Speaker 1: So we're just going to, it's the Natick School Committee Monday, February 9th. And we're just gonna redo our roll call just because we are having some audio visual issues. So, Mr. Brand present. Speaker 2: Dr. Speaker 1: Fugman Present. Mr. Patel present. Ms. Brune here. And I am here so we have a quorum. So we'll now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Speaker 2: I pledge allegiance to the by of the United States America to the Republic for Religiou stands. What? Why should under God in Israel with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: And we take that moment of silence to honor our troops
for serving us here and abroad. So we'll start with announcements. Anybody from the committee? Anybody from the administration? Okay. So we'll now move to public speak. Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within the scope of responsibility of the school committee. All remarks will be addressed through the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or response to comments by the school committee. Is there anyone online? I don't. I did not receive any emails. Anyone in the room for public speak? Dr. McKenzie, you have three minutes.
It's just a quick announcement. I just wanna remind people that there is a story walk from the ABC's of black history that is on the common in honor of Black History Month. And it's absolutely freezing, but we're having a slight heat wave Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, although it's snowing tomorrow, but it's going up to 30 or 32. So I hope when you have the opportunity you might take advantage of it. And there's a QR code on each of the signs and you'll be able to hear the child that read that letter at the Martin Luther King celebration.
Thank you. Thank you Dr. McKenzie. So updates from our representatives. Mr. Wood. Speaker 3: Thank you Madam Chair. I have nothing to offer at this moment. Okay. Speaker 1: Thank you. Compelling to offer. Okay, thank you. Do we have Ms. Gomes online? Okay. Right. If she, she comes later. We'll give her an opportunity then. Okay. Consent agenda. Speaker 4: Can I just request we pull section D approval? Open mix. Speaker 1: I think we need a motion first, right? Would Speaker 4: That be a motion to Speaker 1: No, he can pull it first.
Okay, sure. Pull it first. Which one is it? Speaker 4: Approval of whole thing. Just pull that Letter D. Yeah. Yeah. Pull out letter Speaker 1: D. Okay. Speaker 5: Move approval of the consensus agenda. A, B, and C. Speaker 6: Second. Speaker 1: All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining. Okay, so that passes and now we can talk about the minutes. Speaker 6: So move approval of the open session minutes from 12 22 25. Speaker 5: Second. Speaker 4: Oh, sorry. Speaker 1: Did you wish to speak to that Mr. Patel? Oh, Speaker 4: I just wanted to abstain on
that vote 'cause I wasn't present. Okay. I haven't had a chance to review them. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright, so all in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining. Okay, so that's four in favor, zero nos and one abstaining. Thank you. And then I'll turn things over to you Dr. Sash? Yes, Sharon? Yeah. Okay great. So we have a bunch on the agenda and I'm thrilled that we're gonna start off with students if they're prepared to start off.
We usually help our guests come in first so that they don't, they don't have to stay for the whole meeting, although you're very welcome to. So tonight we're joined by students from Natick High School student government. They'll provide a brief overview of how student leadership is structured, how students are elected, and how student voices represented at the high school. I really do value student voice. I did as a principal, I did as a teacher, I do now and their agency. And I really hope our strategic plan really elevates that as something we focus on increasingly in the future. I'm grateful for the student's interest, engagement, and service. And now I'm gonna turn it over to you for your presentation.
Welcome. Good evening. Good evening everybody. My name's Josepha Blocker and I have the privilege of being the principal of the high school this evening. We have three students here representing our primary two groups, student government at the high school. And so I'm gonna let the three of them introduce themselves. And then I will start with just a brief synopsis of the two groups and I will hand it over to each of them of them to do a little bit on the various groups. So Nathan, do you wanna go first? Speaker 7: Sure. My name is Nathan, I'm a junior at aai and I'm on student council.
Great. Speaker 8: My name's OT Ria, I'm a junior at aai and I serve as a class president. Speaker 9: I'm Claire McDonough and I am the class treasurer for the class of 2028. Speaker 1: Great. So we have two groups at the high school, both are elected by their peers. Both have representatives that are elected annually for each grade level so that grade levels are represented. Both enact plans that benefit the school in various ways and both allow student voice and agency in the community. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Claire to talk a little bit about the differences between the two. Speaker 9: Okay. So for class office
it's more like events for your grades. So it's like the social events like prom, our class this year did a homecoming with the freshman and sophomore class and it's things like that whereas student council is more like involving the entire school and it's more, yeah. And then so the fundraising is for each class, for the class office. So like this week we're doing a hot chocolate bar for the class of 2028. So that's like we're, but all the funds from that will be allocated to the just the class of 2028. And so we like there, we each grade plans their own events
and then each grade has two faculty advisors. And then for student council there's representatives on the school council and school committee. And it means it's a multi-grade group with two faculty advisors. So they're all working together. Whereas in class office it's more like each grade working together. Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn it over to Nathan and Odd wait to talk about the elections process for both groups. Speaker 8: So the election process for class office has changed recently, but for the current sophomores, juniors and seniors, there were four offices
that anybody in the grade could run for. And that was president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. And recently there's been a change made to kind of increase opportunity for everybody. And that change is that now the president and the vice president and then there's four cabinet spots and you don't run for a specific role, you just run to be a part of that class office. And what that ensures is that there's not a discrepancy of votes between like the highest number of votes for vice president, but maybe they didn't get to choose another class office.
So it makes sure that there's more opportunity for everybody that recent change. Speaker 7: And then in terms of student council, so our elections are after at the class office usually end of September, early October. And we have six students elected per grade. So total of 24 kids. And then once you're on student council, we as students choose leadership. So as juniors will choose president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, roles like that and committee roles like school committee, student council, school, school council based on interests, availability, things like that. And then if multiple students are interested,
we'll have an internal vote within the student council to decide who gets that position. Speaker 10: So Speaker 8: A little more on the, the election process for the class office start a little towards the beginning of the year and we first have to go to the office, get a nomination form. We need to get, I'm pretty sure it's 15 signatures from our classmates that we can run. And then we get that approved by our dean. And then after that we have the ability to give a speech that's been reviewed by the advisors and the dean. And then those speeches are given to the entire class.
And after those speeches are given that day a Google form is sent out where the rest of our class can choose their four representatives for our, for the sophomore, junior, and senior year. Because there was president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. But for the freshmen and moving forward now, now it's six roles that they can choose from. Speaker 7: And then with student council we also need to get signatures on a nomination form to enter. We don't do, we don't do speeches, we do blurbs. So you'll submit like a paragraph about why you wanna be on student council and we'll have an elections also
through a Google form where you'll read the blurbs and select the six people you think should be on student council. And then one more thing we've done the past couple years where we've started to have like an interest meeting before elections for freshmen just so they can get an understanding at the time commitment and what we do. So they're not confused or of any questions. Speaker 1: So we will open it up to questions if anybody has questions for our student representatives. Speaker 8: Dr. Fsma, Speaker 10: Well first of all, thank you so much for not only for coming but for stepping up every day and across the year to serve your peers.
One of the issues that we've grappled with in the school committee that I'd love to get your input, all three of you, all four of you actually is what is a meaningful, authentic, and productive engagement between the school committee, this body and the two bodies that you described. We wanna make sure that as the school committee that does our job, which is to oversee the budget, oversee pass or change policies, the value of superintendent that we are taking in that student voice as well.
It's actually part of the law, a Massachusetts law that we're supposed to engage with students. I wanna make sure that we not only follow the law but also again have authentic, real productive conversations. So not to put you on the spot, but I'm just curious if you have any thoughts and anything that you want us to follow up with. No, Speaker 8: Personally I think I completely agree that there should be more a cooperation between the two. I feel like sometimes, whether it's me personally for class office or for Nathan Penn, his his position, whatever it is, I feel like there's more of us just like organizing events rather than making change
with you guys, whatever that change may be. So I think the fact that this is, you know, one of the first times that we've even been together kind of shows the fact that there may be space for more cooperation, whether it's just a yearly meeting or something like that to kind of talk about what we're thinking on the student side and what ideas you guys have. Speaker 10: And if I can just add, so actually the law, just for context, the law actually suggests every other month and something to just by I, I appreciate what you said and I agree with everything you said. I definitely think there's space in for improvement.
For in general, for collaboration. My own personal thought is it doesn't always have to be an our home turf, which is this. It could be us coming to you all as well either collectively or just a chair. Anyway, so just wanted to add that Mr. Brown Speaker 5: Great presentation probably come as a huge surprise that I was class treasurer from 1991 to 1995. Thank you. For the parents who are listening and I'm sure most of the student body,
could you share briefly two things? Anybody, what is the actual work that you do? So, 'cause I think a lot of people probably don't even know what it takes to serve and I think it's wonderful that you all do. And then I'm curious generally how many people actually step up like so it's great that you change the process to get more people involved. Is that because more and more people each year are trying to be involved? Like how many people run for these offices each year? Speaker 9: Okay, well like I do think that like so many people, at least for my class ran, I think 32 people ran
for four positions last year. So I do think that that is probably, well that's a good reason why it's changing because so many people wanna be a part of it. For our grade we meet like maybe like twice a month during cdss more frequently if we have like a fundraiser coming up and we basically sit down, we like play ideas off of each other and then we like look up fundraisers that we can do and then we just start like planning it. So then like for this hot chocolate bar, like we planned like getting donations for like supplying everything.
Like we put it, we like, like posted it on social media and like we just kept like advertising it. And so yeah, I guess that's what we do Speaker 1: First. So we made the decision at the beginning of the year after hearing from noticing how many kids were running that we would move to this plan because we were also noticing that we were splitting the vote where there may be a student who is not sure should I do president or vice president And then that student would be sort of the sickest highest vote getter for president, whereas they may have been and then they don't get to do it at all
because they ran for that office. And so this allows us to be more representative where we're taking the top six vote getters among their peers. And then the two are the two highest or the two that'll be the named office and everybody else is in the cabinet. Because it also, we were also notice noting, and I'll let Claire and talk a little more, that people really were dividing the roles as people could do things and they weren't really prescriptive according to the office. So it also opened up a greater shared ownership of the process to not prescribed by role. Speaker 5: That's you, yeah, go ahead. You
Speaker 1: Wanna Yeah, go. Speaker 8: Another thing I would, I was gonna add about like what we actually do. I would say the roles change as the years go on. So towards, you know, the beginning of high school you're more working towards fundraising and towards the end, junior and senior year you're using that fundraising money to go tour prom venues, look at, you know, the boat crews and make sure those high school experiences that we all get to have are actually finalized in time for everybody to enjoy. Speaker 5: That's great. So just a quick follow up comment, not a question. I think it's wonderful to hear how many people are involved.
For any of us who have been involved in town government over the last however many years, getting people to be involved is really challenging and it's, it's really nice to hear that the next generation is already stepping up in such a major way. And I hope, and I won't speak for anybody's parents, I hope you all stay in Natick forever and run maybe to sit at this table again at some point. So I think it's awesome. So stay involved. More people should be involved. It's great. Speaker 7: Should I talk about that question? I can Speaker 8: Answer. Oh yeah, go Speaker 7: Ahead Nathan.
