the comments so that you can actually get feedback from the community. It's risky. Yeah, I think, I think we maybe should go slow and just start with no comments so that we just don't risk that and we see if it's actually getting looks at or being followed. Speaker 8: And I think if we use Instagram just as a mechanism to share events, right? Nothing controversial, of course. But like, we're gonna be at the farmer's market, we're gonna be at the, you know, wherever we're gonna be Yeah. These big events people, people might like
or comment or anything like that. But it's not gonna be a debate Speaker 4: If only we had somebody that knew about technology on the committee. Speaker 8: Yeah. If only we had that person. Look, I am happy to make an account. No one looks to me for social media wizardry, but I'm, I'm happy I'll make, make, make the account. Got it. Speaker 4: And you can post a picture of some soccer players. Yes. Speaker 8: All right. That's actually, that'd be a good first picture. Somebody could, it would be send me that. I'll make the account, what should we call it? Speaker 1: Natick spoke Speaker 8: Committee. That's a good idea. Natick Progress
Speaker 6: Already see that. Come up with that on your own. Give to you. Speaker 8: I'll get it. I'll take care of it. You done? Speaker 1: And then logistically, do we need to have one person sort of post to it? I I, I'm not, I'm not pointing a suggested finger in your, it's an honest question. I don't actually know when you have like a group Instagram account, how that works. Speaker 6: Oh yeah. Speaker 8: If, if we're gonna be Speaker 6: Procedural about it, what I would say is a formally it would be the chair designating someone because as the chair is, is a spokesperson
for the committee, the Instagram accountant almost becomes a channel for the committee. For the formal committee. I'm not saying it has to be the chair either. Just chair, I'm sure you and any chair wanna plenty more to do. But that could be designated to anyone. Okay. Could be the clerk or could be, you know, like whatever we decide to do. But I think that would be consistent with our norms. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. So I won't ask anyone to raise their hand. Oh but let Speaker 6: Just designate. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Brand.
You are now our social media guru. This are my Speaker 6: Whole, whole dream. My dream. Speaker 1: I'll be adding that into the official like liaison of responsibility. Perfect. Thank you so much. Speaker 6: Smash that. Subscribe Instagram. Speaker 1: I fix it. Since Speaker 6: We're giving Mr brand tests, do we wanna also create a Facebook account or just Instagram? No, clearly I don't. You Speaker 1: Can have it set up so that you just, when you post Instagram, it just automatically post to Facebook. But you don't have interact with Speaker 8: Facebook. Yeah, but you'd still have to have a Facebook account. Yeah, you Speaker 6: Do the do it both. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 1: You would. Yeah. Speaker 8: Let me get back to the tech team and see what they can, I think if we think
we should do that, then we should do it. Speaker 1: Okay, great. Yeah, in terms of reach we might have, we will. We'll have a different demographic. Yeah. Facebook. Okay. Awesome. That was a really great community engagement update. Thank you everybody. Okay, so while we're on subcommittee liaison updates, do we just want to, I just put everybody here just to see if anybody had updates. Does the budget subcommittee have an update but any recent, recent or from the activities?
Sure, I need an overview, but you wanna do the overview and, and go into the finance pieces of it A related Oh, okay. Yeah, but that would be better. Sure, let's do it that way. Yeah, I mean, and do you wanna do the other ones first then come back to it? Yeah, I can just in terms. Yep, sure. Sounds good. How about policy then? So good. Speaker 8: We have a policy subcommittee meeting tomorrow in this building, next room over at 10:30 AM So we, I won't list all the policies. We have five items on the agenda for tomorrow. It is on, it is posted.
So if anybody's interested they can see that. So we'll be here at 10 30 tomorrow morning, not in this specific room next door. That's it. Thank you. And we're not voting on any pol, we're not actually covering any policies tonight. Right. Speaker 1: Yeah. And then just 'cause it's on the agenda, if anyone has questions on the committee has questions or policy subcommittee members or or budget or committee engagement. This is just the time where we can actually talk to each other and have any discussions.
So just wanna make sure that we're doing this on a regular basis because we're so limited in how we can discuss this. Okay. Well why don't we then move to the budget. Speaker 9: I'm gonna be brief and briefer than usual as you've been hearing me cough. So in the packet and in the the hyperlink, you can see the FY 27 budget calendar that just came up on the screen there. And right now we, we just had a cabinet review the budget. You know we've got the school committee budget subcommittee scheduled, scheduled for December 16th. And the rest of the meetings are relatively lined up with
who's gonna be presenting. And it would be most helpful if folks on the committee, after they get the budget overview, as questions come to you, you send them to us, we'll make sure the folks doing the presenting come prepared and answering, answer somebody, some are all of your questions in, in their presentation. So we can make this what we believe will be a, a smooth and and painless budget season compared to the override and all the work went into last year.
Even given kind of the verbal preview that we're looking at a 5.4% increase, which is more aligned with our historical for what we've been looking for. And we're cautiously the town can meet those needs. Although they're still reviewing things, the town's budget doesn't come out until February 1st. But we'll be well through our budget process. That point. Second question, Speaker 1: Questions from the committee and point of order? Speaker 10: You can't see on those slides. I can't see them.
Speaker 1: Do you wanna move your chair closer? Speaker 10: I don't know. That would help, but I think you're supposed to provide handouts If it's not possible to physically read them, Speaker 1: I can read it fine. So if you're welcome to bring your chair closer, that would be helpful. We don't have handouts today, but we can do our best to make it large on the screen. Yes. And Speaker 8: The materials are also available on online too. Yeah, they're also available. You can see on your phone you should be able to. Speaker 1: Okay, Speaker 10: That helps. Thank, thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Lather, no questions. Just kind of a quick update from the bunch of subcommittee aligned to what he's talking about before we get into the capital plan he said as well.
