Speaker 1: Okay, sorry. We'll, we'll get started. So it is 6 32 on Monday, November 24th, and this is the Natick School Committee. So welcome and we will start with roll call and we'll start online. Mr. Patel, Speaker 2: Evan, participating remotely. Speaker 1: Mr. Brand Present. Dr. Fugman Present. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And I am here. Do we have Ms. Gomes online? Do you know? Okay. Alright. If she joins, we'll add her to the attendance and Ms.
Lathers will be arriving around seven o'clock. So, okay. So we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to Republic for which it stands for One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: And we take that moment of silence to honor our troops serving here and abroad. So we'll move to announcements. Anybody have any announcements? Speaker 4: Should I Speaker 1: Go for it? Yep. Speaker 5: Well, this week with Thanksgiving coming up is Spirit
Weekend NA High School, and in preparation for the pep rally on Wednesday, the Spirit Week themes are today's pajama day. Tomorrow's gonna be wearing your native gear and on Wednesday is gonna be seniors wearing red and underclassmen are wearing white. And Natick really did embody the spirit of Spirit Week this weekend with the Boys and Girls Soccer, winning both state titles and the high school quiz show team qualifying for the WGBH recording studios for the first time in seven years too. Wow. So great week for Native Spirit all around.
And the food drive, we're almost at our goal of 5,000 items, so if we could get a few 1000 more items, we'll be close to our goal. Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you for that. And congratulations to both the girls soccer team and the boys soccer team. That's an incredible achievement. And we're very excited to say that they will be joining us on December 8th for some in-person celebration. So I think there's some students in the hall. You guys can come in. Yep. Hi. Speaker 4: Yep. Speaker 1: School committee. Yep.
Yeah, you can find a seat wherever. Thank you. Yeah, welcome. Welcome in. Speaker 4: Can Speaker 6: We just one other little, just to congratulate all of the seniors who were inducted this week, this past week into the National Honor Society, it was an awesome jam packed high school auditorium that was easily the most well-behaved group of parents I think I've ever been part of. It was a lovely event and a lot of really cool, a lot of great effort from students to, to be part of that program. I forget the exact number, 189 students. It's awesome.
So congratulations to all those students, including Anthony. We saw you there. Speaker 4: Congratulations. Done. Thank you. Speaker 1: Yeah, Speaker 7: I just have to give a shout out to our cross cross country teams too, because they placed the highest ever second in states and went to nationals this weekend. Or I what, what was it called this weekend? It Speaker 4: Was NXR Nike Cross Country Speaker 7: Regionals. Nike Cross Country Regionals. And did really well there again. So it just, our CrossCountry team has really crushed it this year too. Speaker 4: And our eighth grade football. Yeah, Speaker 7: We beat Brookline. Let's just say that. Speaker 1: Is that a big rivalry? Speaker 7: That was a big rivalry.
Hasn't been done in what, 25 years? I think Brookline had been undefeated for several years. John Bke beat the guy on his own course. It was really incredible. So yeah, the cross country team crushed it. Speaker 1: Awesome. Wonderful. Okay, so we'll 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.
So I don't see anyone in the room. Is there anyone online for public speak? I didn't receive any emails in advance. I received one email from member of the public, but they wish to speak on an agenda item topic later. Okay. Seeing nobody, we'll close public speak since. Oh, wonderful. Okay. Welcome MSEs. So why don't we start with Ms. Gomes then for a METCO representative update. Speaker 4: Hello. I have no updates at this time. Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you. And we'll move to our teacher representative, Mr. Wood. Speaker 8: Thank you Madam Chair. In keeping with Ms.