For student council, I think last year we had maybe 40 ish people. We've had tie breaks recently where it's been two kids have gotten the same number of votes and they had to do another vote, which sucks. But we are one of the few clubs where we actually have a CVS design for our club. So freshmen and sophomores will have like design time to work on stuff every other day. And then whenever we have a meeting, which is once a week, juniors and seniors will come in and we will kind of strategize. Right now we're doing the flower drive. We do things like, we have a polar plunge coming up, which is big collaboration with Special Olympics that we do.
So we plan for the things that we're working on and also people on committees will report back on what each committee's doing and what steps are being taken around the town. Speaker 6: Thank you Ms. Brunell. Thank you. Thanks for preparing this so quickly too. 'cause we just talked about it a couple weeks ago, so this is amazing to have you here already and I really appreciate the information that you've shared and that my colleagues have shared. Given, just so I have an understanding, the class officer election usually takes place in the spring and then the student council takes place in the fall unless you're freshman, is that right? The fall freshmen,
Speaker 7: We, ours are always after theirs in the fall. I think their reelection is in the spring right? For the following year. Ours are always like for, for freshmen, like this year they ran this October and then next year the current freshman, incoming freshman will run in October again. Speaker 6: Okay. And is there a reason for that? Speaker 1: So we do the freshmen obviously 'cause Speaker 6: Yeah, Speaker 1: Did that go off? Okay. The class office, we like to have them in place when the year starts. So we do the other grades in the spring because it helps us with any beginning
of the year things like, for example, homecoming has been a dream for a lot of the classes for a while and they, this is the first class in a while that is executed on. It's a great job guys because they were able to really start thinking about it at the end of the year and so that they could come in and really start going. So we like to do that in the spring. And I think that the cyclical nature of class office is a little bit different than student council where they really are sort of starting when the year starts on initiatives each year to year. And then for the the ninth grade, obviously we let them get acclimated and then we do it. Speaker 6: Okay. And do you feel like the with the student council is
20, so does that mean there's 24 students on the student council? Is that enough for the, the size of your school? Speaker 7: I think so. I think everyone does so much that I don't think it feels overwhelming. We get a lot of, like our freshmen this year like really are participating and we like, we try to collaborate a lot with like, we get the school involved as much as possible with social media, with our morning announcements class, we try to get everyone involved. I think it's enough. I wouldn't say, I think everyone does as much work as possible to try to make it as collaborative as possible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Can I just make a comment? Oh sure. Go ahead. So I, I agree with what Shai and awe, what you brought up. I think that there is a lot of room for cross collaboration with students. You know, the event planning is so important and I actually have one more question about the event planning, but I think to have students really involved in policymaking and in the experience of our schools is really why this position, you know, why Nathan, you and Anthony are here and it it, I just hope that we can move in that direction.
I think you and Anthony have done a fantastic job engaging this year and I would love to see that more so that we are, you are being able to represent the student voice. It's, I guess it's why one of my questions is why you do it in the fall because the school committee starts, you know, runs all year long and I, I do, I was surprised to learn that our student council, the, the student representatives on the school committee are not elected for that purpose. And I, so I don't know if there's room for if that, if there's an appetite for change on the student side,
but I think it's a very important role and I think it's like people really need to step into it. We've had some really involved student representatives over the years and we've had some who frankly didn't really engage. And so that's a real loss I think for the rest of the student body if they lose their voice. So that's just a comment and maybe something for us to keep talking about. My last question is more towards the fundraising. You've talked a lot about it tonight. What is the, what is the, what do you have to raise from freshman year to senior year? What's the obligation for you? The four, the four to six students to raise?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to take that? Yeah, so it really depends a lot on what kind of event the class wants to have. So we definitely need the dues because we need upfront funds in order to put deposits down and in order to book venues early, we, I always say we're racing the people who get engaged. If you want to have an event on a Friday night in May, you're raising and you wanna book it before everybody gets engaged. So, and then we have to put down a substantial deposit at that point.
So we're really trying to do the fundraising upfront and collect those dues up front so that we can have enough money to put a deposit down on a venue. And then same for the boat crews because we're limited for dates, so we're always trying to lock in the few dates that were possible. So that's sort of the, the piece around the financial rhythm, the amount that they have to raise is really dependent on the tug and pull between what kind of events students want and how much they wanna charge. So if you think about planning any kind of a prom is like, is like planning a wedding but without beverages.
So if, if I, right, so you're thinking about a cost per head and then we're thinking about how much of that cost per head the class is absorbing in addition to having the picnic be free at the end of senior year. We always have a senior picnic that takes place and having the boat crews not be such an exorbitant cost that it becomes prohibitive in junior year. And also not having the boat crews be something that leaves the class bankrupt to plan a prom. So we're always sort of looking at how much we have in the bank in order
to have the boat crews happen at a reasonable rate and still have prom tickets that don't, you know, go so far over a hundred dollars that they become prohibitive. And that's sort of how things land and Speaker 6: The class fee is, Speaker 1: So right now class dues are one 50. Yeah. And it's a one time fee for the duration of high school. Yeah. And so kids who obviously are on our financial need plan, they get the same financial assistance that they would with any other school process and that includes being exempt from dues, we just mark them paid and then otherwise you can't purchase a ticket to the boat cruise
until you've paid your dues Speaker 6: And that's early enough to put money down for prom or, Speaker 1: So we do a big, big, big push at the beginning and then like on ninth grade parent night, we already sort of start to talk a little bit about it back to school night. We talk about it, I put it in the newsletters and then usually what happens is it starts to go out organically amongst the students. Like, oh wait, I don't think I paid the dues. They're not letting me buy a ticket. And then it sort of catches up at that point. Yeah. But they're, if we notice, if a particular class notices
that they're really far behind, then they'll ask me, can you do a push that's just for the 10th grade? Yeah. Or just, and then I'll send things out specifically to those grades Yeah. To try to get the funds in. Speaker 6: Yeah, I did. My last comment is I know, I know parents would like to help with that. Yeah. And I, I know a a, a year ago we had a class that was, was it the last year's senior class that was like in dire, they really needed to raise money quickly. And so we had the huge bingo night that happened because of a parent. But I just, I wonder like how we could help the student leaders and the class advisors. It's a lot of pressure. You're talking probably about 25
to $30,000 I think for a Speaker 1: Prom. Yeah, it's more than that. It's than that because we get to, we are, we are accommodating nearly 500 people. Speaker 6: So that, I just think somehow as a community, we need to have that on our radar that we're putting a lot of pressure on kids and to advisors to raise a lot of money. Speaker 1: And I think that that is, I I appreciate you saying that because it is, it is an effort that goes on in high schools across America, but it is not a small one and it is planning a major event every year. So I think any ways that the community wants to interface
with class office, I'm sure we would appreciate. Thank you. Any and you said who's online? Mr. Ker. Okay. Any other questions from the committee before we go to the public? Mr. Patel? Speaker 4: I just wanna speak to the 28 candidates who didn't win. I myself ran for treasurer at NA High School as well back in the day and did not win. Just wanna let you know, eventually happens you win one of these elections. Speaker 1: Keep, keep trying, keep Hope alive. Yeah, thank you for that motivational speech, Mr. Pat. Ms. Bickers, you couldn't go ahead with your question.
Speaker 6: Hi, thank you. Brenley Vickers precinct date. I just wanted to say I'm really proud of all the work you students are doing and I remember being in student council myself and I think it's great that you're doing that and I just, I know probably you don't need any more homework, but I'm hoping that you guys are willing to talk to your parents and to your fellow students because right now there the strategic plan is happening. So maybe Dr.
Sp could speak about that when I'm done because since you guys are so active in school, it would be really great for you guys to help get the word out to your parents and everyone else how critical it is that everyone participates and puts forth their thoughts for the strategic plan. And thank you for all you guys are doing. Speaker 1: Thank you Ms. Vickers. Go ahead. So we are, students may not know this, but on Wednesday during announcements, everybody's going to have a chance to take the survey, so it's really the parent push if you wanna push your parents. Thank you. Any other questions from the public?
Okay, well thank you guys so much for coming today. I, I learned a lot so I appreciate you coming and sharing these processes with us and I think I can speak for the committee when I say we look forward to working with you all absolutely. Over the next few years. Yes, thank you so much. Okay, we're gonna switch gears and again, bringing in many of our stakeholders tonight. The next section we're go, I'd like to introduce Natalia Dimitrova Tola, our district-wide social worker. And this role plays a critical function in removing barriers
that prevent students and families from fully accessing school. She'll provide an overview of the district-wide supports that may not be known to everybody and the impact of this work. So welcome Speaker 11: Dr. Pash. Thank you for the introduction. Dear committee, I'll be presenting and focusing on two grants awarded to the NA Public Schools by the Metro West Health Foundation. The first one is one year $40,000 grant for wraparound health services. The second is a two year $80,000 grant for wraparound food services.
These funds allow us to expand healthcare access and basic needs for our vulnerable families while advancing equity and student success across the district. The initiative began last year through Department of Elementary and Secondary Education McKinney Grant, but it quickly revealed a much larger need beyond students experiencing homelessness. We have found that between 150 and 200 families lack adequate health coverage annually in our district. These families are often uninsured, underinsured,
or new to the US and ineligible for benefits. When help needs go unmet, it directly impacts school attendance and engagement. We expect this need to increase making this support vital for students participation in school and extracurriculars. Our primary objective is to ensure equitable access to health and food services by removing financial, cultural and logistical barriers for families in our district. We are creating a coordinated school-based model that aligns
with the Metros Health Foundation's mission to reduce health disparities and food insecurity in our region. To address these needs, we created a part-time resource specialist role, 15 hours per week funded by the grants and embedded within student services. This person will work with me and the student's families to provide stigma free culturally responsive supports. This includes everything from community outreach to home visits when necessary
ID identification happens through several channels. The school registration process is one, direct referrals from nurses and requests from counselors and administrators. Once a student is identified, the resource specialist conducts a family needs assessment to identify eligibility gaps and coordinate immediate follow up supports. We offer operate on a three tier model. Tier one addresses immediate crisis like emergency food
before weekend vacation or a storm or medical clearances for sports when no insurance is available. Tier two focuses on preventative care such as routine physicals, immunizations, and screenings. And tier three provides long-term stability including insurance, enrollment assistance and mental health care coordination and referrals for other local, state and federal services. And that will be based on eligibility
for each one of the families. We would not do all of this alone. We collaborate with the white network of trusted local providers. This includes the Board of Health for vaccinations, Harvard Dental School for dental screenings, BJ's Optical for eye exams and glasses and organizations like a place to turn Native United and the NA Service Council for food Security. We als. We also have critical mental health support through Cartwheel, which provides 50 counseling slots for our students.