So largely what we've been doing is, is preview anything we're doing in budget subcommittee get to the full committee. It's an opportunity to dig in more I think next the capital plan as budget subcommittee. We, we spoke to Dennis, we spoke to others, we made sure we felt good about the list being complete and the rationale for the prioritizations, just opportunity to dig in deeper. And so, and the same will be happening as, as mentioned we'll be digging to the, the budget proposal next week. VA trade offs that that decisions need be made. So we can come to the full informed
and be able to make a recommendation for next steps in the last meeting. That will also then in future meetings we'll be talking more about fees as part of what the, what fee changes have to be aligned with the budget in order to, you know, level everything out. So those are kind of the main topics. It's been capital budget and fees have been three of the main topics. In the last meeting we did talk about capital plans. So we'll hand over to that. We did, having gone through in detail all of the priorities and we, we did agree with the suggested both
what the five year, the shape of the five year capital plan ask would look like from the school side and what they were looking at from a FY 27. From a prioritization perspective, we, you guys feel free to disagree if not agree with it. That was kind of thank you Ms. Platter. So any questions from the committee on either the budget calendar that Mr. Gil has presented or about the work of the budget subcommittee? You have a question? So it says, looking at the calendar here, so December 22nd
we'll receive the proposed budget, but then it says technology and facilities. Does that mean we're gonna get a presentation that day on that portion? But we will get the full budget? Speaker 9: Yep, you'll get the, the full budget then and technology and facilities will go first. Okay. And then, so that's December 22nd. The meeting and June 12th will be special education and teaching learning innovation and SEL and then, you know, January 26th we'll discuss athletics, pre-K and transportation, those portions of the budget as well as other fees.
And if you look further down there, it looks like February 9th is tentatively scheduled for the school committee to set the, the user fees. So there's time to digest the budget as well as the user fees. Don't think they'll be as dramatic as what we were looking at if there was no override, we're trying to stabilize things as much, as much. Speaker 1: Thank you. That helps clarify things. Okay. Alright, if there's no questions then thank you very much. Let's go on to the Apple plan. Speaker 9: One minute, I'm gonna
jump over it on this. So in the budget packet is the summary of the capital plan and the first page is the FY 27 total, which came to 16,120,000. Well that's actually the five year total. The, the first year was 6,060,000 broken out into different priorities of high, medium, and low. And we met with the town today, the town has about $27 million worth of requests for FY and they're thinking about 12 million to be able
to spend on, on capital in the first year. And so the town also basically prioritized what they call tier one, tier two or high and medium and a fair number of things came off the list. We didn't, we didn't finish going through everything, but we seemed to be relatively aligned and on the same page for what is high priority. You know, is it, is it gonna impact services right away if things fail, whether it be an elevator or a server or a roof or projectors.
You know, there are variety of things on there both from the, the townside and the school side facilities, police, all, all departments sort of have some requests. So we're, we're working through that and we seem to be off to a good start except the first meeting was this afternoon, didn't get through everything. The only change to the school's list was the one that we had for the high school parking lot, the Mahan student lot, which we listed as medium. We agreed to push that over to the town DPW and facilities.
It'll be in their five year capital plan. It's not gonna get done for FY 27 doesn't look like, but Bill Sprat said that it will be included there going forward. It will just contribute from the fees you collect to, to repairing that and resurfacing that parking lot. I think people have, you've been there, you kind of noticed the difference between that lot and well just about everything else on school property. So that was, that was about it. Just reason to be optimistic about the way we were going
administration on the second two pages is the five year plan, which shows the asks and that's where the total is, you know, on the left where we come up with a, a subtotal of 95 million for all five years going forward and the town's number is even a little larger than that. So we have some priorities and decisions to make what goes forward
for next year and what's gonna, how, how, how that's gonna tie into the following year. Right. Questions on how the school intertwines with the rest of the town capital requests Speaker 1: Questions from the committee? I have, I have one question and it was about the, the moving of the, the paving over to the town to be included in their year plan. Like how would that work? Where, 'cause they, they have a five year plan for paving that list different places and different different roadways for, for for people.
Right. So how would we get slotted into that? Speaker 9: Well, they would put it in with everything else and when they, when they finish assessing it with all their other stuff, they'll kind of tell us where we land. I mean, we've asked, this will be the third time we've asked it is kind of work they would do. It's just, we happen to have some of the money because we have a, a user fee but not enough to pay for the whole thing. And by the time we collected enough user fee to pay for the whole thing, we might have some trip hazards or some tires popped
or something to that effect. And we don't want it to get to that we point point. So we're, we're going on operating on good faith that they'll assess it fairly like they do probably everything else. Find aware because we, we can continue to ask, but they still would normally oversee it. Speaker 4: Okay. All right. No, that's helpful. Thank you Ms. Bruell, I think this actually highlights how complicated this is because when you say moving it over to the townside, all of this is actually on the townside, correct?
Like none of this is in the school. The needed public schools budget? Speaker 9: Well some of it is because they're worn articles that school employees manage. They manage the projects, whether it's Dennis who does things with school articles or town articles or Deborah and, and her predecessors who do things with school articles and some that might be shared like when they have a stewardship space renewal painting and, and floors and ceiling tiles inside there is a breakdown
of schools and other town buildings that are getting space renewals. So they, it's, it's bit of a, sometimes it's shared and other times it's very specific. Like if the, well this says the, the boiler for, for, for the proud school, that warrant article is gonna be managed by the town facilities department, but the person that largely works in the school never is gonna handle that. Speaker 4: But in terms of budget, the, it doesn't come out of our NPS budget, Speaker 9: It doesn't come out of our operating budget. It's a separate warrant article
for basically a student project. Yeah. Warrant articles when they're specific, it might be solely school property or it might be shared if it's a kind of a, a large, larger group where they can, things are rolled together where they can sort of get economies of scale in the way they bid things out. Speaker 4: So it take, you're saying that it takes time and energy from the school department personnel, but the shared services budget would cover the capital plan? Speaker 9: Sometimes and sometimes it,
it really is just a one article just for the school. Like if it says school servers, Dennis is gonna do oversee that project and it's gonna be school people that order it and oversee the install and testing and make sure it works out isn't really gonna do anything. Speaker 4: And would that come out of our operating budget? Speaker 9: No, the warrant articles are separate from the operating. Okay. But when I say warrant articles, it's capital, these capital endeavors, there's two types of capital is the capital that we bond and we have debt for and then there's capital that we don't have debt flow,
the majority of these requests are usually not bonded, especially the ones in the a hundred thousand dollar range. You know, the ones that are bonded, they're in the million dollar range, few million dollar range. Speaker 1: Ms. Loud, just wanna share one more update as part of the, in these conversations on capital, but subcommittee were pushing hard to have better tracking of all of these funds because they couldn't. And then did the project actually get done? How much was spent compared to how, you know, what was expected to spend? Where does that surplus go? And so just for transparency, working to figure out a format
by which this, the plan isn't just looking back forwards, it's also looking backwards. And I have a question you on that, is that something that would be managed on our side or by the town side or jointly? I mean those are the conversations. I think it has to be a commitment from both sides so that we're asking through our administration for that to work with the town to come up with a mechanism that will work. Because I think it's, I mean it's such a just it's otherwise it's just too mysterious. Yeah, no, and it's really important information. Yeah, really important. I agree.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I I've, I've heard the, the committee ask several times, so I, I've shared it with some of the folks on the townside and they're talking about it and making some adjustments the way the accounting system's set up. It's not a, it's not an easy report or tracking to run but they're working on so that it's better for them. And first, Speaker 1: Any further questions, comments about the capital plan on the committee before I go to the audience? Ms. Vickers should be sit on? Yes, Speaker 11: Thanks. Brinley Vickers precinct eight town meeting member.
