Speaker 1: All right. Welcome everybody. It is Monday, January 12th. Happy New Year. And this is our first school committee meeting of 2026. So we need to order this phone call. And here, Mr. Brand present Dr. Fon. Present. Ms. Here? Sure. Ms. Collins. I don't see yet. Okay. And, and I'm present. So that's forum. So we'll now stand for the Allegiance. Allegiance of the United States of America and the Republic, which stands one Nation
Under in. We take that moment of silence to honor our troops hearing perhaps. So we'll go to announcements. Dr. Stash? Yes, I do have one. I just wanted to publicly say, and we're gonna put out on social media throughout this week and through some emails, but needed 21st annual MLK Community Celebration is Monday, January 19th. This is sponsored by Spark Kindness. It's from nine 30 to 11:00 AM at Natick High School. Join your neighbors for community connection starting at nine 30 with light refreshments, followed
by the MLK Day program at 10:00 AM This event features student music, creative contest winners, community leaders, interfaith speakers, and keynote by ADI Lynch. Met co-director from Natick Public Schools. We'll also fill the van with donated non-perishable items and diapers for Native Service Council. And a place to turn. All ages are Welcom in person and livestream options are also available. Thank you Dr. St. And Mr. Brianna. I just wanted to pay Speaker 2: Tribute to Mr. Ed Haskell. He was a longtime bus driver in Natick.
Drove many of the bus, the sports teams kids to Wilson for many years, and he passed away this January 9th. So just wanted to extend our condolences to his family and just thank him and his family for all the support they've given Natick public schools in the years being in Natick. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Brunell. Any other announcements from, oh, Speaker 2: Sorry. While we're at it, vice Principal Bob McCone, who was retired from Wilson Middle School, passed away on Speaker 1: December 22nd.
He has served Wilson for many, many years. Hope he missed existence. Okay. So we'll move to public seek. Public seek is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility of the school committee. All remarks will be addressed for the school committee chair. Policy is not a time for debate or response to comments by the school committee. So I know we have one person on line. Is there anybody co-host anybody in the room? Okay. So we have two people online. So I mean, Donna, a co-host. Okay.
And then we all send, is there also a second person? Brittany has her hand raised. Okay. So we'll start with Dr. McKenzie. Okay. Three minutes. Speaker 3: Can you hear me? Speaker 1: We can. Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I just really wanna thank Dr. Sp for her announcement and I wanna dovetail on it because I'm a member of the MLK Dream Team Planning Committee with the 21st celebration for Martin Luther King Day under the OPEC of Spark Kindness. And I wanna encourage you all as educational leaders to participate in this event
and to show your support for inclusion belonging. And Martin Luther King's dream of building a beloved corner, a CA community. And as she said, the event starts on Monday, the 19th at 10, but come at nine 30 because there's gonna be wonderful refreshments donated by Starbucks. And there are also tables from several of our community groups. And Bruno Giles, who is an accomplished musician and an NHS grad and Head of Black Lives belong, will offer some drumming
to lead off our celebration. And Adi Lynch, who is also one of our own, will give the keynote speaker this year. Yeah. So I think it's especially important to support him. And music concludes the multi-generational group sound and spirit who will actually be singing one of my favorite songs, seasons of Love from the Theater Group. Rent a Communal Reading of the ABCs of Lack history will include 26 of our own young people. And the book will be gifted to each of our schools, as well
as the Morse Institute and the Bacon Free Library. And as Dr. Stash mentioned, because of food insecurity, a present, we are also trying to fill the van with non-perishable items, including diapers, just no expired goods. And it's for, it's for, I'm sorry, the Natick Service Council and the Metro West Food Pantry. I'm sorry, I'm in the verge of getting a cold multitasking. I'm sitting out front of Roach Brothers. But I wanted to be sure to give this announcement so that
you could at least hear some of my enthusiasm despite my a little bit of getting a cold. I really think this is important and we need to honor Dr. King and model for students that this is important to us. So thank you for giving me the chance to give this announcement. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And then Ms. Vickers, get you unmuted. Speaker 4: Hi. Good evening. Friendly Vickers Precinct eight. Hi guys. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, so sorry, but I get questions all the time still.
And so I just, I, I realize there's a communication position still trying to be filled. But I just wanna remind that there's pretty much nothing on the Memorial School Building Committee website. So I have two, I have two asks for that one. Hopefully. So the first meeting was back in May a long time ago, so I was hoping maybe that on the February 2nd meeting, maybe there could be some minutes to approve on that agenda so
that we could get some minutes up on the website. And then the other thing would be maybe we could at least get some of the slide decks. You guys have made amazing slide decks for schedule and understanding of the timeline, so maybe we could just at least get those up there. A glossary of terms. I know there was a call for administrative help in the last school building committee meeting, so maybe the next meeting on the 22nd. This could be a specific ask. I'm, I'm also happy to offer some time
to put together a, a list with links of what I think could be up there. I do feel like it's a service to the community that's very needed and I'm hoping that we can get it populated. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Anybody else wanting to have public speak? Seeing nobody in the room and nobody online will close public speak, so we'll now go to updates. Mr. Wood. Thank you Madam Chair. As always, I appreciate the opportunity,
but I do have nothing to offer at this time. Thank you. Slate. And, okay. And do we have, okay, Ms. Ms. Jones, did you want to give a echo update? Speaker 5: Hi everyone. No, no updates at this time. Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. Moving on. Consent agenda to get a motion, move approval of the consent agenda. Second. All in favor? Anyone opposed? Passes by. Okay, so for the meeting tonight, so we're going
to go to the chairman report for over to, so in the meeting packet, there was a memo from Mr. Erickson and Dr. Stash about a proposed way forward for addressing the concerns from town meeting about turf fields versus grass fields, and also about moving forward with the design of the practice field at the high school. So I think everyone's had a chance to take a look at that. Just wanted to give us some time for any questions
or discussion. The basic proposal is that we take a two-pronged approach where we would have a committee who would be appointed by the select board that would do some research on the merits of grass fields and her fields and make her big uses of each of those types of field designs. Kind of provide some town wide guidance that we could use to inform decisions. And then in parallel to have the school department work in concert with the town department to move forward on proposed design
for the practice field of the high school. And I think that there's a lot of value to this because there's a lot of expertise on the town side that could really help us evaluate that site and determine whether or not a field of a certain size or type would be even possible there. So that's the basic approach. Would you wanna add anything Dr. Sp? No, I think the memo sort of stands for itself. I'm happy to take questions, but no, I don't. Dr. Yeah. Quick Speaker 6: Question. If people from the community are interested in
engaging the process, either, I don't know if the committee would accept members from the community or even just to express their perspective, just 'cause I know there's a lot of opinions on the community. What would, what would your recommendation be for how to respond? Speaker 1: So I think that the, and which committee are you, are you talking about the one that's looking at the research on the grasp versus turf fields? Speaker 6: Yeah, primarily. Yeah. Speaker 1: So I think that the idea is that those would be public meetings that could be attended by members of the public. There'd be a posted agenda and there'd be an opportunity for anyone who wished
to weigh in to share their opinions with that committee, either by email or in person. Speaker 6: Will do. We'll let them know. Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell, can we just have this posted to the agenda? Because this memo is, isn't on the agenda. Oh, it is. I found it on the agenda. PDF is on the link is not, they're both My link didn't open. Oh, didn't open. Okay. Okay. Is on, Speaker 6: Yeah, I got it. Speaker 1: Oh it is. Okay. Thank you. So at the select board meeting last week, they had some discussion about it
and the select board was sort of in what they were definitely in favor of going forward this with this approach. So I think what we need to do today is just determine if we're comfortable with this approach and we support, you know, a message back to the select board saying, please go ahead and appoint that committee. Yeah. This flats was, it is the schematic design specific to a inter field. So this would be early exploration work. So the schematic design is not specific to a turf field. And in our discussion that Dr. Sp and I had with Mr. Erickson
and Mr. Evans, it's, it seemed that there were actually a lot of potential challenges at the site of the current practice field that needed to be investigated. So we need to look at like wetlands, we need to look at utilities. It seemed like there were a lot of logistical things that needed to be assessed before we could even determine whether or not we could go forward either grasp board or field. Okay. I just wanna be careful of the optics. 'cause particularly when you have the sentence that prior administration recommended the school committee and consider installation of turf field, there can be an optics of these things happening in parallel
that Oh yeah, we're giving a nod to having, you know, someone to study it, but we're, you know, going FullTilt ahead and I know, you know, just, yeah, optically wanna make sure that makes perfect sense because if there's like real issues of doing anything in that field, then this is kind of a discussion. So it makes a lot of sense to do that. I just, in my first quick read of the memo wasn't as clear to me. But yeah, that was just to provide some historical context as to why we were initially talking about a, that was recommendation from the interim superintendent. She was here prior to Dr. Stash joining us. Can I actually make one correction, which Jamie
and I talked about the town administrator and I did talk about that this was design was put on hold in 2024, not 2025 as listed in this memo. So we made the correction, I think on the select board posting the memo, and we'll do the same here. Thank you. Okay. So any more questions from the committee before we turn to members of the public for feedback? Speaker 7: Nope. Speaker 1: Okay. So I see someone in the room, so we'll go to Ms ERs online and then Ms. McDonough in the room. Speaker 7: Okay. Just to, Speaker 1: Okay, Ms ERs, go ahead. Speaker 4: Hi. Yes, thank you again. Friendly Vickers precinct date.
I realize that a school committee member already brought up the optics of this, but I feel compelled to say it again out loud that the only member of the public that you've put on this committee is someone who has pretty much publicly stated that they're interested in a turf field in this space. And I think that the group that put together the warrant article against turf warrants being on this committee,
because they are very knowledgeable in this area. And I, I feel like it's kind of a, a little bit of a smack in the face to have one public member. I, and this is not, I dis respect to that public member. I have a lot of appreciation for the time that they've served. I just feel like it's not looking very good to only have that one member of the public in this study committee. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Gz. I just wanted to clarify something too. So there's two groups here. There's a committee that's going to do some research
about the published data on turf fields and graphs, fields and usage, playing hours, health concerns, et cetera. That group is not going to make a decision about which type of field is built at the high school. In parallel, there'll be work done between the, the school department and the town department to assess the site and the work of the other group will inform potentially a decision, but the committee will not be the decision making group on which type of field is being built.
So happy to discuss that further if you'd like. Okay. And I think we had somebody in the, oh, do we have committee members? Ms. Laers? Yeah, I just, I I looked at that and then I now is kind of coming up. It's curious me that, that the recommendations to put a representative board of health, I mean presumably because of are there research health considerations to take into account for a athletes health for whatever, if that makes sense. But it seems like it would also make sense because so many of the concerns come through
the sustainability lens that, you know, should Jillian be on that or a de you know, a delegate, someone representing the sustainability and environment side of things. So in the discussion we had with Mr. Erickson and Mr. Evans, we really wanted to keep the committee sort of small and nimble and they know who to go to talk to for all of this information. This information's been publicly presented. We felt it was really an evaluation of existing information and I would assume that people would be included as needed.