We aim to serve up to 200 families and short health physical exams are completed within 30 days of referral and assist at least 50 families for mass health enrollment success means more students are cleared for athletics and more students are present and ready to learn. Equity is at the heart of this design. By delivering services through the schools, we remove the transportation barrier. We also ensure our program is adaptive by using translated parent surveys
and constant feedback from the school nurses to make sure we are meeting the actual needs and our non-English speaker speakers and economically vulnerable house calls. Looking ahead, we are using this grant funding to build a foundation that we hope to embed within our core district practice. By tracking data and monitoring outcomes, we're proving the value of those supports so that equitable access to basic needs remain a permanent part of the Natick Public
School's experience. Thank you. Speaker 9: Can I just add a couple of things? Yeah, go ahead. I don't think, Natalia, you did a beautiful job. I just don't think that she highlighted the incredible work that she does every single day. She talked briefly about the medical care. She has managed to set up physicals for students who don't have health insurance, who haven't been able to participate in athletics because of that. And she has found doctors who are retired who willing to donate their time. And she has set up clinics at some of the schools
on early release days where the doctors are coming in and the parents are coming with their children. They're having their physicals, they're getting their immunizations. Any follow up lab work or medical care is being work out through our district physician or through Speaker 11: TIS healthcare. Speaker 9: Yeah, TIS healthcare, which is another network connection that she made through one of her job alikes. And while they're there, she's working with the parents to complete the mass health documentation. The week after school break, she is taking a bus of students
to Harvard Dental School where the kids are going to have their screenings, their cleanings, any dental work done that needs to be done. The day before Thanksgiving, I called her because I needed some support for a student and she said, hang on a minute, I'm delivering a Turkey to a family. She was out delivering turkeys to families who didn't have it. I mean, this woman is absolutely unbelievable. She, and I think the district, you know, I hear questions about, well what are we doing for the students who don't have what they need? This is the woman who is doing the things for the students who don't have what they need. She is the unsung hero who is working behind the scenes,
not asking for accolades, but is just quietly doing the things for the kids who need it, who for the families who need it. And is making our families feel welcome, connected, and providing them with the supports and the services and the connections that she's making with the Board of Health, with the people in surrounding districts who are doing similar work. She's working on freezers in some of our schools where kids who might not have the food that they need over the weekend can very quietly and discreetly put food into their backpack to take it home
with them so that they will have it at night or on the weekend. Nobody needs to know, but it's there and available for them. Eyeglasses at BJ's, she has an agreement with them so kids can get the classes that they need at no cost. I mean, this woman is doing everything that we could ask to make sure that kids are successful. Nobody's drawing attention to it. It's remarkable. Speaker 11: Sue, thank you. I should take you on the road with me. Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the committee, Mr. Brand and then Ms. Brunel. Speaker 5: So tough act to follow. Tougher acts to follow.
That was a great presentation. In full disclosure, I work in this industry, but I'm curious because on the last slide, there's a long-term vision leveraging current grant success to build permanent sustainable partnerships. The grant 120,000 total dollars for two years. Right? If the option for the Right, right. I would, I think we would all love to think that this challenge would be gone in two years, but that's not realistic. What is the ongoing cost? Like, what are, can you say a little bit more about those partnerships that, because maybe there'll be new grants,
but we're gonna have to continue to solve this and it might have to be part of the budget and you know like, Speaker 11: So I, I, I think we'll always, it's a sort of a support and grants and I came on board, if you remember 10 years ago from the Metro West Health Foundation grant servicing 25 families. And that grew to 225 families the, when the grant ended. So I do not anticipate the need to go away. And that's why I think developing those local partnerships and, and collaborating for with the Board
of health or with the NA community senior center or with other organizations and partnering with them, not just for grant writing but developing services. It's essential also, I know that Natick as a town did a survey of our community needs and when they presented that big portion was collaboration in developing maybe some sort of a center to facilitate a lot of referrals for the whole community. And I know that Department of Education is starting
that work with other bigger, larger school districts that have a family resource centers. Framingham is the closest that we visited Worcester, fall River. And I've heard many presentations. They do wonderful work for the whole community, but in initial, the initial body it is, it is with the schools because registration happens through through that. So I think, I think that in a perfect world, I'll love for us to have a family resource center and to sustain that for the whole community in the long run.
And yes, we'll have to apply for grants and yes, we'll have to work with a lot of community partners on different levels. But I know that next year there'll be another grant from Department of Education for specific needs. And I'm hoping that we can also apply that once again. So Ms. Brunell? Yep. Speaker 6: I have a similar question about the budget. So the, the structural part-time work, the resource specialist role that would be new for next year and covered by the grant,
Speaker 11: Correct? It's gonna be new and it's gonna be 15 hours. Yeah, it is covered by the grant and I'm hopeful that it's not gonna be next year. It's gonna start next week. Okay. Because I really need somebody to work with me because we have all of those wonderful initiatives that we are hoping to, to continue and some of them to start as well. So we'll be lovely to have somebody along me and the registrar to, to start and jumpstart that work. Speaker 6: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for what you do.
I, it's shocking sometimes to see the numbers and to to hear the specific stories. Thank goodness that you are the person that's the unsung hero. Go out taking care of families in real impactful ways. And I'm grateful that you have the partnerships that you have that social equity is everything in, in roles like this. I think that places like the Natick Service Council, right? They themselves are hiring a case manager right now. Correct. Yeah. So it's like there are, there's so much cross agency work that we have to do kind
of much like I think Natick 180. Right, right. It seems like it's, it's sort of, there's a similar structure. I agree with Mr. Brand though. Were there be, to be a time where we needed to put this into the operating budget. I think that we, our committee I would support it. I imagine the rest of the committee would and would just, I think we're just gonna have to be savvy moving forward to know when there is a need if the grants are running out. Because I, I know that no one wants this program or this effort to go away. Speaker 11: Well thank you for the support
and that's why I think collecting data is going to be essential for future grants, but also for us to inform us what the need is. Yeah. Speaker 6: Thank you. Yeah, Dr. Speaker 11: Fugman, Speaker 10: Well first of all, I wanted to add to all the appreciation that others have expressed it, it sounds like you do amazing work and, and adding to that, the need we know is, is huge and significant and impacts students' learning and, and ev every aspect of their life. The services sometimes are there,
but they're so difficult to find, to navigate it into having you as the hero who can connect the people who need the services to the services that exist is, is truly remarkable and so appreciate on behalf of the community that you're here and that you're doing that work. 'cause it, because I know it's hard to navigate through all these systems and processes, even though the help can sometimes be there. I wanted to actually piggy up, piggyback on your last comment and say, I agree. I mean this is something that is, the work
that you do is critical to the mission of the NA public schools, which is to make sure that every student has the opportunity to learn and thrive in our schools. They can't do that if they don't have meal, if they have meals, the appropriate number of meals, they can't do that if their families are struggling with, with trauma or with challenges. So, and I say that to support what Ms. Brunell said about this is a priority that, you know, it's great to start with, with grants and,
and it's great to tap into grants and that's part of the amazing work that you probably do is identifying those grants 'cause they're out there. And so getting that, but, but, you know, I don't think any of us wants it to fall apart if the grants, if we don't get the grants in terms of data. I'm curious, any, so you had some outcome metrics that you're looking at. I'm curious if you have any like interim progress, like how are we doing so far and related to that, and you may have already thought about this, but the outcomes that you have, I see as kind of the,
those are the long term outcomes and I'm wondering if they're like shorter term outcomes around awareness and around access. So how aware of are the people who need these resources that they exist? You know, is there a way to measure that? 'cause that is, you know, short-term outcome is to make sure everyone who needs these resources knows that they even exist, then they know how to access it. And then is your long-term or your next outcome, which is the actual access. And I'm wondering if that's something that you're thinking about as well. Speaker 11: So since we received the, the grant on December 1st,
what I started doing is created the position, but also I started presenting the services to our PLC groups, to the nurses, to guidance counselors and to anybody who wants to know. And we've received great support from, from the nurses that was last week. And the, the guidance counselors at the elementary level next will be the high school and the middle schools for guidance PLCs. And then I've already helped 10 families
that were referred to me. And we have a whole spreadsheet that the nurses are populating for. The next, on the 25th will be the doctor, the full physical visits where, and, and we, and it's interesting because we, we have the need, we see the spreadsheet and then yet we have to think about how to get the families there, right? Because some families have various barriers. The simplest one, just not having transportation to get to Kennedy Middle School for the full physical. Right? So, so preparing the families
and helping them in the process is something that is, is definitely an immediate need where we all need support. But in terms of making announcements, I have asked our, our principals to put the information in their school blasts in our insider to put information because I want the community to know about this. Our community partners are also aware. We had a, on January 15 we had a, a new grantees presentations at the
Metro West Health Foundation. And I was lucky to be part of that and meet everybody who got awarded funding. And a lot of our community partners also got grants. So knowing them, meeting them face to face and forming those relationships is I think a key of service delivery immediately. Specialty service delivery in the long run. So spreading the, the, the word, I think that's, that's gonna be very valuable. So I'll ask anybody who, who can think of a way to, to help
with that because I want everybody to know about this. And, and again, those are resources that are available to anybody. For example, the dental, Harvard dental trip, it's, it's available to any NA resident and I'm asking only NA residents that don't have transportation to join us on the bus. But that's not to say that any nat parent who would like to come and join us, it's not welcome to. So it's just breaking barriers for everybody. Good.
Thank you. Yep. Speaker 1: Any other questions from the committee, Mr. Patel? Speaker 4: All right. I just wanna echo the sentiments of support and appreciation that the rest of the school committee members have shown here. And I know you're not asking for accolades, but perhaps administration should dish them out, you know, especially in front of a crowd larger than what we have here or online, you know, 'cause you deserve it. Thank you. Thank Speaker 12: You, Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, thanks. You can drop the mic. I've never seen everybody clap at school committee. So well done. And honestly, the most exciting thing story to tell
that helps us really see the, the impact of your work. So thank you. We're gonna have Jackie Menza who's gonna go over very brief, kind of update on the strategic plan and then we'll move into our budget presentations. Speaker 12: Okay. Yes. So this will be a very, very brief update, but we just wanted to kind of recap the timeline of our strategic plan and where we are and where we're headed. So, you know, all back in December we had, we did the creation of our 37 member steering committee
and that was through a big invitational process. And we have representatives across students, staff, caregivers and community superintendent did a big messaging about why and what this is. We made the flyer, you all helped distribute that flyer a little bit earlier. Then in January we worked on the superintendent doing kind of personal invites to different stakeholder groups to invite them to participate in the upcoming pieces that were really important. We did the flyer, we did social media pushes, continued messaging. I actually had someone ask me
to please stop sending reminders of the strategic plan. And then we transitioned into forums. As you all know, of course that happened over the big, the big snowstorm time. But we had 95 participants across nine forums in that time period. The virtual forums were definitely more attended than our in-person forums. And then the survey opened and we did a big huge survey push. We did messaging in the engage social media emails. We tried to slap it onto any other communication we could possibly think of. And right now, as of right now exactly tonight,
642 stakeholders have at least begun to respond. And 407 have actually completed the entire survey. At this time this week, the high school and both middle schools are donate, are designating time for all students to take the survey. So we will see a large jump in that and there'll be a really large student voice. And we are also really encouraging our staff to take the survey as well. And we will do a little more push out to the community right now, out of the 407,
a very large percentage of caregiver responses. And then the survey will close on Friday. The first meeting with the steering committee is on February 24th. Then that steering committee meets five times, three hours a piece at each meeting to go through data talk, plan, collaborate, write, and work together. A final plan is created and there will be a school committee presentation on the 1st of June. And a beautiful product to publish and communicate and work with is our hope and final result.