Gomes, I also have nothing new to offer at the moment. Thank you. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: And Anthony, I think you gave your update already. Yes. Okay. Super. Okay. Alright. Consent agenda, Speaker 4: Move to approve the consent agenda. Speaker 1: Okay. And because we have somebody online, we'll do a roll call Vote. Mr. Patel? Speaker 4: Yes. Speaker 1: Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And I am a yes. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: And then we can move to,
do we, we can talk about this. Do we want to do, we can Speaker 9: Do that last if you wanna do a guess. Speaker 1: Okay. We have Speaker 9: Pretty much, we have someone here and we have someone here. Speaker 1: Okay. So why don't we move to the MSBA update and the LILJA Accelerated Repair program. I don't know Ms. Wilson Martin, if you're ready to come speak to us about that. Speaker 4: Yes. Have you ever known her not to be Speaker 1: Prepared? Well, I have not. No, I'm welcome. Thanks. You're always welcome at school. Speaker 10: As as she gets ready, I just wanna mention
that we have two links here on the agenda. One is the actual invitation letter for this project from the MSBA, which went to Mr. Erickson and the other is Jillian's presentation. So that's why there are two items on there. Speaker 11: Okay. Thank you for having me and for taking me early. I appreciate it. So I am here tonight to talk to you about the opportunity that Natick has to participate in a different program with the MSBA. This is the accelerated repair program and I wanted to just, before I get into the details, just pause
and address why I'm the person presenting about this project tonight and what it means to me. So just as background, last spring in March, the school committee voted to approve the statement of interest for this application that we submitted. And we found out on October 29th, so less than a month ago, that Natick is going to be invited into the program. And I'll explain that is going to be invited piece in a minute and I'm gonna share an overview of that. But this actually ties back to a conversation and a vote that the school committee took last December
when I came to you and asked you to support adopting our municipal decarbonization roadmap. And during that conversation we talked about some of the really significant capital needs that the school district has in the upcoming years. Wilson Brown, Lilja and Benham are all between 20 and 30 years old. And while the buildings themselves are solid, their HVAC systems are nearing the end of their useful life and some may be past the end of their useful life. So that's the type of lifecycle event that I work really hard to identify in advance
and partner with facilities on and look for funding opportunities that can help support that and offset costs to our community, but also add that special sustainability sauce to the program. So when you, if you could go ahead and switch to the next slide. So what is the accelerated repair program and what does it mean for Natick? So again, this is different than the core program. The accelerated program focuses on preserving existing assets by investing in things like roofs, windows, and HVAC systems. It is accelerated, they call it accelerated for a reason.
So they do things like pre-select an OPM for you, pre-select a designer for you, you don't get, we don't get to do that procurement process. We're assigned those organizations and we then have to follow a pretty quick schedule for construction and for funding for the program. The program also was revised pretty substantially this past year. So now you can only apply every two years. They have new requirements for the program that make it a little bit harder to find buildings that fit for that program. And now they focus solely on electrification. They do windows roofs
and then instead of boilers now they do heat pump conversions. A natick was one of 25 districts that was invited into the accelerator repair program for heat pump conversions. Next slide please. So why did we apply for the accelerator program at accelerator repair program at lilja? Number one, it was actually the only school that was eligible to apply for the program because of the strict requirements. And in our statement of interest, which I, as I mentioned we submitted in March, there was two main problems that we identified.
And I wanna emphasize that word problem because I actually ran into the director of capital planning from the MSBA at a conference last week. And I kind of cornered him and asked him lots of questions about this program. And something he said that stuck out to me is that the SOI phase of the program is when we're telling MSBA the problem and the feasibility and schematic design phase is when we're working together to develop a solution. So we know what the problem is right now, we don't really know what the solution is and you'll see why that matters when it comes
to thinking about future costs and trying to understand that we're really at a preliminary stage there. But so when it comes to the problem, we know that the HVAC system at Lilja is at the, is at or near the end of its useful life. We see that at Brown that we need to replace that system and I know that our facilities director has some updates about the capital plan there. And then we also know that the building doesn't have air conditioning anywhere except for the modular units. And that's pretty true at most of our elementary schools. Brown also has modulars that have air conditioning,
but most of the elementary spaces don't have air conditioning. If we are to be successful completing the Department of Energy grant at Benham Elementary, that would result in air conditioning in all of the classrooms there. In the slide here you can see the, the chart, I provide more detail in the appendix, but it shows the median amount of days above 75 degrees during the school months by decade. And you can see it increasing over time. And then what we've done is mapped the lowest expected increases from our
state climate data to future years. And that's what's reflected there. Next slide please. And from a timeline perspective, the Accelerator Repair Group program has, we've been invited to start on July 1st to be to have our invitation date start then. And that means that from that date we have 90 days from July 1st to fund the program 90 days after July 1st. Doesn't provide enough time for us to ask town meeting if we were to start on July 1st. So the only chance that we really have to fund this program is by asking
for funding at the SPRINGTOWN meeting. The accelerator repair program is one of the only MSBA opportunities where they let you seek funding before your invitation date. And they've advised us that if we wanna participate that the spring springtown meeting would be when we would do that After. And what we would be funding at springtime meeting if we were to choose to proceed would be the schematic design. So that's the part where we'd be figuring out the solution and that can take up to six months is allowed for that. It could be less. And then from there we would go,
we would have time to secure funding for construction if we chose to move forward and were invited to continue the program. And then construction can take up to two years. Their intent is for these projects to end by the end of 2029. But these type of HVAC projects, they expect they're pretty invasive and they expect that you would need two summers to complete them 'cause they're not something you can really do Y schools in session. And I just wanna flag the yellow box on this slide, which says that this is, this information is based on a call that Mr. Giles and I had
with the M-S-B-A-A couple of weeks ago. We're still waiting for them to publish their program syllabus, which I believe is supposed to happen next week. Next slide. So again, I mentioned these are preliminary estimates, but there's two things to think about with this slide. The first that I wanna highlight is there's a lot of opportunities for Natick to receive funding from both the MSBA and other organizations to help support these costs. We don't know if the construction funding that's listed here or cost is is accurate.