That is the expectation of what this committee will do if there's additional information needed. So whether the key people are the ones on the committee in order to gather and synthesize the information and produce a report that could be informative for decision making, that was the intention of having a small committee. I understand the small, I just think the composition is wrong, even if you wanna keep it small. I view No, I, ms gr did you hand up Mr. Brand? Are you the member of the school committee that's on this committee? Speaker 8: Not that I'm aware of yet. Oh. In, in prior, up until now when Ms.
McDonough ended her, her term and abandoned us, I took over her representation on the discussions that were happening then. But this is a new thing. I would be happy to be the representative, but at the moment I don't think we've Okay. We're at the stage. We're having that discussion. Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't appointed any. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, the select board hasn't actually appointed the committee. Oh, from what, what I was hearing was that the committee was already formed. This is the recommended, recommended composition. So Ms. Vick's comment could also be well served to the select board because they're creating the committee. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay.
I think Ms. McDonough's in the room, so she's next. No, we can come back to you. Ms. Vickers. Speaker 9: Julie McDonough, precinct three. So I did attend the select board meeting where they discussed the conversation that was had between Dr. Pash and Mr. E Erickson, Ms. Goeth and Mr. Evans. And they had come to put forward this proposal. I think in terms of the study group, I think it makes a lot of sense to finally have a public forum where everyone can have
the same information shared. Up until this point, information has been shared at town meeting at fin com, at school committee, at select board. And it hasn't all been in one place. And these haven't all been public meetings. So my intention, if this, and I think the select board voted to move forward with it, would be to have the meetings posted and then to have people come and share the information that they have aligned with how some other communities have done this work.
Just so that we can come up with a report that everyone has the same information, everyone's operating from the same page. There's a lot of different opinions on this issue. And so then the school committee and the select board and town meeting can make a decision on how they wanna move forward with whatever funds are available and what, whatever type of field they want to do. There's clearly some needs at the high school, and this would be a step forward to, for everyone to have the same information. In terms of the schematic design of the practice field, it has been almost two years since
that money has been allocated. And I do feel like our good, who's proposed to lead this design, an exploration of the design is the right person to do it. He, in the meetings I've had with him, he has a lot of expertise on this issue and he could really move it forward. And I do really think that, that we should move forward given the amount of time that's passed and the needs that we have for not only our high school and middle school teams, but all teams and youth sports and natick.
So I just wanted to share that perspective with you. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. McDonalds. And did, do we still have someone line speaking Ms. Vickers? Is this Ms. Vickers and Dr. McKenzie. Okay. So Ms. Vickers and then Dr. McKenzie. Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you. I I just need to reiterate it again that I, I feel that it is pretty disrespectful to, to only put people on this committee that have
vocally expressed opinions about the field on one side. I will bring this up with the select board as well, but I, I just feel strongly about saying that again. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Ms. Baker. Ms. Mc or Dr. McKenzie? Speaker 3: Can you hear me? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I couldn't unmute. I just, I have a question. So from, it seems as though the thought is that it will be the select board together with the school committee, with together with town meeting in your framework that is going to decide what happens to the practice field at the high school.
I just wanna clarification for that question. And I wanna just also say, as a citizen sponsor of the petition on the advisory for the three or moratorium, I, I just, I'm flabbergasted. I mean, we had so much information and we're not even, as Ms. McDonough pointed out, we're not even following the wisdom of our other communities in putting together a committee. There's nobody that rep represents sustainability on either of these proposed committees. And I just, I I don't think that's right.
I don't think that's what we do. I don't think we shrug off people's hard work in what they do to at least give them a pro forma look and be able to participate in what is happening. I support developing these fields. I think they're absolutely necessary and the safest, best fields. And I'm hopeful that these fields can be built, even the high school field can be built in its timely manner. I have, I do agree that it's needed and I, I think we need to do it to do it yesterday. But please, I just wanna go on the record
for saying I object to the cons constitution of these committees. You have to at least have a token sustainability person on this. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Dr. Mackenzie. Any other people seeking to speak on this topic? So I think we probably should, if we want to take a vote to endorse this approach so we can allow the select board to move forward. Does anyone wanna make a motion to support the proposal in the attachment? So moved second. Can I? Yes, Ms. Can I, oh, can, can I suggest we,
can we vote the two parts of it separately? I also just Speaker 2: Don't know, know why we're voting on this. It's an action that the select board is taking. Speaker 1: They have asked for our support. So when we met together, they agreed that since Mr. Evans had spoken at town meeting and you know, sort of to form the study committee, that the select board would be appointing the committee. But they very much want this to be a joint effort. So I, I think it would be in our best interest and a show of solidarity to show that support about,
Speaker 2: Well then I move to, sorry, you put me, I'm on the spot here. So I would make a recommendation that the selects board reconsider the formation of the committee given the public input that we've heard tonight, but also at town meeting to ensure that there's a diversity of voices on the committee. Speaker 1: So we can certainly give that recommendation back. Speaker 2: Well it wasn't seconded, but Speaker 1: Second. Okay, so no, it was an actual motion Speaker 2: Said I move. Speaker 1: Yes. Mr. Red, Speaker 8: Would you like to propose, now we have two motions that are competing.
Would you, is it worth proposing a, like an amendment, a friendly amendment to the standing motion, but but specific Speaker 2: Are you saying you agree with me? Speaker 8: I don't know if it's Speaker 2: In my motion. So, no, I think this is great. I'm so grateful that Dr. Spew and Mr. Erickson got together and are moving forward with this as a town, joint town and school thing. So I think there are so many great things happening here. But I agree that this committee, this idea of like a nimble committee, I think feels disrespectful to a group of people that have come, have done research,
have shared their thoughts, may have different opinions than other people, but like, let's not put our, let's make this, you know, there's, there's always room for one more in my opinion. Speaker 1: And are you making a specific suggestion? I I heard a specific suggestion of having somebody from the sustainability department of the town Speaker 2: Is that, no, I don't wanna be prescriptive, but I want, I would like them to respond to the public feedback that they've received a town meeting and perhaps tonight at this meeting in order to ensure that the committee will
represent more people. I'm sympathetic to the idea that this committee seems to have a certain perspective. Even the name of the committee is interesting to me. I myself, and I'm telling you, I, I think that we need to move ahead with the turf field. So, but I also think that public process and people being involved is very important. So the name of the committee is to study turf fields, artificial turf. I think that's an interesting name of a committee. Given that the conversation has been, what type
of field should we put there? Well that was the ask the town meeting. Okay, so Mr. Brand, Speaker 8: I would, am I allowed to let me work through a pro proposal for a friendly amendment to my own, my own motion? Because I actually think if we, if what we are doing is making a recommendation to the select board for action that we would like them to take that we should be as specific as possible. 'cause I'd re so my recommendation would be to take the constitution of this committee and add somebody from the sustainability department. And so whether it's Jillian or I don't wanna specifically say Jillian, but Jillian
or somebody who she delegates to or whatever, you know. So specifically somebody with professional sustainability of that background because we have professional health here and we have members of the select board and the school committee and having somebody with professional sustainability would cover those bases. It would not grow the, this study group much larger than one person and everybody else. And I would hope everybody else who's interested would come to the public meetings and participate the way people can come to any public meeting and participate.
But at least then we would have specifically more voices. That would be my friendly amendment. Speaker 2: I can accept that. Speaker 6: So just to, can I just summarize to Yes please. As as the secondary of the motion. So the school committee would vote to support the memo of January 6th, 2026, both sections with the caveat that our recommendation is that the select board expand the committee to include an additional member with sustainability expertise. Speaker 8: Yes, that is what I would say.
Did you second that? I Speaker 6: Accept that I second that You second it. So if we we're being friendly, we're being Speaker 8: Friendly. Yeah, but Catherine made the friendly amendment and then Speaker 6: I Well is that, does that capture, that Speaker 2: Captures it. Speaker 8: Catherine made the friendly amendment I accepted and you seconded it I think is what I just had. Speaker 6: I think so. So Speaker 8: Did she get that on that Speaker 1: That Linda, any discussion on that Ms LA does that meet your I I mean from my perspective I don't think a recommendation makes it's approved
and this is what we'd like them to do, but they're under no obligation to do it. So I don't, it's not strong enough for me personally, but I understand the case for you guys. Okay, Ms. McDonna, I see you speaking speak. Speaker 9: So I just wanted to say that that does not concern me to add someone from sustainability. There are other area of expertise that you could also recommend that we add, you know, like Parks and Rec and DPW and so, but that doesn't concern me because if you added a sustain the whole vision like
for this committee that I would think would be realized is to have all of these people come to the meetings and present. So if you want someone who's represents sustainability on the actual committee, that's great. All the other people can just come as like presenters and share all their information, including the people who've come and were at town meeting presenting on the Warren article. I would envision that all of those people would come to present. So I just wanted to share that perspective. I do think you should appoint someone to this committee tonight just just knowing
that the select board also did that. Speaker 1: So yeah, no I would like us to do that as well tonight. But I think if we can, if we can support their recommendation then we can any more re vote this. Alright, all in favor? Anyone against? So that's four in favor. One against. So the motion passes. So then this, the second part of this is who would like to be on this committee? Mr. Brand is willing to volunteer. Anybody else really excited about doing this? No. Okay. No. Do fight me Super Mr. Brand, we will recommend that Mr. Evans points you to this committee.
Thank you for your service. I might not. Great. Super. Alright. Thank you guys. And I'll now turn things over to Dr. Sash. Excellent. Thank you a lot on the agenda tonight. And as we do, we'd like to first kind of start the FY 27 budget presentations and we're gonna start with the presentation on MTSS reorg because we have our principles here tonight. I'm gonna say a few remarks and then Dr. Marshall's gonna proceed. Before we walk through the slides, I want to round this recommendation in its intent.
Our elementary interventionists are highly valued professionals in this district. They're doing important work every day for our students and they remain part of our system and that work continues. Many members are from this community with deep relationships to our schools and with our families. Their expertise and commitment matter. And this proposal is not a critique of their performance or impact. Phase one of the MTSS elementary reorg represents a focus responsible for step, not yet a district wide shift for the 26th. 27 school year changes apply only at one
school everywhere else. Interventionists continue their work. The reason for bringing this forward is what we've learned as a system, even with skilled and dedicated people. An add-on model can limit coordination and make it harder to consistently connect targeted support to core instruction. This proposal's about improving how the system works around the people doing the work. Starting with one school allows us to test a more integrated school wide approach that strengthens tier one instruction, clarifies roles and improves coordination while protecting staff stability and honoring the experience already in place.