So this is again, just a, a snapshot of our process and where we're going with some updates on some of those that participation in our, in our big push to try to get as many stakeholder voices as possible. We're still doing that. We will post again on social media. We will send out one last plea, but I think the committee for their help, I know there's been a lot of sharing and a lot of passing of the information. We really appreciate that. Speaker 1: Great, thank you. Any questions from the committee? And I will admit I have not done the survey yet, but I have, Speaker 12: There's still time. Speaker 1: I have marked that email, so I will go back to it.
So yeah, so I think I saw Dr. Fugman then Mr. Patel, then Ms. Brunell, Speaker 10: I just wanna add one detail. So first of all, thank you so much for pushing it out and so far that's a great number. I know we still have a, a few days left and, and some big opportunities. Can I just say to the, anyone watching, if you're watching right now, we should, you can do it right now. There's QR codes everywhere. But another very easy way to find it is if you go to nas.org, that's n Public School's website on the top red bar. The second item is strategic plan.
If you click on that, you'll get a link to the survey. Thank you. Speaker 12: Absolutely, Speaker 1: Ms. Brune. Speaker 6: I was texting Elise this weekend thinking, should we stand out in front of the parents line with QR codes with each one of the schools? I'm willing to do that if you think that will help. It sounds like you have lots of caregivers, but I was, I do wanna encourage people and I, I honestly will go to the parent pickup line if you want me to. I, at this weekend, at the basketball game, my son's sixth and fifth and sixth grade travel basketball game, I just approached people with the QR code and had them scan it on their phones.
Speaker 12: Oh my goodness. That's Speaker 6: Awesome. And there are many people who didn't know about it. So as much as you guys have done a great job, you have done a great job. Right. But people don't, it's not because of your work, it's just because people get so many emails. So I just really encourage everyone to remind their friends, their text groups, whatever groups you're on, send it out. Like at this point I'm like stalking my older kids' family or their friends because they're alumni like this. I just think that we should just have it in our mind that not everybody knows about it and we should continue to push until the 13th.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's a big conversation we're having around email overload and, and how else we can communicate when email sometimes tends to get buried or feels overwhelming with the amount. And one thing that I'm trying, I'm going to attempt to start to do is really push our social media platforms and get people to like or friend our social media platforms. So even if they can't click on an email and digest a large chunk of text to even see it popping up in a feed with some information is really helpful. That's, and sometimes some great pictures
of our students doing awesome things. So that's another thing we're really trying to push to please friend and like our, our platforms on, on Facebook and Instagram, because we're really gonna try to use that as a method of try of communication. Speaker 6: I see Tim Collins in the audience and there are many people that follow the athletic Instagram handle. So maybe it, the QR code could go on that. Hmm. Speaker 12: Maybe you could share our, our our post. Speaker 6: Let me know if you want me to go to the pickup lines. Yeah, Speaker 12: We take, we'll take any help we can get, but I also just wanna give the caregivers a shout out really quickly.
They also were the highest parti number of participation in people in our forums as well. So they, they really, they've really shown up and we are really grateful. But we'll, we'll, we'll always we need more, more the more voice, the better. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. Any other questions from the committee? No, thank you so much. Very exciting. Yeah, it's a massive effort and we are looking forward to the outcome. Okay, we're gonna switch gears. I don't know how many budget presentations we've had. I think they started on December 22nd. Last but not least, we're gonna start off with athletics.
Welcome Speaker 13: My computer. Speaker 14: All right, we're on. Good evening everyone. Tim Collins here. Icks Athletic Director. Custodio Assistant 80. All right. So just before we begin, I did want to, to try to introduce M Matt here to the group. He is a terrific person. He is a 2011 Nat High alum. He was a math and computer science teacher at the high school bef after a stint as a para at Wilson.
He has coached at least three sports with us. He's a terrific person and as his former teacher, we are ex you know, extremely proud of him and keep up the great work. Matt and I just wanted to get a chance to introduce him to school committee. Okay. So I, I think if you have a chance to skip to the next slide just before we talk about how to afford all these incredible things we do
at Natick High School in the the Natick Athletic Department. I do wanna say that once again, this slide looks cliche and you know, anecdotal. But I want to tell you, after 29 years in teaching and coaching, I am in my 16th year here in this role. These are are real and true here in town and especially within the Natick athletic department. You know, school and scholastic sports do all kinds
of things for our students. You know, it improves student school satisfaction, improves student confidence, improves attendance rates, graduation rate. Our student athletes have to pass all of their scheduled classes to continue to participate in sports. I think for the students who are challenged at school, this really gives them the, the carrot to continue to stay on target. It reduces rates of tardiness, participation in risky behaviors.
It builds school and community spirit and it helps a number. And I would say a large number of our student and student athletes access college. And here's what I mean by that. We have some tremendous elite athletes who are gonna attend and have signed scholarships at our country's great schools. North Carolina this year, Arkansas, we're Boston College, Seton Hall. But you know, as great as that is, I think the strength
of the Natick athletic department is in its numbers. We have, at the end of a class's graduation, over 80% of our students have played at least one sport each year. We have over 1600 athletes on teams. We have about a thousand athletes each year. And you know, obviously that 1600 includes multiple sport athletes and, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those
really proud moments we have because it isn't just about our state championships and our, our league championships. Our student athletes come out for our teams in droves. They want to be a part of our teams. A a lot of 'em understand that they aren't gonna maybe play varsity a, you know, in a varsity game, but it's a chance for them to be on the team, be a part of the team, have a chance to work on their own own skills.
And you know, so I think you, you know, when I have a chance to, you know, to speak to all the positive things that Scholastic sports can do for our, our students, that is is one of them. Now I always hesitate to go back to the slide of recent student success. I always hesitate to try to highlight only, you know, only certain feats if, if you've ever had a chance to coach, play a team, be a part of your
scholastic athletic department. There are so many victories during the the year. But I do want to turn it over to Matt to just highlight a few of these since June of 2025. Speaker 15: Yeah, so I'll gladly walk through these real quick. So the first one is the 2025 Unified Track State Championship. Their third one in a row, coach Antonio led them to that. The 2025 Division one Boys and Girls state soccer titles including their student managers over here on the other side of the room. One of it's only the second time any high school public high
school has done that in Massachusetts the first time since it's either 97 2000, 2025 Division one Boys cross country state runner ups. They had a fantastic fall, the 2025 division one girls outdoor track runner up in the spring. That team included two state record holders, Chloe Elder in the 300 meter. She's the state champion in that discipline. And Emmy Aian as the 55 meter meter hurdler as well as the state champion in that. And then a really exciting thing that happened just a few weeks ago was the 2026 New Balance Grand Prix. It's this exclusive international competition
that was held at the New Balance facility in Massachusetts. It had mile runners from across the world and our own, John Bianchi got an invite to run. He didn't finish last, so he, he finished in the mix of it. So congratulations to him. In the fall we also had the Division one state champion in the a hundred meter butterfly of Georgia Chrisa Foley. And then just a few weeks ago, our 2026 Boys Swim and Dive won the Bay State Conference Championship for the first time in there in the school's history. So that's just some of our recent successes. And if we head to the next slide, just
again like Mr. Collins said, we don't wanna exclusively shout out just these students 'cause we have so many fantastic ones at Natick High School, but these are just our division one, getting financial support or a scholarship to play athletics at the division one level. So we have Mike Whalen playing football at Buffalo, Chloe Elder and Jasmine Atia going to UNC for track and fencing. Emmy Aian going to Arkansas for track. The Proa sisters going to Seton Hall for soccer. John Bke going to bc staying in state for cross country and track. And Abby Macaulay going to Fordham for soccer as well. And so we have that small list up there.
We also have dozens we expect of division three athletes that will get to honor and celebrate in June. There are a bunch that we already know their locations, they just haven't announced them fully yet. But it's a great opportunity. 'cause these kids, they get the limelight, they have the big schools that everyone's heard of. They all see 'em on tv. But there's so many athletes that get to participate in college, either at the D 2D three intermural club level at schools you might have never heard of, but they're darn good at competition. And those kids have earned their opportunity through the support that they've gotten at Natick High School, and we're excited to celebrate with them in June.
Speaker 14: And you know, I I think to go back to the idea that this is a real community effort, none of this would happen without our Natick youth sports coaches, Natick Q sports programs, all the work that our middle school and high school staff and our coaches do, the support that our, our parents and our community give the athletes and the, you know, I, I think the understanding from our
school committee, our school department, and our community of the value of sports in kids' lives, and, you know, with that college access, it is amazing how many of our student athletes play Division three sports. How many go on to play club sports at these schools? And I think a lot of our students, if, if we have a chance to look at what 80% of our students
track toward college, I think they've all benefited from sports teams. I think, you know, in, in this room, we all understand that a college, a university, a counselor at those colleges, someone in a, in a hiring position always looks for students who have been on scholastic sports teams. They, they understand how to be great teammates. They, they understand how to time manage, they understand
how to do things for the team and the greater good. And why wouldn't a school, a college, university or workplace want that? So that's what we were trying to get at. Yes, we have, we have nationally elite athletes, but we have a large number, 80% of our, you know, our students who do I think greatly benefit from our sports teams and sports programs. All right, next slide. So, you know, I wanna s start by
thanking a lot of folks here. I think trying to manage and plan for and strategically plan for the Natick Athletic School budget is tricky and it is complicated. So I want to thank the, you know, school principal blocker, the athletic department. I want to thank the, the, the working group in the school committee who has worked hard with this on what is the right plan, strategic plan
for affording athletics, and, you know, continuing to allow our students to access all of these great programs and trying to figure out the balance of the school and school department and community involvement in that, and the clients our user fees. So we were asked to look at trying to be a part of a $200,000
raise and generation of fees, user fees. So if you look at that portion, this group, if, if you go to slide six, please do you have a chance to look at what our current user fees are, what our, our fees might be if we were to raise 61 and change thousand dollars to try to add to that 207 in generation of fees.
We skip, please, if you would, to slide seven. The cost of our trying to get go the, you know, the fee increase and projections, obviously we increase fees for this year. If we were to increase fees by $25 for most NHS sports, $50 for the increase and rising cost of pool rentals and football equipment
and a hundred dollars for the increase in ice rink rental and ski lift tickets for our alpine ski. We feel that this increase compared to the sports cost would, you know, would allow our student particip participation to remain, to remain constant. And, you know, with that connection with ways for our families to apply for
fine aid, slide eight school committee did ask us to look at, so we did a projection as we do each year of the, of the actual costs with what are the projected costs for sports in the next year. So a few that we did highlight are alpine ski costs with 42 ski members is about $700 a student.