I have a couple of questions about a specific line item, field replacement design, construction and lighting for $2.4 million. My questions are, I see that it says low priority but it's still in there. So I see that the ask is still 6 0 60 and that includes the 2.4 unless I've mis done my math. And so I'm really curious why we're asking for that $2.4 million when there was
a pretty resounding conversation through town meeting that said we'd really like to look at something besides an artificial turf. And I believe that that number came from having artificial turf in that location. So I'm curious if we can have a conversation why that number is still in there and where the conversation happens about looking at a natural grass field and not slowing down on that. And you know, I'm, the other question would be, I know that we did have a design and in that design we did get look at the
artificial turf component, but we didn't in that design actually get a natural grass component. And if all of that money that was previously accounted for or approved for by town meeting to do the design, why are we not asking them to now give us a graph, a natural grass turf design and where we are in that conversation because I see $2.4 million and you know, it raises questions. Speaker 1: Yeah, no thank you Ms. Vickers. Speaker 9: Yeah, so I'm happy to start with that. So we did have a design study. They gave us pricing options for both
the athletic director would prefer to have a synthetic turf field that was lit so that we could have more teams using it and not having to travel as far for practice a more reliable, consistent playing surface. We call it the practice field or the JV field there. And when we're not using it, we know it would be quite popular and used with, with youth sports in town as well. It moved to a, a lower priority based on town meeting. But waiting several years when
we feel like we need the, the field now or yesterday, we need to do, have the discussion and vet it out with a larger group for should it be grass or synthetic turf and are there synthetic turf options that would be acceptable to the community By immediately dropping it off the budget request then the discussion starts to go away. Speaker 1: To add to that, we really just kept it what was in the plan the prior year because my understanding was from town meeting there's some conversation about convening a stakeholder
group to discuss it. And we didn't want to shift, we actually didn't wanna create a co bigger conversation by moving it and having the smart citizenry of natick go compared to what was in the prior plan and read into any move in terms of the submission. And my understanding is as we submit a capital plan, it's then a whole nother chapter of kind of conversation with the town about what ultimately goes onto the five-year plan. And so that's why it's still there. We did market low because we were asked to give it some priorities in order because we want to make this a bigger, wider conversation. That's what the town wants as well.
And that's the reason it's there is because we kept where it was in the prior plan. So we didn't wanna have anyone read into the fact that we were making any decisions other than wanting to continue to have it be a discussion. And that's, I think that's what I have to say about it. Yeah, and then I can just add to that too, that we have been having some discussions with the select board in particular, I've had discussions with the select board chair about what his plans are for convening a study group and I think that is still a work in progress for the select board to decide when and
and what sort of group that they will convene. So I don't wanna speak to that at all because that's, that's in Mr. Evans, the select board's remit. But the, we are looking actively to partner with the town on this in terms of planning and you know, working with the community to have that kind of engagement that oh, what appropriate materials would be how we want is a, in an entire community, not just in school community, but as a talent to move forward with this field. What I heard a town meeting was that there is, you know, just a huge need for more field space
and that this is a problem that has many, many very activated stakeholders who would like to be part of this conversation. So I'm, I'm hoping that the select board will take some action in the new year. It sounds like that is their timeframe. Not before end of the year. Speaker 11: I am speaking solely for myself, but since I do get a lot of feedback from other people, I just wanna say as a town meeting member, it feels somewhat not transparent and not, maybe not respectful is not is too strong,
but kind of how I feel that if we had that big conversation during town meeting and then yet you guys still continue to just move forward with $2.4 million for an artificial turf field. I think that you will probably have a lot to hear about that. And I think that as you guys do your outreach for the capital plan that I, I think it would behoove you to make sure that this specific part of the conversation is included in those January meetings and in the surveys and in, in lots of other things.
Because understanding that the athletic director wants that direction doesn't, shouldn't override the entire community and their perspective and their tax dollars. It's their tax dollars. And so I really wanna make sure that we're very clear upfront with this. I understand where you all are coming from and I know we have to hurry up and get out of here, but I just wanna make sure that that's very understood. Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just, I wanna be clear too that
that $2.4 million is, is not a field design that's been decided on, right? The, the information that we got was to a proposal to do one of two designs, either for a grass field or for a turf field. Right. So we just put the higher number in there, right, to hold the place. But there's been no field design because we would have to choose whether we wanted a grass or a turf field to proceed with any field design. Speaker 11: Like I said, that very specific should be included in any information going forward.