I really wanna emphasize this is a redesign, not a reduction in force. It is intended to build sustainability while keeping our values front and center. Earlier today, school leaders from all of our elementary schools met with all of our elementary interventionists across the district to share this vision. We also sent follow up emails and Dr. Marshall met with her team at LILJA to walk through what this could look like in practice and she'll share what we heard. So with that framing, I'll turn it over to little just principal Dr. Marger, who will walk you through what phase one looks like in practice. Speaker 2: Thank you Dr. Thank. So we are here to talk about phase letter should be first
one, round it in our bridge plan. Our bridge plan fairly focuses on tier one instruction and we can't talk about tier two without talking about tier one instruction. In an efficient MTSS model, all the levels of instruction need to speak to each other and need to be grounded into one. Our plan is seeking to eliminate the interventionist role in order to create clearer, more professional roles that support the work that is done in tier one and ground. The tier two work in the instruction that is happening in our classrooms every day
with individuals that are highly skilled and trained in targeting the specific needs of the students that are struggling. Speaker 1: What Speaker 2: As Dr. SP said, this is not a reduction in force, it is not a judgment about the work our amazing interventionists are doing every day. And it is not a district-wide rollout for this year. What we know is that over the past several years, the district expanded interve interventionist positions that were created in response to the pandemic related needs that our students returned to school with.
Because we recognized that not all students get their needs met through tier one instruction. And that by having an interventionist or a tier two role, we were able to meet the needs of more students. But the ways in which these roles were created quickly and the ways in which they have shifted over time in response to the differing needs at the differing buildings have led to a fragmented approach to tier two service delivery. Currently our interventionists vary in structure in hours and in the ways in which they're used across the school.
They're often pulled into substitute coverage or into supporting roles and it makes consistent delivery of MTSS really difficult. What we want to make sure we keep in mind as we move forward is that the interventionists do play a really important and really visible role in supporting our students, our teachers, and our schools. Which is why we are so committed to ensuring that this is shifting a role but not eliminating the people, the family that we have in our buildings, right? These are, these are individuals who are part of our Lilja family, our Brown or Ben, he our memorial families.
So all of our current staff are going to be offered roles within this redesign system. So what's changing in this phase one reorganization, the elementary interventionist and tutor role. So we do have some folks who are still grandfathered into that tutor title from pre COVID. Those roles will be eliminated at lja in year one. We will create two new roles. One would be an MTSS lead teacher role, which would be a unit, a position, as well as para one roles, which is a unit S position. The paraprofessional roles specifically would report
to the principal as opposed to a special education coordinator, for example, and be primarily assigned to kindergarten. All roles would be a 1.0 in FTE. This would allow us to create the co cohesion and the consistency to prevent some of that role drift and some of the ways in which interventionists are used because of the hours that they work. So that the roles all look consistent eventually across schools, but even within the building that folks are doing the same thing for the same role. The impact is that we're looking to provide a system solution, right?
The entire school that we're not looking to sort of find something that's not working as well as it should and create a bandaid solution. But to really look at the entirety of how our building is functioning and through these clearly defined roles, make sure that we are addressing multiple needs that have shown themselves over time. We are aiming to create clearer instructional leadership from multi-tiered system of support to create consistent early elementary support with stronger coordination and accountability for the work that's being done. When our students who are struggling, what stays the same is
that we are still providing an NTSS model, right? That is the certification. That is what the research says. We are still going to use data to make our decisions about students and to make sure that students are making that we expect them to. We are still going to provide small group or individualized instruction where the data and the progress for lack of progress shows us that we need to, what we're committing to for our current staff is that staff expertise and relationships will be used in more clearly defined and sustainable position. Again, that our current staff will be offered roles within
this redesign and that we're offering support and guidance to those folks whose job responsibilities may shift or they may look be looking for different roles within our organization so that they feel secure as we navigate these next steps. This is a snapshot of what the intervention roles look like across our different elementary schools. As you can see, despite the fact that we're actually all relatively similar in size, we have different numbers of people that are used in different FTEs. Meaning that we are not all sort of experiencing a consistent application
of the role at our sites. So what will it look like specifically at Lja and why Lja? We have a strong foundation for some of this work at lja. We actually have some stable administration. We have an administrative team who's been there for four years. We have a lot of consistent staff members. We have folks who have either been at Lja for a number of years, or within the district, perhaps they came to us from Johnson or elsewhere who have been with Natick for a number of years, or folks who have been teaching for a number of years. So we have enough expertise
and ability to think critically about how the implementation is going so that we can have strong feedback and we have staff readiness. The way in which we at Lilja specifically have implementing, have implemented the role of interventionist and of coach because this is gonna work together. Puts us in a position where to make this shift is something that feels like the next logical evolution of how we're delivering intervention rather than, you know, a large over overall overhaul of what's happening.
A lot of what's gonna happen in phase one is to make a shift in the staffing structure, which is going to necessitate us taking a look at our school-based scheduling. And we're going to be reliant on staff collaboration here as a learning site. We hope to use that staff collaboration and keeping our staff informed each time that we are making a shift or considering how this role is going to be used by collecting data and using feedback loops so that our staff are sort of co-creating the blueprint for what could be used to inform
future decisions at other sites. This is an example of what the staffing redesign could look like at little Jeff. So right now we have 1.5 tutors, again that's sort of that grandfather table. But folks who are providing intervention three and a half interventionists that primarily work in grades one through four and five interventionists who spend all of their, pretty much all of their time in kindergarten. This proposal would add one and a half building based substitutes, but we already have a half substitute because we share a 1.0 with the memorial school.
So in actuality we would have two building based substitutes onsite every day. This improves our ability to provide coordinated coverage for different types of absences for meeting coverage and for different professional development opportunities by individuals who are part of our school community, who know our PBIS system, who have the opportunity to get to know more students work in our access programs. This would also create 2.0 MTSS lead teachers to deliver intervention focused in grades one through four.
And it would maintain those five individuals dedicated primarily to the kindergarten classrooms. We have five kindergarten classrooms, so five intervention is now becoming five paraprofessionals who support that kindergarten class. We envision this MTSS lead teacher role being a student facing role by licensed highly experienced educators. And that by having these licensed and experienced educators embedded within our teaching teams that this will allow us to effectively bridge the classroom instruction, the targeted instruction
and the intensive instruction across tiers one, two, and three and research. Lets tells us that it is the quality of intervention almost more than any other factor that indicates significant improvement in student outcomes. The kindergarten roles would be within that unit as position as level, level one paraprofessionals. These paraprofessionals will primarily support in kindergarten students, as I said, one per classroom for their learning to provide robust and targeted support for our youngest and newest learners, which strengthens the kindergarten
classroom environment. While the MTSS lead teachers and building coaches would mainly focus their intervention efforts on grades one four, our goal here is to, you know, through a potential school improvement plan goal, to really make sure that we are continuing to engage our staff in consistent conversations about how this role looks in practice. By having a goal centered around culture and logistics to help us again, create that blueprint for other sites to use in the next year, what we expect to see is improved coordination
and coverage with those building based substitute positions. More stable scheduling and staff informed implementation as we design the schedules around these differing positions and that we find a way to balance both consistency and and flexibility. What do we need this role to look like across the district so that we're not fragmented or disparate, but in what ways can the role flex around the unique cultures and presentation of students in each elementary building across the district? For next steps, as we roll this out
during phase one, we're looking to, again, through data and staff feedback, increase the clarity and stability of the new roles that we will have designed and implemented. We're expecting to see effectiveness in the coordination and coverage and we are looking to highlight and document the operational impacts, including how this is impacting our schedule and just sort of the day-to-day efficacy across the building. As we look ahead to future phases, we are looking to identify what should be consistent across schools, what should be a little bit flexible based on the site
and whatever refinements to the staffing needs to be made before we implement it more broadly across the district. In terms of engagement, we would look to provide updates to the school committee through different budget and progress reporting. We would continue to have ongoing communication with fellow principals and staff at other elementary schools. This has been a thought partnership across all of us. My colleagues are here today because although Lja is going first, this is something we all believe in and we want to make sure that as we implemented it lja
that it stays consistent with the vision and the needs of all the buildings across the district. And we would look to share learning prior to any broader rollout. This is a snapshot of the financial and districtwide impli implications. The rationale you see is a lot of what I just spoke about. It would be a loss of 1.5 FTE at an expense of $50,000 proposed expense. This is a broader look at the budget and the history of the budget Speaker 1: And the operational salaries. I'm just gonna interject on the budget page that we've been showing the committee, all
of the strategic allocations with this format, what was level service and what would add. And so it made sense to give you Bill just budget with that 50,000 increase and the decline in 1.55, which you saw on her earlier slide. So this just kind of is a meta view of that. But we'll we're happy to take questions. Thank you very much Dr. Marsh. Questions from the committee Shy on this one, Ms. Brunell and then Dr. Speaker 2: Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all being here tonight. My first question is just big picture. Why do this?
This is a big undertaking. What's the, what are we trying to solve? So right now, tier two intervention is really happening in a way that's feeling isolated. We have a lot of really hardworking individuals who are pushing into a classroom, taking a group to a table and then moving on to their next assignment. Because our current interventionists are not unit A positions, they don't have the same availability to consult with our classroom teachers. So it makes it really difficult for our classroom teachers to stay as informed as they should be to help co-plan
some of the intervention or to help take what is being done in intervention and apply it to the tier one work. So one of the pieces that we're really looking to focus on is the ability for this MTSS teacher to consult and collaborate with our tier one teachers. We are also looking for these MTSS teachers to know the tier one curriculum. It's really vital that as you're delivering tier two supports and doing intervention work, that you're using the vocabulary from our illustrative mathematics. When you're talking about things like regrouping, right? We all probably were taught math
with different vocabulary than our kids are coming home with in their homework. So those folks who are talking to our kids need to know the same vocabulary from tier one to tier two so that when we, when we go, they go back to tier one that it's not as though they are speaking foreign language for example. And we are also looking to make sure that the folks in front of our struggling learners are our most experienced educators. That these folks are licensed teachers who can take a look at the kids in front of them and in the moment make the adjustments they need
to maximize the learning that's happening while these students are in small groups. Right now what is happening is that in some cases we happen to be fortunate enough to have folks who maybe retired teachers who have some teaching experience and then in other cases we have folks who are utilizing coaches' support to plan and implement lessons, but then have to go back and speak to those coaches or check in with classroom teachers when and if they can to make some of those adjustments to practice that a highly experienced educator would be able to do with more frequency and consistency, which would then yields moving more quickly
and soundly through T two gauge prevention. Okay, thank you. That actually leads into my next question about the coaches. What, what would the role, will the role of the coaches change? Will they a part of this at all? Yes, absolutely. Our, the role of our coaches is still primarily going to be focused on tier one and helping any teacher, any educator level up their practice because that is how we reach the most kids. However, our coaches are also going to be brought in to support the tier two intervention at grades
one through four as well. So they won't have the same caseload as an MTSS teacher, but they will be there to take up some WIN groups as well so that we're making sure that any student who needs intervention gets in. I have a couple more questions but I Sure. Dr. Fugman? Speaker 6: Yeah, I have, well, a comment and and a question. My first comment is, I'm excited that we're doing this. I know I use the word excited a lot. I was thinking about this, but anyway, no, but MTSS is an effective approach.