Our swim and dive costs are about $1,200. Poor pupil. And that's with the girls and boys program. We, we also list three sports here that we're asked for from hockey, our boys and girls and for our, our football program. And you'll see two cost per pupil, including in the, in the one cost, the ticket sales generated at games for those sports.
So you can see as, as an example, boys Ice hockey with gate fees. It is, you know, about a 590 per student cost. And without G gate fees, it is just over seven 50 girls hockey. You can see with I think 34 players and the, you know, the, you know, the, the same opportunities on the ice with gate fees, about $1,800 per people and without just about $2,000 per people.
And, and you can see football, we are lucky to have great community attendance at our games. We can raise money to help keep the cost down from about seven and 60 per student to just over $400. School committee did ask too about middle school athletics and our total middle school cost. We do offer certain sports. We don't offer all sports. So at the, at the high school level, you'll see coming up,
we do offer 35 sports with over 80 teams. Within that, with our middle school sports offerings, we have over time really targeted sports where our youth don't have an extensive chance to play those sports at the youth level. So as an example, when, you know, we added field hockey, those students would enter the ninth grade without having
played field hockey. Now that we've, we've had middle school, you know, sports and middle school field hockey, our teams do really well. They're extremely competitive. And I think because we didn't have youth field hockey town, it was really important to have that. And you, you can see in the sports of volleyball, wrestling track, you know, as examples, those were all the same. And you know, in town we have a vibrant and strong, you know, youth soccer program,
youth basketball, youth lacrosse, little league baseball. But we didn't have those sports. So this has been a huge benefit to our students and student athletes. You can see the total cost for middle school sports is projected at a over 120,000. The fees we generated with the new fee, you know, that started this year would be o over 109,000. So the, the cost per athlete is about 270.
So you can see our middle school sports are funded closely by our, you know, our, our clients. Where at the high school level, you'll see it's about two thirds for the, you know, the school department and taxpayers. And a about a third for our, our student athlete clients. Okay, slide nine. Speaker 15: So if we, we look at our participation breakdown, we last year found that we had a total number of male
and female athletes of 1,344. Now what this number does include is if you play football, hockey and run track in the spring, you are counted three times. But that is part of our whole calculations. The total number of male athletes throughout last year was 716, which is 53% of that 1344. And the number of female athletes was 628, which runs to about 47%. And I found this next line important that according to mass DOE, the current female male female split at Natick High School is
about 52 point a 5% to 47%, which is relatively similar to our male to female numbers that we find in athletics. And it is higher than the state average, which is about 55% male, 45% female. Rough averages for the state of Massachusetts. We also do have 322 athletes that are registered for co-ed teams, which means any and all genders have access to sign up for those teams. There's no specifications to them. And as Tim said earlier, we have 31 male teams,
35 female teams, and 16 of those co-ed teams available at NATA cot. Speaker 14: Alright, so as we continue to look at strategically planning for this, you know, when I started here in in town, you know, we weren't ever looking to generate a system that was you, you paid for how much the sport cost. I think, you know, the, the town school committee, all the school partners really did a terrific job
trying to generate a fee that would allow all the sports that we wanted to operate continue at the school. So looking at variance drivers, slide 11 there, you know, for our, our salary budget, there are no new positions requested. The only change that we made with school committee's approval, and it's really been a great one, is that the, you know, the, the assistant athletic
director position went from a 0.6 in FY 26 to a a 1.0. And that was done, done actually budget neutral, excuse me, neutral using a position at the high school that was vacant. And our non-salary budget reflects a 3% increase to keep up with the, the rising costs of supplies, equipment, leak dues, referee expenses. Let's see. All right, so I think
at that point we are here for questions and Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Mr. Collins. Questions from the committee? I have one. So on slide 10 where you're talking about the strategic reallocation, I see where the number has gone down. Are you, are you, but I didn't think the intention was to reduce the, reduce the overall budget is what, which is what it looks like it has happened here. Am I missing something? Speaker 16: Yeah, that's what happens when you have user fees. It offsets the general fund budget.
So we would lower the, the cost for, in this case it's noted there as athletic coaches or it could be the supplies. Speaker 1: Okay. So I'm just, I'm just noting that the sort of, the title of that graph is strategic allocations included. So I didn't quite see where the strategic reallocation had happened, but perhaps that's not super important. Speaker 16: Well, from 8 95 to 834,000, that's the $61,000 in, in, Speaker 1: In the user fees, Speaker 16: In the user fee increase. Okay. Speaker 1: All right. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Patel, just
Speaker 4: A curious question, what are some examples of the co-ed team sports? Speaker 14: Sure. Do you wanna pull those up? But we, so we have, you know, just, just, you know, a, a few examples. We have skiing, we have Alpine and Nordic, we have sailing, we have unified sports, so we have unified track and unified basketball. We have ultimate, we have golf, we have wrestling. Yeah. So I think those, yeah, those were the thank you.
Speaker 4: And just wanna add one more thing. Sure. So on slide one with regards to the student athletics benefits. Yeah, I, I would recommend you add making friends. I know it helped me make different friends that I wouldn't see in different classes and that was great. But I'm still friends with many of them, many of the players I played tennis with at Na Kai. So thank you Speaker 10: Dr. Fen. And then Ms. Spinoff. Yeah, just wanna clarify, I think I get it, but I just wanna clarify it slides, oh shoot, it's 79 in the materials. It, the slide that has the, let's see the title per sport FY 26 expense.
The per pupil. Yeah. Eight in this one. The, the per pupil cost. That's not what we're charging students. That's just your rough estimates of what it, it actually costs the district. And my main question is the difference between the boys and girls ice hockey teams, is that just because of the difference in number of students like 34 versus 69? Yes, it's the same price for everything else. It's just that there's fewer girls playing. Yes. Okay. Yep. And then that goes to your point that we're charging everyone the same price even though the
cost is different by sport and even between teams because of the number of students. Speaker 14: Yes. Okay. Thanks. Speaker 10: Just need to clarify that. Thank you. Speaker 14: We try to generate that cost. We do try to include all of the costs for the team, so the coaches' salaries, the transportation, referees, any rental equipment. And then we do offset that number with the inclusion of user fees and ticket sales. And we try to generate that cost per people. Yeah,
Speaker 10: I mean, just a general thought that, I'm not sure where it goes, but it speaks to a community effort to let people know when these events are happening because gate fees may, you know, make a difference, right? Like, you know, so if we get a lot of people to go to go watch the boys play ice hockey or the girls play ice hockey, that can offset some of the costs and it's a good time. So yeah, that those it. Thank you Speaker 6: Ms. Brunell. Thank you. Thank you for all the information and for all the, the deep dive into the numbers. I think it's a, it's a really helpful way
to look at all the programs that you run. And I can't agree more about the benefits of sports. I just a really practical question. I'm a little, can you, can somebody and Mr. Collins, it might be you or Matt, it might be you through, through the chair, I will ask a question about the custodial fees, given that we've had a lot of conversations about the, the revolving funds and the custodial, the cost of the custodians. Speaker 16: Yeah. You know, we, we get, we don't budget salaries
for the custodians or we hadn't in our budget because it was something that the school department, I guess long before I got here, decided to transfer that expense and a lot of that management responsibility over to the, the townside and charges them in hitting both the school athletics revolving fund and the rental revolving fund. And sometimes there aren't corresponding fees to go with those charges. So we decided to put them in the budget and the, you know, the, the reason we're having them isn't for the regular school day, it's for the athletic program.
And you know, we do have corresponding fees when somebody in the outside group rents the facility. But not when a Natick program, a Natick public school program rents the facility. We don't charge ourselves overtime for the athletic events or for the drama and theater and music events that we have at the school. But when they're in at on nights and weekends, you know, eventually that, that's extra work. And once it's over 40 hours a week, it's overtime for the custodians. So we started to budget for it, just wanted to note it in,
in here even though it's not solely an athletic expense instead of breaking it up through other programs. Speaker 6: So the 130,000 is a new expense in the school budget this year? Well Speaker 16: We've been paying, I guess part of it over the years is charges that were hitting our funds, but we've struggled to have the fund break even, you know, and we've struggled more so with, with rental facilities. So, you know, you don't just budget for things to hit a revolving fund without an offsetting revenue. So if it's gonna be part of our normal operations,
and Tim has told me numerous times we haven't added more games. The seasons are still the same amount. We play basically the same number of games except for playoffs every year. We, it's a pretty consistent program. I think the only thing that's changed at all over the last few years is we've added one more play, one more musical at, at times. Yep. Speaker 2: So the, there was a student directed way that I believe was added as a student run initiative, but we still have staff who are needed to oversee the fact
that students are gathering to. Speaker 16: So, and all the things that changed, we might have one more event student run play or musical in the other floor. Speaker 6: We should just have her say that in the microphone so everyone can hear. Speaker 1: Hi everybody. So we did, my understanding it happened before I came, but my understanding is that the student run place or musical is a new endeavor in the last probably five or six years and that it was a student initiative and we still do obviously incur costs for the building to be open during that time and also to stipend adults
to supervise the kids while they're doing what they're doing. Speaker 6: So a follow up then if that $130,000 of salaries for custodians that we haven't increased custodial need. So that 130 is, has usually been in a different line item, line item. Speaker 16: It wasn't, it wasn't budgeted for in the school budget, but we were absorbing some of those costs in revolving funds that, that were forcing them to go negative. And when they go negative, one of two things needs to happen. We, we need to, we charge some of those things off
to the general fund, whether it be the school side or the townside or the negative stays and carries over, but it reduces the town's ability to appropriate all the neg all any negative account from free cash. Speaker 6: I see. So could we see not only our revolving accounts decrease next year, but also maybe some of the cost on the town side decrease? Or do you see that mostly hitting Speaker 16: The schools? I'm not sure how the cost would, would decrease. We're just budgeting for them appropriately and they'll be charged appropriately.
Speaker 6: But like the numbers in the budget book might look down. What I, what I wanna avoid happening is this 130 gets absorbed in two different ways and people get really confused about it in the future. Speaker 16: I I understand your your point. I guess I'll, I'll have to get back to you on that. Okay. 'cause you know, the, the charges aren't coming from the school business office to, to those, to those funds. They're being charged directly from, from the town. Speaker 6: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Sorry to go so granular there, but I Speaker 16: No, it's, it's okay. It's a fair question 'cause it's, it's a, it's a sizable number,
Speaker 6: Right? And it's, it's some, thank you. I appreciate your, I appreciate you appreciating my question. Yeah. And then this number, so this supplies and athletics other, you've highlighted it. Do you wanna just give a, give some quick explanation for people that don't read numbers the same way that some of you do? Why are those numbers highlighted in yellow? Speaker 16: So, I mean, here's the, the, the program budget without new user fees on the left and with new user fees on the right and the highlight shows the difference.