And I also feel like it's really important when you guys do put that together, the stakeholders, to make sure that you are including lots of supports. I know for instance, that cross country would like to be included in that design. They have some ideas that they would like to be included in that space. And I know that previously they have never been included in that design stakeholder concept. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: So I, I think the first step here is really this field study committee that the select board is going to appoint. So I will share that with the select board chair
that this should be as inclusive as possible, but that is a select board sponsored activity. So I would recommend sharing your thoughts with him as well then as well. I Speaker 11: Do. Yeah. Speaker 1: I'm sure you do. Thank Speaker 11: You very much. Speaker 1: Thank you. Ms. McDonough. Speaker 12: Julie McDonough, precinct three. I just wanted to, I've had some conversations with some of you, but I just wanted to say publicly that I do hope that you will ask the select board to expediently form this, this committee
that they've talked about because the, the money that was allocated for this design of the field was allocated two years ago. So we've been sitting on it for two years trying to figure out the way forward. And through the process it's become very apparent that there needs to be more coordination between the town and DPW and the schools on fields, projects that are on school property, but also on playgrounds that exist on school properties.
Parks and Rec has a very vested interest in fields that are both on school properties and not on school property. And they have a different, having been to a recent meeting, they have a different idea of what's in their purview and what's not. So for example, they are putting forward some capital projects related to school playgrounds And related to the tennis courts at the Memorial school. So I think it's important that we push for this committee for the select board to form that and expediently move through it so
that we can have an answer back to town meeting in the spring. But also ask them to create this collaboration and coordination between all of the groups. Because as we're talking about this field project, it's not just a school field project, right? It's to serve the whole town, whether it's grass or turf. So it's strange for the, when you look at these capital plans that are all integrated, to see them divided out by parks and rec and schools and town
because all of Natick is using those fields and those playgrounds and the schools may have some opinions on when the playgrounds need to be replaced based on, you know, different school formations and what's happening in the memorial. So I just wanted to say that and ask the school committee just as a whole to continue to push on that. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Any Mr. Patel, just to follow up on those comments. Who the court ultimately decides to fix grass or Turkey? Is it a school committee or select board?
So, I mean, right now this is under the remit of the school department, right? So we, right now we currently have leadership on that. Is that right? And we own the land. It's owned, but it's governed by the school committee. But I think per town meeting, there's a lot of will and appetite. I don't wanna speak, I, I'm a town employee and I take the direction from the, the committee, but there's a big will to, to convene this group. And I do agree. I hope it is convened quickly. Okay. Then would the onus be on us to create that group?
It's not because at town meeting it was an action taken by the Slack board chair. So we're working closely with him. I'm working with, you know, in in frequent discussion with him. But this is an action that he stated at town meeting that he would take. Thank you. On behalf of the, okay, if there are no further questions, do we have a motion on the capital plan? Move to approve the capital plan for ffy 26 second. All in favor? Anyone against anyone? CE the capital plan is approved. 6 0 0 the date.
I think you just said the date wrong. You say FY 26 0 27 7. Could I But did you also want the five year capital plan approved tonight? Should I use the language we used in budget? Yeah. Yes. Do you wanna do it? It was, took me a minute to get there. So I don't know, do we have to do something to redo? I think you could offer a friendly amendment. Friendly amendment. So move approval of recommendation, move approval, move approval of support, move approval
of the submitted five year capital plan, as well as the FY 27 NPS capital submission with priority tiers to the town of $6,060,000. With the caveat that it does not include field investment beyond the JV field and oh I accept the friendly amendment and the seconder second. That that. Alright, so we'll revote this. So all in favor? Any lis anyone seen? So that is approved 6 0 0 and I'm forwarding you that language.
Okay. So the last item, second to last item on our agenda is the letter to the select board that we were drafting regarding the Johnson Future use project. So I'll turn this over to Mr. Pellum SLAs. I've been working on that letter for us. So was attached to the agenda and I shared a version. I mean my hope would be, unless there's big rereads, if there's minor rereads, if we can just get them done today would be ideal. Linda, I shared a Google Doc version if you wanna display that and then put on suggestions so that then I can,
we can make changes in real time if there's things. So I guess the first question, I know, I'm sorry, got out a little bit late today, Thursday. Does everyone had a chance to read it? Are there, like do we think there's any big rewrites that would warrant another pass at this then we, which is totally fine and then we would just do it at the next meeting friend. Speaker 8: I think just, no, and not for me. Might it be useful to take 30 seconds to just re-explain the point of the letter? Sure. Speaker 1: I absolutely do that.
So the, we were invited by the select board to submit any, any school-based needs or opinions that we have with regard to what was formally referred to as the Johnson Future use project. Mr. Evans actually clarified to us in in an email that they are not no longer considering Johnson future use. They're calling it Johnson East Call Center future use, which was fantastic. Looking at holistic planning across facilities that do that do NPS preschool programs,
private preschool programs, as well as community programs and community parks and rec kind of activities. So when in responding to that, we took the perspective of, well, looking at the kinds of problems we're solving within our town. And these facilities have also previously done afterschool programs. So we also were looking at holistically. So saying, okay, in in that framing of space that we need for generally where we have big capital challenges, where we have big space needs across the district that kind
of have impacts into these spaces. That's a lens that we took back to. We, I think in, in Melissa's memo that she gave us, she really was focused on preschool and afterschool in some way. In the conversations that we had in the working group, we reframed it a lot because really the biggest or most urgent need is the high school space needs. It's been, it's been since pre COVID. And I think that there's programming that's being, you know, that's being adapted to the lack of space rather than the needs of the students in some ways like programming changes that
that, that the principal and the administration desperately wanna make in support of our high school students can't be made because they're trying to pack over 1700 kids and a building that was designed for 1300 students and even when it was built, it was built undersized and the preschool was put in there with the acknowledgement that eventually that might not work, it might not work there if the high school needs that space. And this is something I feel like, I remember Mr. Harrigan asking for this space before COVID was saying that they really needed it. And that's six years on from that.
And when we're looking at trying to get cell phones out of the kids' hands and maybe not have hundreds of kids in in cafeteria, like lots of things, having more space to, to work through those needs I think is really important. So we, and the conversation in the draft letter are still framing it around preschool but framing it around, let's make sure we don't let the high school conversation happen in a vacuum over the next like eight months and they decide to spend $3 million on modules like or some crazy number on mods that could end up in a field and remove field space.