It's an evidence-based approach. I know there's some slides but, and append appendices referring to the DC blueprint, so it might repeat some of those points, but, and what MTSS is not, it's not an intervention, it's not a staff person or a group of staff people. It's a schoolwide and even districtwide system. So the reorganization in order to implement MT SS makes a a lot of sense. I'm not the school, you know, I'm not the school administrator or so know as a school committee member. It's not, I'm not gonna comment on the details 'cause I trust 'cause that's your job, not
my, your collective job. But the direction of M-T-S-S-I think is, is a really important one. And one of the key things about MTSS too is the integration of academic, social, emotional behavioral supports. Yes. So we're really supporting the whole student. So as a whole, I'm really excited and I'm not surprised that you've, you have to go through these steps you've outlined 'cause it's not, again, not intervention. You can say let's just try tomorrow and see if it works. It's much, it's a system change approach. My question is, have you,
how, how have you, how are you approaching, how have you thought about putting in place some of those key elements of MTSS? Like a student support team for example, the process by which the referral process, how will we identify the kids who need supports? How do we make sure that they're getting the right interventions? How do we monitor progress to make sure that they're getting the right interventions or that when they don't need them anymore, that there's an exit criteria? Speaker 2: Absolutely. So we do still have some systems around this. We do still have our benchmarking data that happens across the school year. We do have students who are identified to be progress monitored through something like our renaissance platform
where they're doing curriculum based measurements on a periodic basis. We're looking for this teacher to also be an expert data. We are looking for these MTSS teachers to really own both the tier one and the tier two data because we feel this is going to allow us to be more responsive than sort of rely heavily relying on the benchmarking windows. Our teachers can always bring a student to child study and say, Hey, this kiddo was fine as of the fall benchmarking and now things have shifted. We never shut the door at any time to any kiddo
outside of benchmarking. But it is heavily reliant on the teacher. Whereas this would provide another role an an additional person to be monitoring that tier one data and to help the teacher either try to approach the student within the differentiation of tier one or say this kiddo would fit in my group here. This is the right move for now. And then as a teacher who we would want to be an expert in student data, be able to monitor the progress of the groups that are in front of 'em and identify when a student that might be in front of them could rejoin tier one instruction.
Speaker 1: So Speaker 2: Do you envision this teacher also Speaker 1: Chairing or running the child study team? Speaker 2: This person would certainly need to be a member of the child study team. Right now our vice principals right from the child study team. But this, these are one of the questions too that as we get that staff feedback and follow the data, I think we are going to more clearly to find this role over time. Which is again part of why we're doing one school before we do everywhere. Because they will certainly be on child study teams. They will certainly be a part of our data team meetings or co-facilitate our data team meetings
because they are going to have an intimate understanding of our student data. Speaker 1: Great. Thanks. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the updates to seeing Speaker 2: How it goes. Great. Speaker 1: Other questions Ms. Brunell? Speaker 2: Thank you. So again, I'm not, I'm not stating preferences here. I'm just wondering Yeah and I really appreciate the piloting, the running this out taking, taking data next year to figure out how this might work in other schools or you know, maybe it would look different in different schools given the students. I don't know. But last year when we went out
to the override, this committee stood in front of people and said, we don't wanna lose people in front of our, you know, like we really hammered that in front of the public are students that are a place where we cannot lose any more people. Please vote yes on this override. So how would you suggest we speak to that with this plan? Yes, Speaker 1: I'm gonna start with that one. We thought about that throughout and I actually think it's deeply embedded in this presentation. We're using this presentation, I would go right to here 'cause there's no other story than this.
And we start, and I started by saying this is not a reduction in force. We have a position for every single person who's currently doing intervention work, whether they enter unit S, whether they become a building based sub. There's, or the lead teachers or other classroom teachers. If they were to be vacated, we, we a hundred percent put ourselves behind that. They may not be at lilja. We showed a 1.5 decline out of 10 people. It could be in the district, but we are a hundred percent committed. And that's a pretty brave thing to say here because we value that so strongly. And so we've been super careful even in the presentation
to say how highly valued they are. When we spoke to them today, we said we know this was a critical part of the work, but we have to aim the system at improving the outcome for kids. And it is a system and the intervention as it is now, which was incredibly important as it came along, needs an iteration, which is what school leadership and school work is about is. So we do not want to lose them. I think Shelby's already meeting with all of them and our principals are already gonna start meeting with people one-on-one to, to do that support. I would highly recommend if they talk to you
that you have them reach out to their principal and have those one-on-one conversations. 'cause I think they'll be incredibly powerful and authentic and supportive. So I think we just have to have a stomach for evolution sometimes. No, thank you. I have one more question if I may. Okay. Anybody else on the committee with a question? Okay, go ahead Spinel. Speaker 2: Okay. And thank you because a few of those questions were not questions I sent in before this presentation. This one I did send in and my question is, again, I don't understand the school-based schedule, but you're, it looks like you're going,
you're taking a whole lot of people and putting them into just two. So how do I tell parents that the same intervention will be covered with two people? Highly, highly skilled, licensed, dedicated to that work that it looks like 13 or I don't know, 10 people used to do? Well first it, it is not two people doing the work of aids. Okay. We do have those five folks who are essentially performing the role that we are creating those paraprofessional positions that are gonna be at kindergarten. So from that 10 FTE that I have at lja, for example,
we're using five of them at kindergarten and five are gonna stay at kindergarten. It's just gonna be a different title and they're gonna become limited members of our community. So now at Lja for example, we're down to five fte. We are going to have two of those MTSS teachers and as licensed instructors. And by have, by allowing them to be embedded and focused at grade levels, we're going to be able to reduce some of the inefficiencies that sometimes happen when we have a lot of folks going from place to place to face place. As opposed to having some of our folks embedded in the grade levels
that the data shows us they need to be. We are gonna bring our coaches back on board to doing the intervention work as well. They're still primarily going to be focused on coaching tier one and they are going to be taking on some of those tier two groups or tier three groups as well. So there are three coaches now who are going to be coming on board to join our two MTSS teachers. And what we also know is that as tier one gets stronger and as tier two gets stronger, that over time we're going to see a reduction in students requiring intervention,
we are going to see an increase in the students graduating from intervention and hopefully a decrease in the number of students referred for special education. So in totality, what we're looking for is to strengthen the work that's happening in kindergarten by having these dedicated paraprofessionals, strengthening the tier two, the tier one through our coaching strengthening tier two and tier one through the collaboration between these MTSS teachers, our coaches who are doing some of the intervention work so that we are over time also going
to reduce the demand on these folks. Thank you. I'm all set. Great. Speaker 1: I don't any other questions from the committee? So I just, I just want to echo what Dr. Fuman said. I'm really excited about this and I'm, I'm really excited that we're investing all in, in kindergarten where, you know, that's the foundation of all the rest of elementary schools. So I feel like that's going to, you know, really be transformative in getting our kids ready for the next four years at elementary school. So I'm looking forward to your updates throughout the year and thank you so much for, for taking this work on.
We really appreciate you. Thank you. Speaker 2: You all very smart. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thanks to all the elementary principals here in Solidarity and Unity for, for this and thanks to the committee for the really insightful questions. We'll keep you posted. I just wanna close it by saying this was a very thoughtful process and honestly we would not do this if we didn't think it was going to help all of our students move forward into close gaps for our learners. So can't wait to update you in the future. Thank you. We're gonna move on. I'm just gonna go in the order that's here to the department presentations and we'll begin with teaching, learning
and innovation, which Deputy chief Academic Officer Sue Aloni will begin. Speaker 2: Thank you. I'd like to start by introducing my team who are here tonight. So Chris Cook, who is our Director of Curriculum and instruction and Sandy Lemon Coordinator of Data and Student to Success. My department has seen incredible progress this year because of their contributions and I couldn't be more proud of the work that we've been able to accomplish
because of their contributions. So wanted to make sure you had seen them because they are fantastic. You've had an opportunity to see the slide deck so it's very brief, which I hope you appreciate, but I wanted to make sure you saw that we are very tightly aligned to the strategic objectives. Our improvement goals this year are very much aligned. We are focused on formative assessment, look for, so we've done a lot of learning walks this year. Chris has done a lot of work leading that. And we have just about completed our first round
of learning rocks with all of our building principals and some of our assistant principals along with our executive instructional leadership team from central office. And they have been fantastic. And we've really been looking at formative assessment in the classroom and adjustment to practice. We've also done a lot of collaboration on teacher evaluation training, all of our evaluators across the district to make sure that we're really aligned with our evaluation practices. We're learning a lot and we have,
I think we found our growth edge and we're making progress there, strengthening our leaders in that area. And Chris and I have done a lot of work in developing those evaluations, the evaluation models and trainings. And we're looking forward to continuing that through the rest of this year. We're also doing a lot of work with our coaches. So Dr. Marshall already spoke a bit about our coaches, but we have brought in an outside partner to work with our coaches to support our coaches in really supporting
our classroom teachers in lifting the level of their practice in meeting the needs of our teachers in tier one. And then it all comes back to MTSS and our tier one and making sure that the work that we're doing is made in needs of every single student we lost through our, our door. So all of our goals and everything that is in our budget for TLI is aligned to that. We have no new hires in my budget this year. You'll see that most of the budget for salary includes the,
the two staff that I just introduced, and then the K four di K 12 directors of for health and physical education are fine. And performing arts, music library and missing, missing, should I say music health being music finance. And then the, a lot of the budget is non-salary. So making sure that we have high quality instructional materials for all students.