It could be a lot higher than this, it could be lower. A lot of things get figured out in the schematic design phase and that's when we would know what a real cost estimate would be. I do feel really confident that the amount we have listed for schematic design is accurate. We vetted it by a number of firms, kind of not officially but asked the MSBA if this seems reasonable. And I've got confirmations from, from several design firms that this makes sense. So we're looking for $300,000 for that phase of the program. We have already a hundred thousand dollars in a revolving fund. That town meeting approved a couple years ago that I work
with the town administrator to manage that we could put towards that. So we wouldn't be asking town meeting for the full $300,000. I also would like to apply for our grant that's due this Friday. It's a climate leaders technical support grant. And that would provide potentially another $150,000 towards that design, leaving the potential cost in NAIC about $50,000. The tricky thing is we probably won't know if we are recipients of that Climate leaders grant ahead of the warrant for town meeting. I think the expectations we would know in April. So there's a chance we would know during or right
before town meeting. But that's the way that that grant cycle works. And there they can't be flexible on that. So again, just wanna emphasize that the red text shows preliminary for all of these. I do really feel strongly that the schematic design is, is a good estimate. But again, the the big takeaway is that this could be a really expensive project, but I do think that there's a lot of value for Natick in working with MSBA and other funders to offset those costs. Next slide please. And so
I'm here tonight to to share that update with you and then to, I wanted to really understand from the committee how much you wanna pursue this because it's a lot of time and effort to apply for grants. So I'm in a hustle to apply for this grant on Friday at your direction. I do think we're very competitive for this. I think that the two climate leaders grants, I put on the last slide, the one for the 150,000 and the 1 million, I think these are actually really well aligned with this project. And there's not a lot of other climate leaders out there because it's a state designation that required a lot of action by local boards and town meeting.
And Natick was one of the first ones to do it. And because of that, we're in a really good position to secure that funding before it runs out. And there's a lot of competition for it. And I've confirmed that with the funders that they think these are, these are smart projects to apply for. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you have and thank you for your time. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Questions from the committee, Speaker 12: Dr. Fugman? So I have a very quick one and then maybe one that might, that'll be a quick on slide. I think it's slide five. When you talk about that grant application, it showed up in both the schematic plan
and in the actual construction. Is that two different grants from the same funder or do you apply once and if you win? If if we win, we get both the 154, the schematic design and the 1 million for the construction. Speaker 11: I wish we only had to apply once, but it is two different grants. Two from the same funders. Yeah, so they're, they're both from the Department of Energy Resources through their climate leaders designation and their intent. I spoke with 'em today and what they want to see is those technical support grants fund projects
that become projects that use the $1 million implementation grant. Yeah. So that would be our goal. Yeah. Speaker 12: And the other question is, what is the cost of not doing this? Not just in terms of money, but also, I mean, so one part of the answer based on one of your slides is classrooms without air conditioning given the rise in temperature. So obviously that's a con, you know, there's all kinds of consequences to health, physical health, mental health of students being in a classroom that is overheated.
But are there other ways to capture the cost of not doing the project? So like for example, what if we don't replace it over the next couple of years? Will the system fail? Will Yeah, yeah, Speaker 11: That's a good question. We, I think could replace our boilers like for like, and probably do that at a similar or less cost than what we would end up paying even for our match for this. But what we wouldn't get is what you mentioned is that air conditioning system. And so it really becomes a question in my mind of how much we value having that benefit in Natick.
Because if we were to want to add an air conditioning system on our own, other communities are doing this. And actually Marlborough is doing this right now and a former assistant finance director from Natick works there. And it was fun to see his name in the, when I was looking for examples. It's very expensive to just add air conditioning on its own. It's really not like a, a heat pump cost. It's adding the ventilation and distribution system. And I think I've talked to some of you about this. We, a lot of us live in older homes, right?
And like we know if you're trying to do change something to your HVAC system, you don't have the duct work. That's like where a ton of the cost from comes from. So imagine that for a school. And then the other thing that can happen, and I think we know this from something else on your agenda that has been discussed in the past with Johnson, if you're doing some amount of work, then you at some point you could trigger these like upgrades in terms of code. And so that would happen again with just an air conditioning system. But we wanted to do that in the future. So I see the benefit of this project as getting outside funding to support that enhancement of the building.