Like that's where like that, that's very concerning. So trying to really encourage that holistic thinking to really make sure it's locked in with the high school space needs evaluation. Looking at preschool needs that we, we say there that they're less time sensitive but we need long-term planning. Right now they're spread across high school east with one classroom in Behem is manageable. But really looking at what would happen if there is a push to go full day, which is happening in a lot of parts of the state to my knowledge, is it better
to have consolidated preschool from a programming efficiency perspective? Yes, but what are the needs of the town in terms of is two better to have a little bit more geographic coverage for families? Like those are the conversations that need to be had. So the needs in preschool aren't as time sensitive at the high school but need a plan for it and really want that plan to intersect with the NSBA feasibility study. 'cause we don't wanna green light multiple classrooms, multiple preschool classrooms as part of that project if the real drive is to consolidate preschool somewhere else. And then after school and fields we included them not
as part of the primary needs of the schools but saying look these are things that we're getting a lot of public input on and we doing, you know, it'd be a disservice to a holistic process if you're not looking at, you know, how do the decisions you're making impact our ability to meet the community needs in terms of after school we remove preschool 'cause we actually do have before school care and it's not is is urgent in need but are we meeting the community needs? And I think this project team is the right people doesn't like for both after school and field space
because fields time tend to be a little bit of that brand. Speaker 8: Thank you. That was helpful. Am sure for lots of people and me and I have one comment now, which I think is minor and I hope isn't a big giant snowball and is in the conclusion section. So I'll, if it's helpful I can just read the, it's number one which says develop cost estimates for bringing Johnson into a DA compliance and making it fully functional for preschool and or afterschool. Use that sentence. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 8: For me the, the wording of the sentence,
I mean I think this letter is great. Okay. And that sentence feels a little presumptuous meaning which it might be what we wanna do and I'm, I think I'm all right with that. But the thing that went, I read that over and over again and the thing that sort of stuck in my head was if it sounded a little less, like our expectation is we're gonna use that building for preschool and or afterschool use and change it to develop cost estimates for bringing Johnson into a DA compliance which would allow it to be used for preschool and or afterschool use.
It is a super subtle semantic totally get it. Alliteration of words and Speaker 1: I actually you're sparking at that I think maybe even go a little bit further and saying and align what could it be used for Inclusive Speaker 8: Of you. Right. That's what trying was trying words Speaker 1: Because has there been talks about other community uses and it could be combined community, Speaker 8: The key and I think the key is that we wanna bring it into aada a compliance for any use really. And our preference would be if, if it's our preference. That's what, so I think the, the key part there is the ADA a compliance.
Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 8: That's it. I, I mean I think's a lot of hard work and I appreciate you both working on this. I think the letter is great Speaker 1: Dr. Fix, Speaker 6: I can wait I Speaker 1: The first part potential or the second one I did. Yeah. So develop cost estimates for bring Johnson to aada a compliance for potential near term community use Inclusive of inclusive of get rid of the first one. Okay. For near term community use, inclusive of
occupational whatever used as a fully functional preschool and or afterschool. Correct. Speaker 6: I actually, I also think it's great and I appreciate the work that went into it. I have similar comments actually. First I have a question which is in the preschool needs section it says furthermore as we look to the MSBA funded memorial project, we need to be mindful that MSPA would likely fund only a neighborhood based model rather than the do we do we know for a fact because my understanding was this original statement of
interest included the preschool and they approved it. So do we know for a, for a fact that MSBA would not fund the preschool Speaker 1: In our, I'll start and if Matt wants to add something they, in our discussions, in our enrollment meeting in the summer and then in the document that we received, they'll fund a neighborhood preschool, not the whole town's preschool. Speaker 6: Oh. Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean that the feasibility couldn't put forth a recommendation. I mean obviously we'd be working with MSBA to build even a bigger preschool but that wouldn't have the same reimbursement.
So we'd have to pay, you know, a hundred percent of the money on anything over what they would assume is in our allocation. Speaker 6: So just to clarify, so the recommendation I guess from the administration to us is to not pursue a town wide preschool at Memorial because we will have to pay more because it won't be covered by MSBA Speaker 1: We, it would be premature to offer up a recommendation on that because we have to to do it in conjunction with the NSBA and the SBC. Speaker 6: So I'm wondering if we can soften that language because we don't
know yet if we're not doing that. I mean that state statement to me sounds like we are basically giving up on the idea of a preschool town wide preschool at Memorial. And I guess that's my question and it sounds like the answer is we're not giving up on that yet. I mean unless we want to as a school committee, but I don't think that's the recommendation we're getting. Speaker 1: So what I can weigh in on with that is this is something that would go before the plan from feasibility would go before town meeting and there's a wider stakeholder holder group
and citizenry who have to vote on where they put their tax dollars, right? And so we have some existing buildings we're using one part of one now with East we have the potential for one with Johnson which would require some investment to build out to accommodate it. And then we have the possibility of a build with Memorial that could be big or small. So kind of the conversation that we had and maybe worth saying here as well. And don't forget the preschool director is writing a piece that will give some of her opinions on whether the town would, you know, benefit from one preschool
site, two preschool sites. I personally think it shouldn't be more than two. I think it should be based on staffing and based on what parents and travel and town it should be one or two. There's probably pros and cons to both of those that will be listed in her memo, which I anticipate getting a report to the school committee in the winter. So all of those things have to be laid out and I think that there's many options and I think they'll be put forth to a, a broader vote and we'll, and the school committee will have an opinion on it. My opinion right now that I feel really safe in saying is I prefer to have one or two sites. But
Speaker 6: So we wanna have, so maybe, so it sounds like we wanna have potentially more than one site beyond Memorial. Speaker 1: So if we even not just maybe one is Memorial, maybe not, you know in terms of we have East, we have Johnson, we have Memorial as possibilities for that. So to illustrate the, I think ideally it would be one site because you have all the preschool teachers in one place, they can do planning together. There's like a community around that age child which is very different and the needs of that integrated preschool group, the benefit of having two sites also you'd have all the ancillary providers all along place.