And I work closely with Erin to make sure that her department, she provides a lot of that, but to make sure that what happens in the learning centers is aligned or that they have the same materials that's happening in the general education classroom. You will see that a strategic allocation includes $300,000 ask, and that is because we are piloting literacy curriculum eight eight this year. We just kicked off our second pilot both at the K four level
and at the five eight level. And we anticipate making a decision mid spring. And with that comes a significant cost for participating that it will be about $300,000 to make the initial purchase our literacy curriculums for K four and five to eight for for the coming year. So this next slide shows what level service budget would be, and then the bottom one shows with the additional $300,000
for that literacy purchase. And that's, that's all I have for you. Thank you. Questions from the committee, Dr. Fon, Speaker 6: I'm curious about the $300,000. Is that just to buy the curricula? Is that like, is that like a one-time purchase for good? Is there PD included in that? Speaker 2: Yeah, so that would include for the most part, now this is, this is an estimate because we don't know what we're going with, but it would include the, the purchase of all of the teacher materials. It would include the purchase of all of the trade books,
which would last, the teacher materials would last. It would include the digital platforms for the first year. We would need to maintain that year after year if whatever we go with has a digital platform, which almost all of them do. It does not include the professional development. I'm a really good negotiator, but we also have the opportunity to use grant funding, which I intend to apply for as well as money that's already in our professional development budget to support that. Speaker 6: But in any case, the specific number will be determined
once a vendor is Speaker 2: Correct. Speaker 6: And then can you just talk a little bit about, we've heard, we've all heard about the debate between, you know, balanced reading and science of reading and evidence, what's evidence based and what's not evidence based. Can you talk a little bit about, specifically what I'm wondering is how is this helping shift, what kind of shift is this making, is making a shift towards more evidence-based literacy approaches? Speaker 2: Sure. So as a reminder, science of reading is alive and well in native public school. The, the, the, the
science of reading is an approach to reading where we're not using like the three QE method that people talk about, right? Does it sound right? Does it look right? We're not doing that. We wanna make sure that kids understand that the, this is the letter, this is the sound, this is what it says. So we do all of that. The goal here is to make sure that we're using high quality instructional materials that are evidence based, meaning they have been researched, they have been trialed, that we know for a fact that students come out with strong
success rates when using these materials. And those are the only things that we are piloting. Those are the only things that we are trying. So we're in, in our second pilot with a high quality instructional material at both levels. And what it's going to come down to is what curriculum have we used that the teachers are finding they're getting the best success for kids that they find that they are able to implement effectively. That is meeting the needs of all students. So it's not just good for the general education kids
who are sitting in front of them, but it's also good for the multilingual general education students who are sitting in front of 'em that it's also good for the students who are sitting in front of them who have learning disabilities, that it's also a adaptable for the students who are working at entry levels based on their individual education programs. So we wanna make sure that it's a program that's gonna meet the needs of all learners and that our special education teachers are able to access it and meet the needs of the students that they're working with
and that we're gonna have success for all students. Speaker 6: Thank Speaker 2: You. Other questions? Ms. Brown, I thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all the learning walks all the time that takes in the classroom and every, all the progress that you're making there. I was just wondering if somebody could walk me through on the budget page at the very, the fourth line up from the bottom, it's the second educational supplies line that has made a huge shift. Like it, it went, it really peaked in 2000 and or FY 25 with $700,000
and now it looks like we've come back down to a FY 23 number. So could you just speak to what's going on in that line item there? And again, I did not submit this question, so if you wanna save this for a future budget presentation, I'd be happy to take it then. Sorry, you're saying the fourth from the bottom in Speaker 1: Second from the bottom second actual line, right? Traditional sports. Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's the fourth actual line, but it's the educational line. So 7 0 2 4 8 1 8 6, it says educational supplies in FY 23,
it was 389,000 and then it went up to 640, then it went up to 734 started to come back down. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 2: I believe that that was, so we did some shifting because things were in the wrong categories prior to my taking on this role. Things were, there was things fall under educational supplies in the larger categories, but some is like digital platforms, text, some are taxed, some is software.
And so we were working to realign all of those pieces. And then there was also a time when we put a lot of extra money into the budget because we were purchasing the math curriculum. Speaker 1: Thank any other questions from the committee? Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, thank you. We're gonna move on to report from Erin Miller for the Office of Student Services. Thanks. Speaker 10: Hi everybody. Thanks for having me tonight. So I'm gonna talk about a piece of, of the student services budget that comes out of kind of the district offices.
Just for context, the student services budget based on almost a third of our overall budget when we think about all of our buildings. But tonight I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about, give you some highlights on our, what the district office are funding, what we're funding from the district point of view. So you'll see talk about my goals. So my first goal for this year is, is coordinating with Sue's office, the office of TLI student services and multilingual learning to think about how special education, multilingual learner, how that looks in an MTS system,
particularly our tier one supports. Tonight I'm gonna talk to you more about the goals two and three, about talking about our systems level vision for special education and what that looks like. And then talking about our out district programs and our internal programs as well. And, and, and that about that. So in terms of our variance drivers, we're gonna talk a little bit about the Elementary therapeutic program. So this has been a conversation over the last couple years. We've been thinking about the need for a second. We call the the Therapeutic Learning Center,
the TLC program, which is housed at the Bennett Illinois School right now in order to provide both neighborhood programming for students on both sides of town and not exhaust one program and keep kids in district. We have thought about over the years creating this program. Fortunately we've been able to, in the last couple years, we've been able to add some BCBA support. We've been able to add a teacher for that program. So we have those positions ready to go. The one position that we will need to kind of round out that program to really have
that therapeutic will use clinicians for that program. So that's what tonight the additional FTE is for a clinician to oversee that program and support those students within that program. You'll also see one of the drivers is a, is a negative of approximately $140,000. By creating this program and adding this step, we are then able to keep kids in district. And so that is kind of what that, that offset looks like. The next slide talks about our tuition budget and we see the history of what we've been asking for. And then, so this year we have 64 students.
We project to have upwards of 71 students. Mr. Gillis and I and Rachel Stanton are our district coordinator, really have worked hard to create a thoughtful plan around our, our our tuitions. We, we, we really try to project what those numbers might look like. We look at our watch list, but we also thoughtfully think about who might come back to our district. For example, some of our students in who are turning 18 or are graduating from their program, our chief program is off often a viable solution for them to come back to the native public schools.
So things like that we're really looking at on how we bring kids back into the district. Just kind of some overall on the tuition variance. Next slide please. Thank you. So just to kind of understand the story of the difference of the tuitions for next year. So can across the Commonwealth, the conversation is the collab collaborative, just so everyone knows, the collaborative is a public school day program out of district program. They, they often mirror our nix internal programs. So you'll see the day, the tuition, the,
the top line is decreasing, but the tuition special needs day program, that's our private school day students. That is increasing because we're finding that a lot of the students, when they do need out of district programming, they need a specific cohort. Meaning there might be a spec, a specific population of students or profile of students. They might need to be with a specific, there might need to be more of a, of a specific gender. It could be a number of things. But cohorts are really important when we talk about special ed programs. And that's where the private day programs can sometimes provide that specialized specialization
that maybe collaboratives cannot. But we always do try to look at collaboratives because we have great relationships with our collaboratives and they, they also provide some great programming. But like I said, they often are very similar to the in-district program that we already already provide. Just quickly, Norfolk Aggie, we're having more students apply to the, to, to Norfolk Aggie and the cost increases, even if we had one or two students, whether that student requires special education supports that that inclusive, that could be inclusive of different costs. So that's a projection of, of our increase in the north organic costs.
So this is just kind of next slide please. So this is our pupil services budget. So this is what is funded out of the Office of Student services at central office. Typically things like from my office that, you know, every school does have a budget that, that they are able to pay for smaller things or you know, if they need like, you know, some classroom materials or things like that. But when people start asking for equipment and services that, that, that have a larger cost, that's when they come to me and they ask me to, to allocate those resources.
So I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about what those variance drivers are. So next slide please. So this is our request history. So you'll see what we have historically requested, just an, I just wanna give context to the why. Maybe you're gonna see that total salaries number is not gonna change. That is because with the addition of the memorial clinician, that will be reflected in the memorial budget. So you're not gonna see it here today, but it'll be reflected in a different line item for the memorial school.
So this is just an kind of historical of the request. Then the next slide, and this is our strategic allocation. So this is just, I'm gonna speak to these numbers, but just so you have a sense of, I'm happy to go back to it, but next slide please. Alright, so the variance drivers, so the things in particular that we'll talk about are, you see here we have some reductions. So in terms of our contracted services, so these might be things like we, we, we have tried to hire a teacher, the visually impaired, the teacher
of the deaf, there's, there's very few of these folks across the state and they typically work for agencies or specialized schools. Districts contract with them. They're, it's a costly service. I will say I've been very successful in negotiating those contracts to be a reasonable, to be more reasonable, but that it is a necessary service. And I will say it's an important service that keeps our kids in district that we can bring those services to kids. We are always gonna continue to see if we can hire those positions. But like I said, it's, it's just, it's been, we haven't, last year we tried to, we didn't have any applicants for the positions then it's, they're, they're tough to hire internally and my colleagues everywhere are doing
the same educational supplies. So you'll see that Dr. Ferguson will talk a little bit about his budget this year. Some of things that were typically in my budget in the past had gone to have gone to Dr. Ferguson. But the other thing I wanna, what Ms. Albo was talking about is that we are finding, we don't require as much specialized curriculum because we're really trying to use general education curriculum, right? That we don't want students, even if they do require to be pulled out or have specialized service, we want them to be getting the benefit of general education curriculum.
So they're doing the same thing in both settings. So that's having us, that's allowing us to not have to buy as much supplemental curriculum slide. So again, some of these, these tuition pieces are thinking about grad, we have students who are out, a district who graduate, they age out and then aging out means they turn 22. And, and then some students are, are able to come back to our programs because they might require at least restrictive a a lesser restrictive environment. So some of the additions that you'll see are,
I just wanna give context to what the reason why we're seeing some of these things. So obviously we've talked a lot about our increase in multilingual learners and we've also had, this year in particular, we've had a significant increase in high needs students moving to data. You see right there in FY 26, we've had seven students who require specialized programming. Three with one-to-one para, three students required out of district right away. And sometimes we're financially responsible for that, but it eventually we are, no matter whether it's that year or the next will be financially responsible students
and also the level of service that these kids need. So some students, if they're moving in, they might require greater services, greater equipment, greater materials or furniture even. And, and they're, it's a costly, it's a costly price. So that's why you're gonna see the increase of the purchase services that I I we've, we've added some money for that. And then also extended school year, we're seeing more students require extended school year and the level of need is more acute.
So we are needing to hire more staff for that and we need to ensure that we are, you know, we we to, to get that staff to, that's gonna work for us every that we're paying them a fair wage as well. Next slide. This is another piece I'm thinking about. Our multilingual learners. I i, I can get this data here for you. I, I apologize, I don't have it readily available, but every year, I mean, this time last year, I think we were looking at, we had 30 ML learners who, who were duly identified as special education students and then 18 additional at this time last year
that we were evaluating. Often that comes with a cost for bilingual evaluations. So a bilingual evaluation means that we need to contract out and have someone who speaks that language. And we're doing evaluations in Mandarin, in Portuguese, Spanish, and I mean, you name it, we're Arabic, we're doing it. And, and we're, we're contracting with staff all over the state for that. And then translation services. So one thing that we're finding is that given our our ML needs, we are really increasing our Lexie services. And so that is, and our, and LKE also does translation services translates documents
for us that, again, can be costly, but it's, but it's a reliable tool for us. So that is something that we've, we've looked to increase that cost as well. I think that's it. Any questions? Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Questions from the committee? Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, thanks. Thank you. So Dr. Ferguson is going to, for the first time ever present, carved out as a member of cabinet. So exciting to own budget at CL counseling and clinical services. Welcome to the inaugural presentation. Make it sound really good.