So we'd have more revenue and then we could just offset the supplies athletic or other because that that's what the, you know, the fees would be going for. Or it could be to, to reduce coaching salaries. Which, you know, I think most, most people generally don't think of it that way. They think of the, the fees to go for all the, all the other things. The cost that it takes, the cost to run the program. You know, the league dues, the uniforms, the equipment, the bus rides. People kind of figure that's what their, their fees are going for. So putting the, the two of them side by side, you know, the,
without a a fee increase, the taxpayer's gonna pay about 70% of the program and the revolving funds and the student raised money will pay about 30%. If you increase the fees, the taxpayer would pay about 66% and the, the revolving fund the users would, would pay the other third. So it's, it's, you know, anytime you have an optional program and there's a user fee, eventually somebody asks how much of it is from the general fund or from the taxpayers and how much of that is from the users. So it's, and you saw the different costs of the sports
and Tim's point about trying to make it kind of equitable in access for all, you know, within reason, even though the fees are a little bit different, I think to reflect some of the costs of certain sports, especially the sports with the, the rental expense or a higher equipment expense like, like football. Because most sports, we don't provide all the equipment. Yeah. When, when they have that, that much stuff. So, Speaker 6: Okay. I have a few more comments, but I can say them for the fees, the fee presentation. Sure. Just one interesting thing to note $2 million about is our, is the, you know, what you,
the program that you run costs about $2 million. That is what the trash and NAIC costs. It's also what the transportation and NAIC costs. So these, these items, right? Like these big services, this is what it costs. So I think it's just interesting to put, try to make these numbers real for people to say why, how much money is being spent and how much benefit comes from that $2 million, right? Getting kids to school every day is essential. Of course we're gonna spend that money sports are essential. I would love to see more opportunities as you know, as,
as our school expands. I think you're doing a great job making sure that the, the students have that experience of the first slide. Thank you. Speaker 4: Any other questions Speaker 6: About the athletics program, Mr. Patel? Speaker 4: Just one more question. So with regards to a, a student that skis versus a student that plays tennis, for example, do they pay the same user fee total or do does a skier Speaker 14: Pay more? Currently the skier pays more. Okay. So it is, most sports are 275. That would include tennis and our skiers
and our I ice hockey players are, are paying 500. Yep. Thank you. Yep. Can I just bring question again? Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we're all kind of wondering about the same thing. Go ahead Mr. Speaker 6: Okay. Is it, I mean I don't wanna be premature on the fees, but I I do like, I love the breakdown that you gave us and it does make me wonder what should we be doing as a committee. I'm com I, I agree with Dr. Bash and Matt that we need to pull money out of the general fund and cover it with fees. You know, I I think that movement of that $60,000 is, is the right way to go.
I do, I think I've said this before, I think middle school sports should be as least expensive as possible because we have so many students that are accessing sports for the first time. I know families who have means that will won't do it when the sport costs $300 for a sixth grader to do it. Right. So I wanna see our middle school sports as least as, as low as possible. And I, I wonder about one sport being su, what is the word I'm looking for? Supplemented or subsidizing ing. Subsidized, thank you. Subsidizing so much higher than another sport And I,
I don't know what the right answer is. I think a tiered, I think tiered is the way to go. I don't think we necessarily have the right tier. And I was playing around with different numbers today. I wonder what would happen if we made it a little bit more logical of like 300, 400, 600 or something like that. Just looking at the ski program for example. It seems to me like that that cost should come up a little bit. I'm a skier myself, I teach ski on Tuesday nights, but I just, I think that we have to make sure that we're subsidizing people in a different way. Speaker 14: Sounds like a segue to the next presentation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, great. So I wanna formally just thank you Tim and Matt. Great job. And I love the celebrations that you started in the beginning 'cause we really do an amazing job with athletics. Thank you both for your leadership in that. Excellent, thank you. Okay. Alright, thanks everyone. So we thank you. We are gonna shift over to the user fees presentation and we'll try to, you know, we know the lower library closes around nine so we wanna make sure we have a lot left on the agenda that we moved it through this, but also get the committee's questions answered. So we'll start in on that with Mr. Gillis. Speaker 14: Hold on Speaker 1: One second. I do wanna remind the committee
and the public that this is the second time we're going and our attempt was to incorporate the feedback from last meeting. Speaker 16: Okay. So we'll call this part two of the user fee recommendation. So I'll go through it a little bit quicker since most of this is, is what we went through the last time on January 26th. So same purpose for the user fees and the objectives are there to the right. So the changes here are in blue. We're still looking to get $207,000 worth of fees to have our budget neutral strategic reallocation. And the changes here, you know when,
when I think you use the fees, I always think of charging someone in the school committee setting the fee. Well we did have in the budget an amount allocated for field trips and the school committee never really set fees for field trips. Not just in Natick but anywhere else I've ever worked because they're pretty varying in user specific. You could be spending a few dollars to do an in town field trip, you know, maybe just a bus ride and, and no gate fee or you could be spending a lot more money to go into Boston, go to the aquarium or something like that.
So it kind of varies. And to try and set all those fees before you know what the prices are and the gate fee from the different places kind of an unwieldy task. So nobody really does it. But the short answer of that is, you know, if the school committee did not want to increase the athletic fees for next year, the offset of the field trip fees would basically make that a wash. So instead of in round numbers 61,000, the field trip budget that, you know we can do specifically would be a savings of 62,634. We talked about the, the bus fee increase at $25 per
pupil per rider. Here was the athletic fees comparison between 2026 and 27 and the fee increase is proposed. So that, that's something that can be talked about afterwards. Asap, $75,000 for 3% above their fees. pre-K tuition, 2% above their level service. And then North star tuition, which is a elementary program, special education program that we sometimes take students in from outta district or neighboring districts when we have seats available
and they're a good match, you know, that would go up 2,600 bucks per per student and we only, so that's only two students would be the increase there. And then school building field line items for elementary and middle schools is the 62,000, reducing it by 70%. So we'd still have a, a decent balance to cover folks that need financial assistance. Just to go back, I think I got a question a little bit
earlier on user fees and like the number of students that participate, the number of students that participate in high school athletics is not, is is higher than the number of students that actually pay fees. We do have some students that, that get free access. We have some that pay half price and then once folks hit the family cap after the third sport, there's not a charge for that as well. So we have more participants then we have payers and, and for good reason that's in accord
with the school committee's financial assistance policy, some other proposed fees. We don't have, we haven't had a foreign student here I guess in quite some time, but recommending increasing that fee. Talked about North Star tuition's high school principal just left but was looking for parody with the parking fee to go along with the, the bus fee. That's something that I guess is, has historically happened. No change to the laptop and technology fee for for that. No change to the high school transcript fee
and a small increase to the summer enrichment program. So we make sure we keep that program solvent. We were able to just squeak it out this year. The, my first couple of years here, the, the, the program struggled. So we think we've got it down, but there's gonna be a one to 2% increase for the staff. There's an increase for supplies. So we wanna make sure that that that continues to work. And then there's appendix that has, has some history here with the funds. There's how we came up with the 62,000 for calculating the field trip reallocation all the way
to the right and again, athletics combined and then budget history there and PK tuition you heard, heard before. So that pretty much covers all the, the fees. The only other thing in the budget book on page 110 would be the increase to second lunch and for adult fees for, for the school lunches. We just had a DESI food service audit that that completed last week and they noted that, that what we were charging is below
the, the federal and state reimbursement rate. So they asked us to increase the fees and I said we can, we can do that with, with the school committee. So that's reflected in the budget book. I'm sure you've all read page 110, but just wanted to remind you. So questions, Speaker 1: Questions from the committee, Ms. Brunell. Speaker 6: So what do you recommend the, the field trips, the athletic fees or both? Some combo. Speaker 16: Would you like my gut instinct first or are you asking the superintendent?
Speaker 6: I'm going, I'm going to the chair. Speaker 1: Whoever would like to go first. I mean, I think I'd like you to go first 'cause you prepared this budget and then I'll weigh in. But I think we're gonna be aligned. Speaker 16: Yeah, I, Fees are something that the school committee I, I know everywhere I've ever worked really is not fond of, of increasing them or setting them each year. And and the old adage is when you have a fee, it takes the public outta public education. But to some extent they've just become a necessary part of doing business if you don't have to increase the athletic fee after last year was, you know, a bit
of a significant increase, especially for some families that are gonna have three kids playing sports. Maybe you, maybe you table that one and you just go with the field trip fee that is being passed back on to families another way. So instead of it just being high school, you're passing it off to, I'm gonna call it passing it back to K through eight for field trips because I'm, I'm not, I'm not recommending that, that you do both per se, at least at the moment. 'cause we tried to come up to make,
make this strategic reallocation budget neutral, not so we were having extra money. Right? We're always trying to be respectful to the, to the taxpayers and the fee payers and our families. So that's, that's the general summary. But you know, we've got another presentation on the strategic reallocations coming up so we can dive into that deeper as well. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll add I agree. I mean my recommendation would be we do, we do remove the field trips from the budget. I think we're planning on giving you a presentation on this
I think next time February 23rd, where we're gonna share our goals, which are really to take a deeper look. We haven't had time, we've been doing the budget, we've been doing the strategic plan, but in the spring we wanna kind of give you what we're working on. Sue and team are gonna work on really looking at the cohesion of our field trips across all of our schools. I wanna not use the word equal but cohesive. We wanna make a cohesive plan that's aligned to our school policy. And so part of that will be, it's not gonna, taking field trips outta the budget doesn't mean we're not going to do field trips. It means we're gonna shift those which many,
many districts do costs to the participants and we will absolutely keep a good reserve for need-based when we're thinking about how to do the form so that we will be able to have people who can want, who might wanna pay for two, two people to do it that way. So lots of stuff coming. You're not gonna get answers on February 23rd. You're gonna get an outline of the work we're going to do. So to me some of that work assumes that the field trip money would be taken outta the budget. Yeah. Ms. Brunell, Speaker 6: I think you just made our job a lot easier. I support that. Speaker 1: Can I say one more thing? I also wanna say I totally agree with the fact
that we did increase the athletics last year and I'd love to avoid increasing it again. I think a athletics needs to be, have an entry point for everyone and should never be hindered by the expense of it. It was what got me and my kids through school. I'm a massive fan on what it does for just kids all around. And how many kids we reach in Natick is remarkable. I don't wanna impact that. So we already did a raise an increase there. I don't wanna do more if we can avoid it. Any discussion about that from other committee members? So there's been a suggestion then that we, we choose
to remove the, the line item for the field trip sponsorship. I'm seeing people looking like they're in agreement. Okay. Super. Is that for fees or there? We're good with fees, yep. Okay, moving on. Thank you. Vote. Oh, do you wanna do the vote now? Yeah, Speaker 6: I just wanna say though like fees will continue to increase probably in future years. So it might give us a good ti a good time with the community to source that we're able to not do it this year. But given the way the school budgets go, fees will need to increase in the future. Just to keep pace right With transportation costs?