So the occupational therapist, the speech therapist, the physical therapist, you it probably has some efficiencies around staffing. The benefit to two sites are family proximity to the site that they're dropping off at. That's really the main one. And maybe traffic patterns which haven't been analyzed yet. Because ultimately if you think about it, if that's the main entry to native public schools, it's really important that those families get to know each other. That it's created a community, a vibrant kind of, that's where people are meeting and maybe knowing each other for many, many years. We could probably achieve that with two sites,
three sites gets harder. Yeah And it's really hard to often to retain one single teacher of a grade in any one school. So maybe saying more than you wanna know, but those are kind of some of the things we shared in that subcommittee. So the only thing I'd feel comfortable saying right now is that one or two sites and we have a lot of openness in terms of where those sites might be. Yeah, Speaker 6: No and I see your, your changes look good as as I as you get. Yeah. But related to that I'm wondering, so I actually like the idea Speaker 1: Before, can I make more comment?
Yeah. This one, 'cause one of the things that come up in the conversation is we currently have one small classroom at Behe but the other classrooms are the high school which have a totally different schedule and an east, which is not, which is a separate building. And so with 46% of the kids in the preschool on IEPs, you're gonna create, there's particular transportation challenges. Yeah. That we'd wanna study that having a large preschool co-located with potentially the same drop off and pick up times as the elementary schedule in the same building may have its own complexities. Yeah. Leads to wanting to understand the flexibility
Speaker 6: Then related to that. And actually Dr. Scratch's comment makes it even more relevant. I like the fact that the select board is looking at basically three sites. Johnson Coal and East Coal and East in a way are on the other side. I mean the northern part of town and Memorial and Johnson are both in the relatively southern compared to the two to the other two Southern parks. So I'm wondering if we want to include in that same sentence
is useful to consider that Johnson East and Oracle so that we can to have basically the selector consider what would it take for any of those three buildings. Because we may want to have two like Johnson and Cole for example, or Johnson in East because that will that way half the com you know, it creates that sense of community around anyway. So I, I mean unless we, because I guess my original question actually was gonna be, are we picking Johnson as the best site for an alternative to Memorial for preschool and is it the only one
and well what I'm hearing is maybe you wanna consider all three sites as potential two sites, two future two sites. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to reword it. I, my understanding was that neither of the other two sites could accommodate all of the classrooms. So Johnson the only one that could accommodate all the classrooms. And if you're moving out of the, and correct me if I'm, if you're, if we're moving out of the high school, I don't think those high school classrooms could move to any either of the others from the space. But I could be wrong. Definitely can't move into east. East, east is partly used by the YMCA
and the rest of it it, there's four classrooms for the preschool and ASAP has an office. So it couldn't fit everything from the high school and Benham, I don't know enough about the other site to comment Speaker 6: But could it be two different sites like Johnson and Johnson? Speaker 1: I don't know enough about Paul in its space to, to me there's, to me it's a bit of a cost equation, right? So I appreciate the writing in the memo where it says we have to cost out what it would be to get an A DA compliant. 'cause ultimately we need to be comparing not only the kind of two sites and where they're located more southeast west, whatever.
But also what's more expensive. 'cause we can get 45 cents on the dollar for at least four classrooms at Memorial. So it might be worth it to have two sites. So this is where feasibility gets into kind of some of those considerations. And to me this memo should keep the door open to kind of study alternates to, to Ms. LA's point really to get the space free at the high school. That's that like we keep coming back to that. Speaker 6: So maybe then that's in the, it's not, I just changed, Speaker 1: I said a permanent home for some or all of these classrooms to make not, I think the focus on Johnson is
because that building is currently not usable for school purposes because of lack of compliance the other two buildings are. So that's the way I read it is that this would make an additional space that would be available. Not that we were deciding what, what, what would go at any one site but that just that we need a third building. Speaker 6: No, but I'm wondering if, so actually if you scroll down to the conclusion, I'm wondering, so we leave this as is and hearsay where it says develop cost estimates for bringing Johnson to date mobile. It could even be another sentence or corporate sentence to also consider Coal
and East as other potential sites just so that if they're doing a cost estimate, we're looking at all options as a way to determine what is best in terms of cost, number of sites proximity to the different community. Speaker 1: I think I, I guess I just thought like we already know East can be used and so that's already, we already like the the, we already have the parameters of what the other buildings can be used for. We just don't know the parameters of what and I guess maybe there'd be a capital cost. There shouldn't be any capital cost associated with East.
Yeah and and we're just, if I could just, I think just from a perspective in the conversations I've had with the select board chair on this and in the workshop I went to about Johnson future use, this is really to try to find out, you know, what needs there are in town that could be met through using, using that site. So I hear Dr. Fugman more you're, I think you're planning a great preschool program for, you know, in terms of you know, the number of sites. I don't think that's what the select board is expecting from us for us to come with a proposal for
our full preschool program. And I don't think we want to ask them to do any of the evaluation of these sites. Right. As useful for a preschool program. 'cause it's not in their purview but they own the building. So them telling us what it could even be used for would be Yeah the first thing we could use part of it because we need to move classes out of the high school to regain that space for high school use. So what would need to happen is that that building would need to be aada a compliant. Speaker 6: So I feel like it's confusing 'cause this seems to be a contradiction 'cause the title, the subject of the email
of the letter at the very top says school committee input on the Johnson call East future use project. So that implies we're giving input on all three sites but then the letter really focuses just on Johnson. So I'm wondering if we just change the title to say put up on the Johnson use project because if that's the scope of the letter, that's what the letter should be about. Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. So then maybe we need to back it up even further and say what we really are looking for is the school department could use this many classrooms in
town buildings for preschool and we'd like Speaker 6: Some anywhere that what you mean? Speaker 1: Yeah, any of those three buildings. Yeah. Well Speaker 6: That means either I think it's one or the other. Either we say this is input for Johnson, which case, yeah this is what we're focusing on Johnson or we say this is input for different spaces in which case this is what we need for different spaces. Speaker 1: Yeah. But then maybe one of our needs should be that if we were going to consolidate our preschool, we would not want it spread over more than two sites. Yeah. To include in total. Yeah. So that maybe we need to add that somewhere.