I have to wake, there'll be a cake on the way out by the Speaker 11: Thank you. I can't wait. I love cake as you, as you all know, slide's gonna show up a minute. Prior to the FY 26 budget, actually no 25 budget, I never had a budget to speak of. Although my, I had a lot of generous colleagues who shared their resources and funds to move the work forward. And now I can actually cite some of the numbers that I work with. And most of the, the all the FTEs actually are still retained
in the student services budget as relates to counselors and so on. So there's still a lot of work that goes, that's done by the SEL department in my office. It's still embedded, but teaching and learning and still embedded in student services. So the numbers I'm gonna show you today, and not just numbers that I operate with, but also tether with my colleagues, as I was thinking about some of the early presentations that you've seen today and the work around the MTSS work that the lja and much of what we've been doing, much of
that cannot happen successfully if SCL is not a component of that. So, you know, I say is a force multiplier for academic outcomes and success. So this work is really important and it's really embedded into much of what's happening in the district. So I'm really excited to be supporting this work and work with my colleagues in conjunction teaching and learning and student services too to move it forward. So much of what I'm gonna share is going to talk a little bit about specifics of what the, the SEL budget and the funding has done this year.
But in terms of connecting to my goals for the year and the bridge plan, much of the work is supporting tier one instruction, student belonging, ensuring that we're making data-driven decisions about student outcomes, expanding access to mental health. I'll see a little bit more about that later when I talk about some of the new initiatives that we've embarked on the year increasing adult capacity through I call the PEs and engaging students. Also providing experiences with students with some of our
presenters who come to district promoting prevention and self-regulation for our students and improving safety and coordination through code of conduct work that's happening this year and ensuring that we're responding to ongoing concern process. Next slide please. So this is my budget. A little less complex than my colleague here, but no less important. So as you can see, I've been very excited to be using some of these resources to support the work that's been going on in the district. A lot of this work in the past has been supported
by competitive grants, but prior to the FY 25 budget, I had some of these funds devoted to our tier one wayfinders, you know, has been part of the tier one instructional resource abuse in the district. We've had investment in mood check, former signs of suicide. So a lot of this work is really precisely allocated to those services that have been present in the district for some time. So in addition to that, the earmark from the state FY 26 generously for six communities in the area in the metro west.
We've, in the past two years, I believe maybe in three years, received $116,000 through the support of Senator SP's office. And DESI has also been very generous to us and we've received some funding from them as well this year receiving $69,000 from dsi. Next slide. So what does this work look like in practice in the district? As I said earlier, tier one is, is wayfinder and we're also using much of that to support additional resources that may be needed.
We know that Native has a long history of other curriculum that's been used in the past to some degree, open circle and some others that we've used in the past. And from time to time we can update some of those where teachers have a lot of experience with those, we still try to support them. SEL is not just a curriculum, it's actually an infrastructure that's really woven into MTSS in a way. So I'm somewhat, even though I have strong bias with some platforms and some resources around SEL, it's clear that
there is a lot of resources out there. And when teachers are excited by SEL instruction and they have resources that they feel strongly about and passionate about and they want to explore those or integrate those into what we're currently using in the district, we always try to support those. In addition to that, we've expanded our screening. We we're very well familiar with Mood Check formerly signs of suicide and some of our tier one universal screening through srs. And my SRS now is part of Renaissance suite of
benchmark testing and assessment. So we very much using those throughout the district. In terms of participation, I would say the elementary school is well over 95%. The middle school is probably in the, the eighties and the high school is probably the sixties and those numbers make sense, but it is become part of our culture of understanding students and using information to help design intervention for students at all levels. It looks differently at the elementary, the middle of the high school, but much of the data is being used
to really make thoughtful decisions about how we support students. And that data also is being used to inform how we've expanded our care and support of students in terms of interface that again has a long history in the district. One of the things that happened this past year is that we have partnered with a town in, in being able to secure those services, the town has now made a decision to park way with interface because they're using some less expensive options. And so we were able to secure some funding actually
to extend interface so that families more invested and have comfort with interface and continue to use it. Addition to that, we've worked with Terra Solas who's provided some additional referrals for us this year at a cost that is more palatable to where our funding is. And then it introduced Car bill this year, which really was an effort to support our multilingual students and families because it provides opportunities to receive care in multiple languages. The match rate of Cartwheel is pretty high,
which is really helpful to us when we have students who need care immediately and part of the support of the structure of their support is they do some pro, pro bono work, which helps families who are unable to afford care. So in many ways it's been a significant addition to our mental health services and support for students, high quality PDs. We've been able to advise some really well-known presenters and professionals in the, in the field of mental health and stem, social emotional learning. Jessica Han has been here
and a few others who you, you may know both in terms of nails and throughout the course of the year provided some targeted coaching for our staff across the buildings, including buildings with specific programs. And that has been really invaluable to our staff and hopefully we continue to provide that with the funding that we have this year. Evidence based interventions have come through in many different ways, but one of the ways that we really excited about this year has been providing some cognitive behavioral intervention strategies and supports for our students through our counselors, ensuring that they have the resources they need
to really be thinking about the students through the type of assessment and evidence-based interventions that we're seeing both in the academic domain of things. Oftentimes we're trying to create, create greater parity between what's happening academically and what's happening social emotionally for students. As we know when students are socially well regulated, we're able to access their academic interventions and teachers work can actually focus on instruction as opposed to behavior management. Risk assessments again has been another area
that the funding has helped move us forward. Unfortunately, you've seen that this past 2025 was a very challenging year for school level violence and we've continued to improve our training and resources in this area to ensure that we can identify students early who may be presenting with some level of risk and concern. And we have the right tools, we have the right training to ensure that students are recognized of, supported and given the right type of in-school and absolute supports to help our community continue
to feel safe and help students feel a sense of belonging. And last but not least, most of this work has to be grounded in sustainable system. One of the biggest pieces here this year we're working on the code, code of conduct work that is really creating both the structures and the routines that we need to ensure that our students continue to feel a sense of safety and belonging. That were predictable routines and outcomes and interventions that support their presence in our community and that we're approaching this work with coherence,
that we're approaching this work with a vision to help support them in native public schools and help them feel more successful. I think that's the last line. There's been no variance other than 2%. And Matt has counseled me very effectively to ensure that I stay within my budget. And so there's very little flexibility there, but it's been a welcome in increase to continue to exp expand services as possible and the availability of embedded grants are really helpful in doing so. So I will continue to be fiscally responsible to make sure I stay within my balance and continue to work
and pursue grant funding to help us move the work forward. Speaker 1: Thank you. Dr. Fergus, did you wanna add something Mr. Jones? Speaker 12: Yeah, I, I would like to thank Dr. Ferguson for, for being a good sport and for more importantly being very successful in the competitive grants that he's able to live in, in budget. So I don't, I don't take that lightly. He's been very successful since he's been here, so it was, it's been easy to lean on, believe. Speaker 11: Thank you Mr. Gilli. Speaker 1: Thank you. Question for the committee, Ms. Flatters and Msne, just, just really quick,
why is your overall budget less than the total of the grant? Speaker 11: Sorry, what was the Speaker 1: Question? Why is the total budget less than the total of the grants can Speaker 11: Mean go back to Speaker 1: It I think because maybe I'm adding one 16 plus 16 curious. Speaker 11: So those, those are additions in addition to the 1 75. Got it. Yes, Speaker 1: That was, I was confused. Yes, Ms Speaker 2: Well I was gonna call out the same thing that, I mean you've done a fantastic job getting grants because you're, the appropriation equals the same amount
of money that you brought into the district of grants at the genomics conference. And I promise at some point to report on that, often we would be brought back to per pupil spending. So, and this is, we've talked about this so much that your budget shows your values in the system. And so since this budget is so straightforward, we can say to parents that of the 5,235 kids that we saw today in the con consent agenda, $70 per kid goes to every student in, you know, when you think about money in that way towards social emotional learning. And so it's important for us
to keep our our eyes on numbers like that and that's including your appropriation and the grant so that we don't go below 70 ever because clearly social emotional needs are never gonna, well maybe, hopefully maybe one day they'll become less. But at this point it's just like a way to, to gauge what are we doing, why are we doing it and are we actually supporting it with dollars, the 2% change, how did you decide on that or in a Yeah, it wasn't a decision I had. Yeah,
Speaker 12: Mo most of the non-salary increases are around 2% is what folks had to work with. If they could demonstrate that couldn't work within that initially, then you know, the market being what it is, we would, we would make some adjustments but a lot of folks were able to to live within a 2% increase. Speaker 2: Again, demonstrating our absolute fiscal responsibility to what we can, when we can hold back on adjustments. We're doing that as much as possible, so it's fantastic. Thank you for your work. One last thing at the conference,
we were near the table cartwheel and they were so happy to see us, they're like, oh Natick. And they like pulled us over and like talked to us about it and it was, it was neat to hear from the vendor's perspective how happy they were to work in the district. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much Dr. Experts. Great. We have one more item on the budget side and it really is a memo of a straight level service. It has no strategic allocation related to it, but we wanted to report out on it. And so I just wanted to frame
that with the school committee. You've already sat through several budget presentations tonight that show how tight FY 27 is. Thank you Ms. Brune for kind of illuminating that again. And how much of our work is about making trade offs with limited resources to make investment in other areas. This memo's part of that same commitment to transparency. For many years, medical costs have been embedded across transportation, special education and staffing, right in the level service budget. What you've not yet received, to my knowledge, is a clear consolidated view of how that adds up and how much of it is covered by state grants versus local funds.
So we wrote this memo to give you that full visibility. This is not a recommendation to expand or reduce meco, it's not a policy proposal, it's an analysis that shows how our current participation shows up in the budget so that you can asking form questions and make informed decisions. And after three budget presentations, it would be easy to let this blend into the background, but we did not wanna make that happen. Metco a real investment by our school district and it deserves to be understood clearly. We're happy to walk you through the memo at a high level or we can go straight to your questions. Would people like a walkthrough? Just questions?
Speaker 2: Anyone wanna walk through? Speaker 1: I think we can go straight to questions. Great. And I do have Mr. Lynch here who's going to help field questions. Who Speaker 2: Wants to start Ms. Speaker 1: Bruno? Speaker 2: Well first with a compliment. I sent this to two other school committee members that I know in the metro West area and they were like, I've never seen anything like this. So thank you. It does make it so clear and we shouldn't be bearing METCO in any way, especially in the numbers. I actually also, I didn't, you guys would be proud of me, I did almost forward this to Representative Linsky so he could use it on the floor of the house
because now this is the third year in a row that the state is proposing a level funded for Medco and that's not enough. You can't continue to run the same program in the same way. So if we're actually about integration, we as school committee members need to be talking about this to representative Linsky and bringing this to the State house. My question is about the bus at the community night with the co-parents and students. We heard talk about a desire for just certainty that the bus was going
to be a warm and safe place and you know, at, at some point there was a name of a bus or like there was a suggestion of a bus monitor. I don't know if you could ever staff it if we have the funding for it, but I was just curious about that. Speaker 13: That a great question. I didn't look into that. I I haven't actually heard request. Okay. Yeah, Speaker 2: When I say request, it was just a parent brought it up that they were nervous about their kindergartner going on a bus for 40 minutes without ha with the bus driver not having, so I, I,
I'm not saying a formal request, but it was just mentioned that night and I wondered, I think it's important for us to see these numbers, but I also wondered if there was ever a way to start to think about the future. And I don't, I don't know if that's necessary. We don't have bus monitors in naic, but I just wanted to make sure that that was voiced. Speaker 13: Okay. I, I misunderstood your question. So yes, our school transportation for elementary shift this year, we used to have a minivan that would take seven students from Boston to,
to Benham from Benham bag. And there was a monitor last year. This year we've grown from seven to 11 students, which now necessitate network mini bus. That mini bus, it was worked out and the way we worked it out was they didn't give us that mini bus at the same cost as our mini van without a monitor. So that's how we were able to blow the program seven to 11. But the, the trade off that there's no Speaker 1: Any other questions from the committee? I mean I, I would also just like to thank, thank everybody for this presentation 'cause I think it's really helpful
to see all these costs and needs, you know, defined so clearly. I guess the question we always ask is, are the needs of our students being met? Is there anything that needs to be addressed in this budget? I don't see anything here, so I'm assuming the answer's no, but I, I feel right if I didn't ask that question Speaker 2: Aside from Speaker 1: Bus monitor. Thank you. Appreciate it. Excellent. Thank you so much Mr. Lynch. And that wraps up our budget. Thanks for your patience as we went through it. And we do have more for next meeting and then we'll wrap up our budget presentations.