All of all of the things. Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh for sure. Okay. Do we have a motion? What, what are you gonna vote? User fees. Speaker 10: So move to approve user fees minus the field trip fees. Is that Speaker 1: The, Speaker 6: Why don't we just vote that in the final budget? I'm confused why we're voting this as a separate item or do you need the will of the committee? Speaker 16: We can vote it as part of the, the budget and I can, I can kind of summarize it in a way. So I'll, I'll take the feedback to remove the athletic fee
and put the field trip fee in there and have one long list of all the, all the fees. 'cause they're a little bit sprinkled around and it gi right now it gives you options. So I can see we're making emotions a little awkward. Speaker 6: So, and we would just be keeping the fees fees, the FY 26 fees Speaker 5: For the athletics. For athletics, yeah. No change. Yeah, Speaker 6: No change to athletics. Speaker 1: Okay. So we don't need a vote then at this point. Okay. All right. Thank you though Dr. Fu. Just Speaker 5: As a point of procedure, Dr. Fus made a motion. Yeah, Speaker 10: I think it was not appropriate to interrupt the motion. Speaker 1: Oh, Speaker 6: I'm sorry. It's okay. Did anyone second it
Speaker 5: WI was about to, but so I'll second it and then if you would, if then it's, if you wanna proceed, that's the motion maker's choice I think. Okay. Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm happy with the withdraw. I just think would've been respectful to hear the whole motion. Speaker 1: Sorry about that Dr. Fugman. I think I got a little confused as to what we were doing, so Speaker 6: Apologies. Speaker 17: Okay. Speaker 1: Okay, so I think the next piece on here is the non-res schedule and memo. There is no change to the posted document,
it's the document we posted the same day the last time and we're, we're just asking for another consideration. I'm happy to kind of read my intro piece that I did last time, but again, there's no change to what we presented last to the memo or to what we presented at the last meeting. Any questions from the committee about the non-LEP schedule? Speaker 5: Would you like a motion? Speaker 1: I think so, yes. Speaker 5: So do you just need move approval of the non rep with the new non rep schedule Speaker 10: A second. Speaker 1: Any discussion or questions on that? Speaker 17: Nope. Speaker 1: All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone opposed?
So that motion passes I wanna personally just express great thanks to the committee for kind of taking my recommendations there. I think the structure of the cabinet in central office is gonna kind of not need a lot of changes from here. So very grateful. Thank you. Okay, so we'll go to the strategic allocations and staffing. Some of this I talked about when we presented to the select board fin com and school committee last week, but I really just wanted to kind of put this in one place. So this is a few slides that just brings as we've gone through all of these pre presentations since December 22.
You've seen like a smattering in individual decks but never really all in one place. It's also in the budget book in one place. So if you go to slide three, Great. This slide really frames what we mean by strategic reallocation. I think that's a new term. We'll see if it sticks. If people have a different idea, we're happy to to talk about it, but to me it kind of makes sense. It reflects a continued commitment to fiscal responsibility, which I know the committee has emphasized as well. It means that we're making really intentional choices to shift a very small portion of existing resources
to better align with our priorities. And every investment that we make is fully offset by reductions or consolidations. So this is a targeted shift within the level service budget. It doesn't request funds beyond level service and the overall amount being reallocated is literally 0.9% of the total budget. Next slide. Great. This slide shows where we are strengthening the budget through the reallocations. So first for STU, student support and access, we are expanding an in-district elementary therapeutic programming and restructuring the high school counseling and guidance.
These are the investments that we're doing. Second, aligned with instruction and coherence, we're including a K eight literacy curriculum adoption and implementing phase one of an elementary MTSS reorganization, which redesigns existing staff into a coordinated school-wide model focused on early support and realtime data use. And then lastly is around what I'm calling system readiness, including a one-time natick high school study and increasing our IT security and risk management capacity. So that's what we're putting 0.9% of the budget in as an investment.
And if you go to slide five, this slide shows how the investments are fully offset. This is kind of what we mean by fiscal responsibility. So cost savings include reducing out of district tuition tied to that, expanded in-district capacity that we added with the therapeutic program. And then targeted fee adjustments, which you have been considering last meeting and this that continue to build on the FY 26 work. And honestly were a long time coming, we hadn't done them for a while. Reductions in consolidations also include eliminating a vacant or absorbed central office role.
That was a prior cabinet role in my, in my cabinet. And reorganizing the communications within HR and aligning shared IT roles to the 60 40 school town split. So the total balance is investments of $912,600 and then reductions also of $912,600 no impact. And we're down one FTE. And then the last slide, we'll just go right to the staffing please. There we go. So this final staffing slide shows how those strategies are executed. You can literally see with all the lines
and all the notes there, what matters. Here's the pattern. Not any single line added positions are concentrated in instructional and student support strategies. We're intentionally strengthening and reductions reflect structural changes in consolidation, but taken together these decisions result in net reduction in staffing while aligning resources more closely with current student and operational needs. That's what budget neutral strategic allocation looks like in practice within a level service budget. So we're here really just trying to consolidate. The first three slides are about like, so that you can connect all
of these individual presentations you've seen to be thematic around what we're, what we're investing in in this budget and what we're reducing. And the staffing is really a continued effort to be very transparent and clear about where our staffing is and how it's changing with each cycle. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Stash, any questions on the committee? I think we've seen this before. I, I, did you wanna say something? No, I, I'm, I'm just really grateful for you doing this work for us and you can really see that,
that we are really investing in ourselves through this strategy and it's really exciting to see your vision, you know, come to fruition like this. So we're excited about going forward with this and, and in the future. Thank you so much. As much as it I get to sit here and say is my vision, I really do feel like it's a lot of the principles and our whole cabinet and many staff kind of weighing in and we, I feel like we've shared it. It's not always been easy, but we've shared it and had the real conversations with folks and I'm grateful for people's engagement in it. Okay, we're gonna go to the calendar memo if that works.
So as we know, we've had quite a bit of feedback on the setting of this year's calendar. And in response we drafted a memo to outline how we might be able to help by operationalizing this a little bit differently. The gist of it is that we're gonna pull it from maybe a January timeframe of going over a proposal for next year's calendar, pulling it up to November. Alongside that, we would give a non-binding very clearly noted non-binding version of even the next year's calendar. So we will be looking two years ahead. I honestly don't, we haven't done it before, but,
and I think Sue could weigh in on this or anybody else, but I actually think we're gonna be pretty tight to what we think it will be. And the things that would change it are if we all of a sudden decided, not saying we're doing this, I'm just saying the thing I thought of that could change it is like if we changed how we approached holidays or something big that the committee were to decide strategically, otherwise the days are what they are. And so this would at least just help generate the conversation and perhaps some engagement. I don't, as much as this is written that we would do that in November. I think you could still have your two reads all of the same process. We just pull it up and we give you two years at a time
because we have not yet given you the next calendar for this year. We'll do that in April. We just wanted to float this by you to see if it works and if it does, and we're happy to take any of your feedback. We can give you that calendar in April and then we'll start the new process starting in next November. I know the high school will be thrilled about this because you, as you heard today, they're trying to do a lot of commitments early. So I think this will generally help both the, the community as well as the internal workings of the school system. So that's our proposal. Thank you Dr. Sash. Questions from the committee? Dr. Mr. Brand?
Speaker 5: I think it's great. My question is the, I, well not my comment is, or question, I guess it depends on what punctuation I put at the end of this. How do future EAN negotiations potentially impact this? So I, I guess I would add, throw in, it doesn't make sense to throw our caveat in when the two years, if we're planning ahead overlaps with union negotiations, it might take longer to make that commitment because we just don't know.
And I'm not gonna speak for it, but I like, so I guess that would be my one concern that is a solvable problem. But just to put it out there that we might have to make exceptions every couple of years. Speaker 1: Do you wanna start? Speaker 3: I thank you and I as always appreciate that the consideration is there. I I don't foresee a problem. I think the, the non-binding element of it is the most significant thing. It just gives us a everyone a jumping off ground for future planning. What happened this year? Unfortunately, despite our efforts to communicate,
we did have some, some feedback of some members who were surprised to learn about the change in the next year's calendar. Again, we, we, we did our due diligence in attempted to communicate, but as it happens, some members were rather surprised to find out they'd be coming back this much earlier before Labor Day. But, but I think a, the, an effort to have a, you know, an extra year out and again as a simply as a non-binding proposal, I think is a, a wonderful idea. I don't, I don't foresee any real difficulties.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Great. We appreciate it and we will of course, I think just as we do with our regular calendar, consult with you, consult with the union, they helped us and we're great feedback partners to us. So we would do that of course, again on the two year look outlook as well. All right. Consider that something we'll be doing. Thanks for the feedback. The next piece is the accept collaborative memo. This item's on the agenda to really formally note receipt of these documents from the accept collaborative. As advised previously, these materials were placed in the consent agenda. They're now included as a standalone item
that we foresee being really, I think annually for transparency and ensure, ensure receipt is reflected in the minutes. So no vote is required. I just wanted to highlight that we're kind of giving you a lot at once and to have it formally on an agenda is what the accept collaborative asked us to do. So it's really nothing more than what we've always been doing. It's just they gave us a few more documents and we need to have it on, on the record. Any questions about that? Great, thank you. Speaker 6: Okay, Speaker 1: One more. This one is titled the Field memo. And again, I hope this is seen as really a formality.
I'm sharing this item so that the school committee has the same information that I provided to the town administrator after he requested that. Following the committee's January 12th vote to support the joint superintendent, town administrator memorandum advancing schematic design work for the Natick high school practice field. These materials establish a shared baseline and support transparency and alignment as that boat is implemented. So this is just a transparent share of documentation. Any questions about that Ms. Brunell? Speaker 6: I have a question about the wetlands. Just that, that's the feedback that I've heard the most of.
I'm not sure if that you, if you'll be able to answer that today, but give, I read the memo, it seems like the timeline of work, once it's authorized will be about 12 weeks, but there obviously with snow on the ground, they're not gonna be able to see the impact to wetland. So I was curious about when the work is gonna start and then what it meant to be a non boundary. It will not be a boundary survey again, if that's happy to take this in the next meeting in February, but I think people would like to hear about how the wet wetlands will be part of the survey
Speaker 16: So I can answer some of that. So the, the, because we're the property owner and the abutter, I, I, I think the design firm said, you know, we don't really need to have a clear property line delineation, but they could tell because we, we weren't gonna be working on somebody else's property, but they would protect the wetlands from runoff during construction in accord with the state and local codes that pretty much everybody has so
that you're not, when you're doing earth work, that you're not putting things into the, the na the natural water system that wouldn't, wouldn't have been there. Yeah. Otherwise, hope, hope that answers that question. Speaker 6: No, that's helpful. Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead. One other thing, I actually haven't met with the town administrator on this topic. I've only exchanged these documents through email and my first meeting with him is February 12th. So I'll bring those questions to him, but I really couldn't answer any of those at this time. And Mr. Erickson has expressed his willingness to come back to the committee too and address any questions that we have.