So I wonder if in this paragraph where we talk about preschool needs where we say the data integrated preschool currently operates across multiple sites, blah blah blah, not blah blah blah. But additional information it would be preferable to have the preschool located at one or two sites maximum. Can we add that? Would that be Yeah, Speaker 13: I was, I was doing a previous comment in the conclusion just to say if we wanna make this, so I just in there just saying well the potential youth east and the coal center are generally understood.
Speaker 1: We, Speaker 13: We would respect to request that the select board consider the following time sensitive actions first. I No, Speaker 1: Yeah, do it. Speaker 13: Oh maybe I should go here. Sorry. I mean would that help just to say that? Speaker 6: Yeah. And then the last thing is I like Miss of course idea just spelling out that what we're looking for is to move the preschool out of the high school and maintain it. No, no more than two sites. Yeah. Or move it to no more than two sites Speaker 13: Then preschool. Okay. Hit me. Speaker 6: I think it's here, right? This paragraph you were saying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Yeah. After the four classrooms in the towns East school swing space one have been him and the remainder of the high school and then the next sentence it says consolidation of services at a single location could be at a Ben thesis and something there that says that no more than, no more than two sites. Speaker 6: And then my final question is back to the administration is now that we messed up this whole, the original letter is, does this still follow your recommendation? Speaker 1: I think it does. Here's one of the things that I'm thinking about as you've been editing this, even not thinking about Johnson for second,
which I know that's the purpose of this. The e school is a swing space with four classrooms. We don't have an indefinite use of that space. So even if Memorial, we were two, and again I'm premature in saying it, but if the recommendation of feasibility were to come out and say okay, build those four neighborhood preschool classrooms at Memorial, at best it would only take the classes from East and move 'em over there. And we'd still have one class over at Benham and an overcrowded high school. So at some point this moves to a bigger build at Memorial or the use of some other space including possibly east.
So we still have our problem. So that's like, that's kind of the way I'm trying to see it. There's still a bubble that needs to move out of the high school. So one of the assumptions here is really to consider the fact that the east space is still a swing space without indefinite commitment. And the 45% reimbursement would be on, well my understanding is four classrooms at Memorial. Speaker 6: So what is the total number of classes that the preschool needs? Do we know Speaker 1: As of right now, and it's a little bit complicated 'cause there's a lot of buildings and there's full day and half day. So there's six full day preschool classes.
Two are at east, three are at the high school and one is at Behe. There's one full day sub-separate classroom at NHS. So that's say seven. And then there's four half day programs, two at E, three at East and one at the high school. So the half days are eight sections basically. I can send this to you in a memo if you want. 'cause I have it. It'll be in the memo that Mr. Comb provides for me in that's due on January 7th. It's not an easy answer, but Speaker 6: Is it roughly 10 based on 10 classrooms? 10 classrooms?
Speaker 1: Roughly 10 classrooms. But we serve more than, we serve more than that of kids. I think there's 11 'cause of the sub-separate, Speaker 6: But on average we would need about if if it's one site, we would need a site that has 10, 11 Speaker 1: Physically. How many classrooms? Speaker 14: 10 rooms. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 14: I have it from Mr. Co. Speaker 1: Is this the thing you're looking at? I read 11 rooms but Okay. 10 or 11 rooms. Speaker 6: Well let's say if it's 11. So you would be either one side with 11 or two sites with six and five roughly. Speaker 1: And that's if enrollment stays the same. Yeah. And we don't go to full day for all classes,
which is also gonna be part of the memo that we asked for. Yeah, because a lot of, we have a good amount of full day, which is great to see. Speaker 6: And John, of the four options, Memorial four classrooms, Johnson, east and Cole. I'm assuming Johnson is the biggest building. I don't know about coal, but Johnson's definitely bigger than East. So it sounds like Johnson would would be the, Speaker 1: It would be the whole thing. The Speaker 6: Preference for us, for the preschool end, Speaker 1: Cole doesn't really have that many spaces. Speaker 4: It has the, you know, on your own playgroup space, but, and that's still really also, coal is like a building
that is on the strategic plan. The 2030 plan to to be renovated or torn down. Torn down. So coal is not a viable option or is it EDA Speaker 1: Compliant? Speaker 4: Not, not for school purposes. Can I just say back on the, the edits, I think that you've taken the edits too far in that first paragraph where it says potentially only, well, and the MSBA would potentially only fund, they told us they will only fund a neighborhood. Now Natick as a town can fund more than a Natick.
But the MSBA, the 45 cents in the dollar that Dr. Bash is talking about, that's been very clear. So that's something we should be clear about. Speaker 7: Also, just wanna add, I think Johnson's proximity to the high school's advantageous for the high school students that teach or that the preschool for travel, I suppose. So they could at least walk or drive quickly there then Memorial or East School. Speaker 4: So I, I'm done. I think this is good. Great. So I'll just send you, Linda, I'll you have this
we can edits and then I'll accept the edits and do the final set system. And then the select board is making a commission on this or they're making another committee to talk about these schools. It's a project team. I think that Jay is leading. So it's not, it's not like members of it is not stakeholders from from the community. It's the Speaker 1: No, it's part of their work stream. It just expanded right from Johnson to Speaker 4: I see, okay. Because just like in the light of the turf, I, I really appreciate that you put fields on here. I mean frankly like the memorial site is also gonna be part
of this conversation because while Memorial may be the site of the new elementary, it might not be, that's a real possibility that we need to talk about. We won't know until the spring maybe or you know, when we'll know. But I think that unfortunately for a little while longer there, there's gonna be a lot of balls in the a Natick and we have to be able to be able to pull stakeholders together so that we can work on all of these things, including the fields and all the uses.