Unless the committee has any questions for me before I segue, I suggest moving over to our item related to the calendar which Ms B will cover. We have a few options to discuss with you and we're considering this your first read. We do have a lot of pressure on us. I've been, I can't even get to the school building committee without parents asking me. So it's kind of a interesting year in terms of what the dates fall. So I think if we can get to a vote sooner rather than later, not today, but sooner rather than later, it would be helpful to the community. Speaker 2: The calendar. So this has been a challenging one
and there were some edits that were made today because Excel is not my friend and there were some dates that were missing off of the actual calendar and so September only had 21 days, but it's been corrected. So you actually have four options. Option B and option C are exactly the same for students. The difference is four staff and I actually have talked to Mr. Wood about this and so we've had several conversations. Option D is the one that is what you are most familiar
with in terms of how we typically start the school year in terms of students coming back the Wednesday before Labor Day. The challenge here is that it makes our 100th hundred and 80th day of school June 22nd and if we have five snow days, it puts us at June 29th, which is very, very late. That's a challenge because a lot of our families have their kids going to camp, which typically starts before June 29th. Our summer programming also starts the next week. It's just a very tight end of the school year,
which can be problematic for many families. So I did give you option A and option B, which pushes the start of the school year earlier into August with the students starting before the week before Labor Day. So those are things for you to consider. Another thing for you to consider that was brought to us today from the police department and the town was
that our full day professional development day, our mills day is typically the Monday after Thanksgiving. That happens every year except for on a presidential election year. On a presidential election year we move it to election day. The town has asked if we would move it because it's midterm elections this year. They have asked if we would consider moving it to election day. So that's another piece for you to consider. Another factor for you to consider this year is that
we have added the e holidays into our calendar the past two years that we've had that only one of those holidays has fallen during the school year and the second one has fallen during the summer. So it hasn't impacted the second one now falls in March, I believe it's March 17th, sorry, May 17th. So that's been added to the calendar, which, which adds an additional holiday that said Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekend this year, so it balances out that holiday.
So those are all things for you to take into consideration as you're looking at the calendar. I don't wanna speak for Jefferson or for the teachers, so rather than do that I would nominate you to speak and share your thoughts on behalf of the staff. Speaker 14: Thank you. Yeah, as, as MS be mentioned, she had graciously did reach out to me to get some feedback from myself and from Shayla, our co-president. And obviously the unusual thing here is starting so much
before the Labor Day weekend. However, our feeling is that most of our members are very comfortable with the schedules that currently exists when we come back at the end of August. Yeah. And certainly the not pushing the line to the very end of June I think is in the interest of everybody, students, parents, and staff. So I think that there's, there's already a lot of familiarity with coming back before August is over. Not having a three day weekend is, is a, an alteration, but we're coming in, we're coming back right after a summer break. So I don't feel like
that three day weekend is all that necessary. I also know that the, for the kindergarten teachers specifically, usually the first two days of of school with students there's an eight a and a B day where they work with half their class one day, half their class with the next. So if we were to start with any of the other options, then a, we start off with a full week and that's a, that's a little bit of a, a tricky transition with them. 'cause they'd have half a day with one group, half a day with the next group and then three full days. Whereas opposed to option A now the way it has been over the years, they get to start with half of their class,
half their class one day with everybody and then weekend, you know, and then come back into it. So that kind of phasing in tends to work well for, for everybody. Speaker 1: Questions from the committee, Ms. Laers, I'm super glad the teachers feel that way 'cause I agree going to the end of chair would be very, very painful. I think I know even this year is relatively late and there's camp starting, so it's, that's great news. I think opportunity is fine and I would leave it to you guys. I don't have a strong feeling BC but it makes sense.
It's the most comfortable. I did notice another calendar, I don't know someone was posting calendars 'cause they're freaking out about the calendars another district. 'cause I know in the past I've heard that the teachers really like having a three day week and then a four day week and then a five day week. I did notice another calendar that was giving the fourth off and making it a four day weekend over Labor Day, which you know, is an interesting decision. I don't have any real feelings about, I just mentioned Speaker 2: Yes, Hopkins. And actually they're actually starting the week before Labor Day and giving the fourth off, which is right.
I was like, who? But yeah, they are giving the fourth, so that's another option to consider. Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean if I may I'm sorry. Oh, go ahead. Sue called on me. Speaker 1: I didn't, Speaker 2: I looked Speaker 14: At him. The, yeah, I mean we, we usually talk about the phasing in the students who got three days with your students, then four days, then finally five days. The only real difference here is three days, then five, then four. So I, again, I, I would I guess personally argue again for keeping June without being overly compromised that there's no need for that extra day. If, if, if we're on the subject though of another day, if,
if I may throw it out there and while it's fresh in my mind, a number of members had expressed to me the interest in having December 23rd be a happy day in the same way that it is before the Thanksgiving break. Especially where for the next year you've got the, the winter break starting on December 24th. It's a slightly shorter break period. But the, the truth is there's a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that day before Christmas Eve is oftentimes very poorly attended. And anyway, in the same way that there is a half day off before the Thanksgiving break, having that half day off
of travel might be in the best interests of many of us. So something to consider as well. Speaker 2: That is something that I am actually running numbers on right now. I'm concerned about time on learning. And it's fine for the middle school because there had been a November half day at the middle school that we actually kept for this year. But it needs to go away because there are no longer conferences at the middle school. I just need to run the numbers to make sure that we're hitting time on learning at the elementary level before I can say that that is feasible.
Speaker 1: Mr. Brand. Speaker 8: So just for a little bit of context as it relates to summer camp, and these are just predictions that I'm making. Well the first one isn't, I think most camps end this summer on the 12th of August. So that option there would be two weeks, which for anybody who's ever gone to camp, kids need like a decompression reentry period of time. But not too long. And if I had to guess, looking at the calendar for 2027, I would guess that most camps will start on June 30th.
So if school ended June 29th, that would be among, among other things, it's actually a health risk for camps. This was a problem a number of years ago for, because New York schools were in late and a lot of the New England camps had a lot of illness at the beginning. 'cause kids leave when we were leaving school and going right into summer camp and didn't have the time to really, they were bringing school germs right into camp. So a little bit of break in between was actually really camps like that. So anyhow, I'm just guessing that that's when Camp C started in 27.
They have not confirmed with me, all of them. I don't know. Ms, Speaker 2: Could you clarify what you said about the Nils day? Why is the town asking us? Speaker 1: I, I wanna clarify. They didn't ask us. That was our solution to it. They just gave some pause to whether or not, and I think they would likely always do this and I don't know what the history is in a midterm election and whether we do or do not keep schools open. But it is the logistical, you know, challenge in parking and in school logistics of having the community come in to vote while you have school running.
I see. So they, it's, they want November 5th off, third, third. They would recommend that it would give some pause and consider it. And the only solution in my mind with this tight schedule this year was to just shift Nils. I will say there's a negative to that selfishly a little bit, which is that that's when most people in the state hold their PD day. And so it's just harder to get outside providers, it's harder to contract with them, but it's not impossible. So it's really how we're feeling about keeping schools open, the political climate, you know, and whether we wanna just have two things going
on in the building at a time. We absolutely can do it. I've done it as a principal, it happens. But I felt like we should relay that for the, the group's consideration. But they didn't make a recommendation Rega regarding Nils itself. It was more whether school was in session that day. Speaker 2: Okay. So I think I appreciate this memo and you giving a different ideas. I think option A makes sense to me. I do think that when I looked at the calendar, the end of August seemed more important than the week before Labor Day. I also hope that in the strategic plan we hear from people,
and I don't know if this will organically come up, but about the calendar because I really don't think we've done, we've finalized the work on the holidays and it would be surprising to me to take two days off for both Eves this year. The intention was to, especially during the FI when an EID came, when I was on the committee, when the Eid fell in finals week or towards the end of the year, we had Muslim students express to us that it was very difficult for them to maintain their academic level of output at the high school when
that holiday fell. So it, it was, there was never a request to have both days off. It was really because of this mix of academics and cultural significance, religious significance. So I would want us to think about that and maybe even be flexible during the strategic plan if we got enough information to figure out what we're doing with holidays. Because I think it, we just have heard for ever since I've been on the committee that every day in June is a harder day to teach than a day earlier in the year year.
So to me that's the value of all of the things we're doing about making sure that our students output and academic integrity is happening with tier one and everything else that we heard tonight. I think we should be doing the same thing with our calendar and ensuring that our students have the most amount of days in a, in a way that also respects the diversity of our community. Speaker 1: Dr. Fugman, Speaker 6: Well first of all, I appreciate all the work that went through this. I know how hard it is 'cause I once worked in a company that published calendars
and I was fired 'cause I took two many days off. I had to share that joke now. I had to share that joke. Bad joke. Sorry. It's just bad joke. It's part of my job school committee. So it's, it sounds like, so I mean it sounds like Plan A is better for teacher, for educators. It is. The cost of coming early in August outweighs the benefit of leaving early in June. I'm curious, and I don't know how we do this other than you know, people watching us at home giving us feedback. I'm assuming it's the same for families.
The families would prefer that as well. I don't know if you received any feedback, but I guess that we have at least one more meeting for us to reach out and just get us now obviously now we're not getting a vote or any, anything formal, but I'm just curious how families would feel about coming early in August with, a little bit earlier with the benefit of leaving early in June. I mean it sounds like that's where people are weighing, but that was my con I'm mostly raising my hand for the joke to be honest.