So we could ask him if we have more questions to come to an upcoming meeting and he will be giving us regular updates as work progresses as well. So let me know if that's something we need or if we want to just send him some questions. You could always send me an email and I could forward it to him. And I just wanted, oh, sorry. Just wanted to see Mr. Brand, did you have anything about the other field committee? Since we're in field, Speaker 5: There's always something the, so the natural and Synthetic Turf Field Study Group has now met twice. We met actually our second time prior to this meeting,
so I thought I would give a quick update. Our plan, the thing that we've discussed, and these are all posted open meetings, is, so today we worked on a template for the report that we're gonna generate. And the, the basic structure of the, the deliverable at the end of this is a report that will weigh all the options. It will not draw a conclusion, we should do this, we should do that. That's not for this study group to decide. So our hope is to provide
like a preliminary report to town meeting in the spring. It will include, the report will include a definition of the problem that we're trying to solve, what the process has been, what the process is currently. It will include in input from all the different stakeholders, expert opinions, expert data, a lot of different things. So that's, we're sort of forming the template. We did that today. We worked on a list of all the stakeholders, the, those, those folks were all gonna be contacted
and invited to our subsequent meetings. And if they can't come to the meetings, we're gonna build a template that they can submit the same kinds of information so that, 'cause we're trying to do this by SPRINGTOWN meeting. So we've been quite efficient so far and that's what the report will be. So ultimately there'll be an artifact in this report that anybody will read and that everyone is welcome to listen to and participate in. So it's gonna be pretty thorough. And again, no recommended outcome at the end of it, my recommended outcome is to read it. That would be the what I would hope for people to do.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Mr. Brand. Does anyone have any questions about that Mr. Patel? Speaker 5: I just wanna get some clarity. Who will ultimately Speaker 4: Decide which, which kind of field it's Speaker 5: That is a great question. I think, you know, town meeting has a say in this. There's going to the, I'm not really sure who ultimately decides who, who makes that decision. Speaker 1: I think we do school committee for this particular project, right? If we're going to be paying for a project, we decide, don't we, Speaker 16: Based on I believe the school committee sponsored the
article, right? So it was generally gonna be two parts. One was for the design for the schematic, and then the other one would be for the construction. Yeah. But I, I guess a conversation with the town and how they wanna share that is something that might come up. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think we're, we're working very collaboratively, the town, but in terms of, you know, sending a design forward, we have input into that. And then town meeting ultimately would decide how to pay for it Speaker 5: Right. To appropriate the funds if they appropriate. So choose, yeah. So that this report will be evidence to
that discussion at town meeting. Speaker 4: And there, is there a possibility this the school committee can sponsor two different variants for the town meeting to decide, for example, like natural at this cost and synthetic at this cost and then the town meeting would be the one that decides which one they want? Speaker 1: I think that's a really interesting question and possibly a question for another night. Sorry. Yeah, no, no, no. I think it's, I I do think it's a good question and I think it's something that we need to, to keep in mind and to figure out how we wanna move forward with this while also providing clarity as to
what we think is the best way forward as well. Speaker 5: And, and the report, while it won't be able to have hard numbers on any of this, will certainly include short and long-term financial analysis of all the different types of options. Ultimately though, to your point, the school committee will have to decide whatever it wants to do and then town meeting will act on that or not. Speaker 1: I think, we'll just, not to belabor the point, but we'll define what the need is and kind of what the problem we're trying to solve is by building a new field. And then I I I would expect that there would be some recommendation for which direction we wanna go based on what that need is.
Yeah. But great question. Okay. Super. Any other questions from the committee before we go to the public? Okay. Member of the public, Ms. Vickers? Speaker 18: Yes. Thank you very much for this. Are those this question please, Ms. Chair through you. Are those meetings being recorded? For those of us who prefer to actually watch a meeting instead of just getting the notes and the minutes? Speaker 1: Mr. Brand, Speaker 5: The meetings are not recorded. There are notes, so there will be minutes and everybody is welcome. So can we, they're not recorded. Speaker 18: Can we get those meetings recorded?
Speaker 5: The meetings thus far have been in person and not virtual, so there isn't hasn't been a mechanism to record, but we can certainly, I can certainly pass it on to the chair of our committee and we can discuss it as a committee. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you Ms. Vickers. Okay. Yeah, no. Moving on to, oh yes, Dr. Mackenzie, can you come up to the, can you come up to the microphone please? For my sake and the sake of the public, can you state again who is on the study committee? Speaker 19: May I have your attention please? The library will be closing in 15 minutes at nine o'clock.
Please have all of your items checked out at this time. Thank you Speaker 1: Mr. Brown. Speaker 5: For those at home, there was a library announcement just now. That was not just me pausing to think about it. The, the, the members of the, of the study group are myself, Julie McDonough and Bruce Evans from the select board. Speaker 1: And who is the chair? Speaker 5: The chair is Julie McDonough. Speaker 1: Okay. And is it the intent to have any representation at all from the sustainability community? Speaker 5: The, the question of the sustainability will certainly be part of the stakeholders
who are asked to provide feedback on all of the different options and the problem and the solutions. Yes. The committee is the, the working group is made up of the three of us. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Okay, so switching gears a little bit, I'll turn things again, back to you, Mr. Brand for subcommittee and votes on our policies. Speaker 5: Great. So we had a first read at our previous meeting on the four different policies.
I don't know if Ms. Balbo wants to add anything, but there's, and there were, there were no suggestions made. I have not heard any suggestions since then. So we can vote on them unless people have comments or discussion. And we should probably do them one at a time since there are four different policies. Speaker 1: Okay. Do you wanna start with one of them? Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: So I would move approval of the updates to policy G-B-E-B-C, the Games of Chance. Speaker 1: Is there a second for that Second. And discussion. Ms. Brunell,
Speaker 6: I just have a question that came to me from a constituent. If they, if the group registers and gives money to multiple groups in Natick, does one registration through the town count or do they have to register for every group that they give money to? Speaker 9: My understanding in reading the Natick web MA website Yeah. Is that every nonprofit has to apply for their own permit. Speaker 6: And that permit exists for the whole year. Speaker 9: It lasts for a year Speaker 6: And for everything though. Okay.
That's what I, I was hoping. And and this is following state law that already exists. That's correct. Is that right? That's correct. So even though we voted today, technically this is still, Speaker 9: That's correct. Speaker 6: Yeah. Speaker 9: And that is for the KBE Parent booster organization. That's the third one, but Speaker 6: Oh, same thing as KBEI see. The Speaker 9: Law applies to all of these, but if you're talking about a parent booster organization, it's the policy KBE. Speaker 6: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: Any other discussion on that policy? Are we ready to vote?
Okay. All in favor? Anyone against? No. I see no net staining. So updated policy. G-B-E-B-C. Yes. Speaker 5: A tongue twister. Speaker 1: Yes, Speaker 5: I would. Called JBA approved. Yeah, jba. Yeah, that's how you pronounce it. So I would now move approval to update policy JJE student fundraising activities? Or did I do that wrong? Sorry, that was right. All second. Speaker 1: Okay. Any questions or discussion of that? Okay.
All in favor? Anyone against, I see no one abstaining. So that policy also passes Speaker 5: And I would move approval to update policy KBE relations and with parent booster organizations. Speaker 1: Second. Any questions or discussion? Nope. All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining. So policy KBE is approved. Speaker 5: And finally move approval of the updated policy IMGA service Animals in school.
Second. Speaker 1: Any questions or discussion about that? All right. All in favor? Anyone against? Anyone? Abstaining. Okay. Policy IMGA is Speaker 5: Approved. The, the last update on the policy subcommittee is our next meeting, which we are working a schedule now, is we, we will certainly, two of the things we're gonna start doing. The maintenance overview, like reviews of groups I and J. Speaker 1: Excellent. And those, just a reminder to everyone, those meetings in the public, I guess are, are posted, they are posted public meetings.
Anyone could listen in? Yes. Yeah. Super. So the only other item we had on the agenda was the, a little bit accelerated repair project, but we're gonna move that to the next meeting. 'cause I just don't think we have time to address that fully here. And it would be nice if we can Oh, we have two. You're right. We have, it would be nice if we could get Ms. Wilson Martin here as well, but she wasn't able to attend today. And then we have one last one. I'll turn it to you. Yep. Yeah, I'll be brief. And then if Mr. Gillis or Ms. Brune have anything to add. So in terms of MSBA Memorial project update last Monday,
February 2nd, we met the school building committee, met at Kennedy and we did a tour. We were grateful to have Bill Sprat from the FCI DPW facilities office, as well as Deborah Schatz, the principal, Jody Cohen really walked the school committee and the team through that. It was, it was very helpful and we're now kind of compiling our notes on takeaways for that. So that's good. We also, Mr. Gillis submitted the draft RFS for the OPM, sorry for all the acronyms to the MSBA who now considers it.
And there's a bit of a dance as it goes kind of back and forth. It starts with the boiler boilerplate template and then based on the feedback from the building committee, Mr. Gillis kind of incorporated all of that and sent it to the MSBA. And hopefully that gets kind of solved soon. And the next step would actually be to post that RFS once it's all approved. So this is good. We're making progress is the point. And then the last piece is, we talked to, I wanna even say last year about this, about the post occupancy evaluation. It's module nine of the MSBA. We did opt in, it's not mandatory yet,
and that is coming up in March. It's a full day visit. We have our first kind of intro to that on February 23rd or fourth, so, right. I think it's the 24th. They recommend pretty much Matt will be there and then they recommend myself and head of facilities go. So we'll go to that, see what it's all about. It looks like it's gonna be a day long event. They look at everything from kind of kids getting on and off the bus to how the transportation moves, to how the tech in the building and the building systems moves. It's a very thorough day. So I'm really excited, you know, to see the outcome of
that report, see if there's lessons learned for our current project. And we're grateful to everybody who's gonna be involved in that. But that's also moving along so many, many interesting things. MSBA doesn't sit. So here we go. Ms. Brunell, did you wanna add, add anything to that? No. Okay. Mr. Patel, Speaker 4: Sorry, I think last we discussed this, a lot of school committee members had expressed interest in going to narrow down who's gonna get to go. Speaker 1: I don't know if you did, but I, I feel like I haven't even talked to them about what that day looks like, but maybe you guys have. Yeah, I think you gave us the date and we, I just, I did ask for people who,
who would be available for the entire day. And I, I know you're one of those people, Mr. Patel, but I'll have to check my email records because I did, I can't remember. Just checking if there was anything I missed. Thank you. Yeah, no, no, there's been no further communication about that, but I do have recorded who wants to attend, so I'll, I'll reshare that with Dr. Stash. Yeah. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thanks for the reminder on that. Okay. All right, one last motion. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Anyone A against? We are adjourned. Thank you.