And even if Memorial is the site, it likely means for several years we're gonna lose access to all of those fields. All of those fields. Yeah. Oh, what happens on Saturday mornings at that point. Yeah. In the farm. Speaker 7: Right. Speaker 4: Can I ask a question about the high school? Speaker 1: Can I ask one more question about this first? Yeah. And then, yeah, so while we're on fields, I thought it might be helpful to add a reference Speaker 4: To the Speaker 1: Presentation that we had a school committee by Dr. SP's working Speaker 4: Group Speaker 1: Field working group because they referenced the survey that had been done by the St.
Donna and she was still on school committee and a lot, lot of input from various athletic stakeholders about just about field needs. So I thought that might be helpful for them to have that as a reference. Someone can send me that link talk about Yeah, I can, I can send you like, should be the link to the meeting. I, I think we could probably put the deck in there that they presented. Yeah. So I'll I'll do that. Okay. Speaker 4: I just was curious. We spent a lot of time talking about preschools, but really the, the main point of this letter is that we need space at the high school stat. So we're the preschool to move
and I mean we're talking, we're already talking two years ahead, right? That this isn't gonna happen next year. So in two years we'll still have the big bubble at the high school. Will that one wing of one floor of the high school alleviate some or do we also still need to be thinking about changes to the high school structurally? And I'm wondering about the courtyard. Can we convert that into space? Speaker 1: So that's another I, this is another topic of a memo that I've asked principal blocker to work on that she's given to me on January 7th. That will be with all those questions.
You know, she put in for modular units into capital plan ask just because she's like, I am out of space. She's incredibly relieved with the, I she's happy to see this showing up here in the Johnson memo. Happy to see it showing up kind of as a consideration broader. So she's gonna have answers to those and I, I haven't, she's relieved and feels there's a solution within the space that would free up from the preschool. That's the best way I can answer that. Any other input into the letter from the committee? I do see you. Do you want more?
I'll just ask for any public input. Dr. McKenzie, do you have your hand up? I Speaker 10: Have a couple questions set for clarification. This letter mentions making it a DA compliant. Can somebody reflect further on the meaning of that? Because that building is grandfathered in and there are a lot of things in that building are not up to code. So is it the case that it can just be made a DA compliant and somehow be usable? Or is there gonna have to be a whole analysis, for example, of toxic chemicals and everything else that exist in that building that have
to be done because the grandfathered in portion of that building kind of goes away, right? I mean because it's no longer possession of the schools, it's given to the town town. And this is a really kind of smart or interesting clawback that you're doing here. But I I just wanna for clarification, can it be used simply by making it a DA compliant or are you breaking the, the it being grandfathered in and opening the door to an incredible number of other
renovations that need to be made? I Speaker 1: Think that's a question for the select board. All we're doing is providing some input to that. Speaker 10: Okay. But you have the sentence about making the building a DA compliant and since this committee wrestled with that question in its decision on whether to close Johnson as a school, it seems a rather a historical That's my, that's my question. That's my concern. So Ms. Speaker 1: Flats and then Gils I did, we did mention aada a compliance, but I, I would've thought by saying
into a DA compliance for near term community occupation inclusive potential use that they would have to evaluate what renovations would be required to safely use for these purposes. Speaker 10: Okay. So there is a caveat, right? Speaker 1: So for, you know, they're gonna have to look at any kind of safety concerns, structural concerns system and they could come back and say it'll be $50 million. And then you're like, okay, okay. Or they could come back and say, you know, for half a million dollars or $2 million and we're gonna pay that modulars. That's not necessarily a terrible idea. So, Speaker 10: Okay. And if this turned into preschool space, does
that mean the district assumes responsibility for the finances of running it as a preschool space? Speaker 1: Mean, I'm just gonna answer based on, 'cause I, yes. See same questions in the meeting. We currently don't, we use eSchool as a swing space so we don't have control already of the space. That's for a good chunk of our preschool. And so in theory the town could ask us to use, you know, Johnston as a swing space. Similarly, obviously it would be better to bring it across. But, but it's, it's a potential solution is not, does not require the, the transfer of the property.
Speaker 10: Okay. That's even beyond what I would That's great. That's a great answer. And lastly, once upon a time, it was a dream of the district to have an early education center and there was even discussion of perhaps moving in the school district offices into a central location like Johnson. But for whatever reason the town now has a building. But is that dream gone? I mean have you all still talked about that at any point having an early education center? Because you would not only have the preschool but you would have all of the other departments.
And I understand you really don't have a lot of space where you are now. Speaker 1: You mean at town hall? Our space? Yes. Yeah, it's a fair question. I think it's something we thought about. I'm not sure I would wanna put that on a bigger list of the town as a priority. 'cause we, we are, we, we are okay in our space right now. Okay. And try with the financial responsibility and financial situation, I don't think it would be prudent to be expanding our central office by huge numbers of people that would out, you know, outrun that space. So it's something we thought about, but not something we offered up as a bigger recommendation
as we move through the conversation. Early childhood center. I actually think that's what we're talking about with this preschool. I would, I would a hundred percent love to see a one building preschool, but I think that we could compromise and make two if it meant the transportation patterns would be better and it would be better for families. Speaker 10: But isn't an early childhood center more than just a preschool? Like if you look at other towns like Lexington and other communities that do have early education centers, it's part of it, it's a component of it, but it's not the whole thing. Right. Speaker 1: Hasn't been discussed since I've been here and I'm not aware of the legacy of that
or kind of the, the earlier visioning of that. Speaker 10: Okay. I just, I'm just throwing it out there. I just didn't want you to forget it and to dream long term because as Ms. Lathers pointed out, I mean someday it might be a requirement that we do preschool full day and then we're you and really be in a crunch for space and really want to do some more cooperation and consolidation. But thank you so much. Speaker 1: Any other input from the committee before we move to a motion? Speaker 8: Move approval of the letter
for the, what's the whole name of the project for the, for the letter regarding the input on the future use of the Johnson, Cole, and East Projects. Speaker 1: Okay. A all in favor? Anyone against? Anyone abstaining. All that approves 6 0 0. One more item of business. Speaker 8: Motion to adjourn. Speaker 1: All in favor? And we are adjourned. Thank you everybody.