But I couldn't resist. But I also, that I'm just, that's, that's what's going in my mind as well. Speaker 1: I have a question. So on the calendar, a the last day of school would be June 14th, which which is a Monday. Is that, I mean, do you get a lot of attendance on the last day of school being around home Speaker 2: The best? Speaker 1: So I, I, there's lot of snow. Yeah. I always make my kids go to school in the last day of school, but I know that Speaker 2: I do as well. Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah. But I, I, yeah, I'm, we somehow that have it not be a Monday. I would love that. Not enough for,
because I think just, you know, having a day where people are gonna show up is a good day. Well Speaker 2: You also, you know, we still have to make decisions on that second Eid Speaker 1: Yeah. Holiday. Yeah. And I, I, I, I, my recollection is the same as Catherine's and I just wanna sort of look down the table at the rest of the committee that our decision was to add one of the eves to the calendar. Like to add one additional day of school closure, not two additional days, excuse me, days of school closure when we originally voted on that. Not, Speaker 6: I don't know that. I think that was just a coincidence
'cause it's Eid is a Muslim holiday and then Ali is the Hindu holiday. So we added both. Speaker 1: We added both. Yes. So we didn't mean to add both days of Eid. Oh Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we only added one. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: At the time e Eid ture was in the summer and so we added Eid ahaha and so in this case, this is the first time both Eids had fallen in the Speaker 1: School year. School year. Yeah. So I think we should revisit the wording of our decisions. So we at least live true to to what we decided. And we can reevaluate that of course. But I would only want to add the one that we agreed
to. Yeah, Speaker 2: I think it was Del fitter that fell during the school year and then see other way around. Speaker 14: I believe so. Yeah. Yeah, because Del fitter happens in the fall. Right? Okay. This one is the end of May. Speaker 1: Alright, so we need feedback on this. So it seems like everyone is sort of putting their hands up for option A as being sort of the one to really consider just being a workable one. So let's get some feedback before the next meeting and then hopefully we can give you guys,
if you have a final calendar for us by then, we can vote on it possibly at the next meeting. But for parents out there, anyone listening, if you're looking at the meetings materials, look at the calendar option A as being the most likely one at this point in time. But B, BC and D are also in consideration. Excellent. Did you have Catherine's? Oh, Catherine, Speaker 2: Just one more piece of feedback that I got Was wondering if we could ever start to vote this in December now that camps are sign, sign up are sooner than they used to be. I think that was a good suggestion. And then another parent suggested that we vote two years
of a calendar if ever possible. I don't know, I don't plan a STA plan, elaborate vacations. I wish that I could, but I don't. So I, but I understand that people want that flexibility. I just wanted to voice it. I'd be happy to do that. And I'm sure Ms. Blocker would love to have it done in December. Speaker 1: Yes. You setting up for the two year or the December? Speaker 2: Well, she would love the two year, but I think one year at time is, is good. Speaker 1: Good. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Great. We're gonna move on to a briefing
of the strategic plan and communications. As you all know, we have forums coming up and we don't have a school committee meeting again before they start. So we wanted to share with the committee what our plan is so that you're really well aware and especially as people ask you. So Jackie s here to go over that. Speaker 9: Yeah. I'm gonna take it away in a, a tap dance and am amazing. No, not, it's late at night and there's actually way more so I am gonna try to be brief, but please know I'm really willing to talk to any of you in depth if you want more, if you have ideas
that I don't talk about around engaging our community in this process. I just wanna talk about there. There's been various people supporting the communication and engagement in this, including Dr. Fugman and Dr. Bash and Ms. Bel and a, and a whole team. And we are taking this process really seriously to try to get the biggest engagement that we can possibly get from the community. So it's a long process, right? Like this process is over months, although the major push for communication and engagement from all stakeholders is in these
next upcoming weeks. And so we have to be coordinated, transparent and we have to sustain the engagement and the information of what's going on in this process over the course of many months. And So we're, as you know, we're trying to ensure that there is inclusive participation across all stakeholder groups, that we're clearly communicating these engagement opportunities, the timelines and the next steps of all of the items that we're being consistent and accessible and providing the information that people need in an easy format.
And that, obviously when all of this is said and done, we're gonna be presenting the strategic plan to the school committee and then we're going to be really embarking in a major push to share our results in the community. So the first thing we did, as many of you know, is we've established a central information hub on our website. It's one of the red tabs you see right when you go to the website. And that was established in December. And it will serve as our central hub for forum dates and times and formats, survey access updates,
the steering committee contact information, and any sort of key milestones that we have in our process. Many of you have been involved or have seen our flyer that we created in December that has a QR code. We found the best idea was to have that QR code always go to this landing page. So we're just constantly updating the landing page and not having to redistribute different QR codes for different pieces. So that has been pretty successful. We've already notified the community of the launch. Our steering committee has been selected
and communicated already, and Dr. Sp and Principal Blocker did an announcement, as many of you saw, to all of our N-H-N-H-S students to invite them into the process as well. Many of you, thank you very much. Help distribute flyers your Speaker 15: Attention please. Well really closing in 15 minutes Speaker 9: And here we go. I wanna talk way faster and we're really trying to use the Engage Newsletter to also broadcast that. Thank you. That work. So there's gonna be kind of like a flyer blitz this week.
And also on top of that, Dr. SP will be sending personalized email invitations with specific instructions to various stakeholder groups as a, as a personal outreach to become involved and engaged in this process. And we're gonna also kind of have a, so social, I guess I'll call it a social media blitz as well, where we're going to really broadcast participation in our forums. The forums are, are on purpose scheduled, both in person and virtual. We know a lot of families, particularly with young kids, it's, they wanna be involved, but it's really hard to navigate how
that's gonna happen for them. So we know that, you know, virtual options are a really strong option. Same thing for our educators. So there's gonna be a mix in combination of forums there to be held. The last week of January on the 26th and 27th, we're gonna do some email and text reminders, social media posts, again with the engage a little, maybe a few more fancy announcements to the NHS students. After our forums and all of that information is collected, our next push will be for our survey engagement.
So very similarly, we'll follow a very similar path. There'll be a direct invi invite from Dr. Fash. The landing page will be updated, social media will be promoted. We purposely picked a platform that has easily translation accessibility. We're gonna send a midpoint reminder that surveys open for two weeks. So we'll do a midpoint reminder to get another little boost in there. And then the survey does close right before February break. Then as you, as we go on, you're gonna see that we're gonna do periodic check-ins with the community
to update them about what the steering committee is doing. And the same thing for you as a committee. And it will all culminate in the end of an in-person presentation presented to you of the strategic plan on June 1st. And then on the second, we wanna have a really broad community release, the published amazing document that it will be. And then, you know, it's, this is all, you know, asterisk subject to change, but I did give you maybe so that you could see the broader picture, like some date by date comms pieces.
So you can kind of see the how we have to be really strategic on how we're gonna continually update our community so that they're understanding the importance and how huge of a, of a piece this is for us to come together as a community and make this plan. So again, all of those dates, again, they're all subject to change, but I just wanted you to see the general picture of our engagement Speaker 6: From the committee. Speaker 9: And if you have any other ideas, I'm happy to take them. Speaker 6: Just one very quick comment, there's actually some flyers
on that table, so if people, anyone want to take one read that way left them, feel free to take some flyers. It's exciting to see this and thank you for making Speaker 1: It so comprehensive. And I assume you'll confer with our social media guys, Matt, here on any leads you might have. Yes. Speaker 8: Best Instagram handle. Speaker 1: I think maybe I'll do a video of you. We can post a video on our story. Speaker 8: Yeah, that's Speaker 1: Of you inviting people. We'll Speaker 8: Regram that. Speaker 1: Oh, I get it. Is that a verb? Speaker 8: No. Oh, did that right then. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 8: Just one if I could. Yes.
Instagram I will say just for you don't have, you don't have to go back. It's okay. But I did, I did go to the farmer's market with those flyers last week last, not this, not two days ago, but the week before. And there were actually a pretty healthy number of people who stopped by and Deb had me sit, it's still inside now, but Deb had me sit right at the entrance area and, and may, you know, interrupted people on their way to get their fresh produce. But people took flyers, some people with kids in the district, some people without kids in the district.
So, you know, whether that translates to people being involved, I think the more we can get people to be aware that these things are happening, the more certainly the more likely it is that they'll participate. So I would take, those flyers are great and they were great at at the new year at the Rail trail as well. Speaker 1: My favorite part about the rail trail was finding out who was not from Natick and then sort of oh my, Speaker 8: So many people wanting Speaker 1: To hold back on the marshmallows for people that weren't from Natick. Speaker 8: People who aren't from Speaker 1: Nat. Keep walking, keep walking. Thank people Speaker 8: Not from love the marshmallows. They ate a lot of the marshmallows. Speaker 1: Who did? I did and I shared with everyone.
Okay, thank you so much and thanks for your great care in putting that together. Good stuff. So I know we're, you know, T minus nine minutes, but Mr. Gillis assures me he can do his piece in two minutes. We'll see how long the questions go, but do you wanna proceed with that or no? Okay, let's do it. Budget report. Speaker 12: So second quarter financial report in your packet. Cautionary good news. Looks like we're about 800,000 to the good, which is about 0.8% of our budget. And you're thinking, wasn't it, you know, three or 400,000 at the beginning of the year? The answer is yes. We have some unfilled positions
that are contributing to that. When I project in the beginning of the year, I do project, assuming that we're gonna fill all the positions, there's still time and things could change. My first year here from January through June of 2024, we added 550 or $560,000 in tuitions in that six month period. So we don't know what's gonna happen between now and then. Same with them sick leave or maternity leaves. If there's a increase in those as well, then then that number really starts to get reduced. So pay attention for third quarter
because we'll be much more accurate at that point. With that report. With most of the most of the season being over for those types of changes in April, the grants you can see are progressing but still not completed. That's kind of the beauty of working with the state. Sometimes we're just waiting for our things to be approved and expect that'll be happening between now and the end of the month. Last year we finished up with the last competitive grants. We were awarded sometime in mid-March. Hopefully most of that stuff will be done in February.
And then revolving funds largely we're in good shape with everything. Athletics and rental facilities. Still lag, circuit breaker, that's what's in the, what's in the, what's in the ledger. But we did get our second quarter payments on December 31st. It just hasn't been posted yet by the town, but by and large we're in good shape and slightly better shape than we were each of the last two years I was here. So hopefully that's good news for folks.
And then I guess if there's not any questions, MSB update, we're working on hiring the owner's project manager. The owner's project manager basically reports to DESI on the finances and helps us watch the project schedule and budget. They don't design the building. They don't build the building. And so we get to hire, we get to hire them with some assistance from MSVA and and approval from MSVA. With that, I'll take any questions for the next 12 seconds. Speaker 1: Alright, thank you Mr. Les. Any questions on either of those topics? Okay, thank you. Welcome.
So I don't think we, do you think we have time for policy? What do you think, Speaker 8: Mr. I do not think we have enough time and it's, we just keep putting it. It's fine. We can, we'll, Speaker 1: We'll put you at the top of the agenda the next Speaker 8: Meeting. I mean, I've heard That's fine. We can do that. Speaker 15: Well, may I have your attention please? The library will be closing in five minutes. The meeting. Please have all of your items checked out at this time.