Speaker 12: What about climate sustainability or sustaina sustainable efficiencies? Is that even a phrase? It is now. It is. It is now. It is now. I just made it up. No, but is is, is doing this also helping us create move closer to the net zero goal for example? Yes, Speaker 11: Yes. Yeah, I don't always lead with that. Thanks for bringing it up. This would deliver exactly on our municipal decarbonization roadmap, which outlines when we have an HVAC system that's at the end of its useful life that we would look
for replacement that does result in less greenhouse gas emissions and, and it would, so that would be a, a blessing as well. Great. Speaker 12: Great. Thank you Speaker 13: Ms. Collins. Thank you. The first question, I'm not sure who it's to, but with the October 1st drop dead date, would it, if it didn't happen in April, would there would still be time to call a special? Would there not? Speaker 11: There would be, I guess. Yeah, I'm not super familiar outside of it would be something outside of the regular time meeting schedule. I'm, I can't answer that for sure.
Speaker 13: Okay. I'm thinking if there was some confusion or something that would be that opportunity. The other question, I don't know you or Mr. Gillis, what is the useful life on this project? Speaker 11: I could start answering that. I actually have a slide at the end that the, and I consulted our facilities department for this, but it's typically 20 to 25 years is a useful life of this project. And one question I had was, is that past what we expect this building's useful life to be and so on? Yes, that slide, I took a glance, this is very preliminary,
but at all of the Natick public school buildings and their life, and if you consider Memorial as an example of how long a building would last, then we still would have enough time for this system to be useful and to live its full life at Lilja before we would anticipate replacing lilja. Again, a lot of things can come up in that and I don't know what I would ask that question back to the school department, what the plan is for the building longer term. Speaker 13: And finally, Mr.
Gillis, I know this one isn't in your warehouse, bonded proceeds that have not been spent need to be used on projects of like duration. Correct. Speaker 14: Pretty much the, you know, before I came to Natick, the way I always learned it was that the address in the vote was where it was pretty restricted to. But I guess you can have a solicit town approval if it's gonna be used on a project with a similar scope of useful life expectancy for the bond. So if, if this, this could be applicable
as just like a building would be, since this equipment would last pretty much as long as a building. Speaker 13: Okay. But the Kennedy bonding was at least 25 years, was it not? Speaker 14: I be, I believe it was, I believe it's a 25 year bond. Speaker 13: Thank you. Speaker 1: So I just wanted to clarify when you said that we could replace the boilers, like for like what did you compare the cost to? Was it the, Speaker 11: The amount that Natick would need to pay just as the match for this? Speaker 1: So the 900,000 is what it would cost just to replace the boiler without any air conditioning? Speaker 11: Yeah, we have, we have the HVAC system on the capital plan in FY 28
and 29 at Lja Elementary. And I, I would probably defer to Deborah Schatz, our facilities director who's here, who could speak to that more directly. But I see that it's not inexpensive to do this kind of project and I'm trying to be very upfront about that. But I do see a lot of value and that I see a lot of funding that can support that cost for Natick and make it such that Natick isn't overextending itself on cost versus what we would've done on our own.
And I see we get this extra benefit of air conditioning. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I just wanted to be super clear that I I knew it if somebody asked me, I could speak to that. Yeah. Other questions from the committee, Ms. Brunell. Speaker 7: So, and this grant is really the driver of the timeline for us right now in terms of knowing the support from the committee? Applying for the grant. Speaker 11: Yes. Well, we knew that there's two reasons I'm here is one is you're talking about capital and I, I put this on the capital plan.
So that's, that's one of the reasons I'm here. And then we have time between now and town meeting to figure out what we wanna do. So I'm not asking you to make the decision of like you're gonna support having this on the Warren article town meeting, but I did wanna get a signal from the committee if you are supportive of this article and having that support will let me move forward with working on this application. Speaker 7: Yeah, thank you. And the, is it only air conditioning is the benefit or is it other things too? Speaker 11: It's, it's better in, if we're upgrading the ventilation system
and the distribution system, then we end up with better indoor air quality for students. Air conditioning is tied to better learning outcomes. And then there's other upgrades that if we do meet those code triggers, my understanding is that MSBA ends up paying for more of, of those upgrades than if we had to do them ourselves. So we have those additional upgrades as well. Speaker 7: No, that's helpful. I I think that it's, Speaker 1: It, Speaker 7: I think that this is a direction that schools are going, that providing air conditioning
for students is definitely what, but to your point, it's expensive. And so Natick always has to be considering what it is that we can't do if we do this right. And so I appreciate that the measured way that you presented this because I think as a community we have to say, is this the direction we wanna take our elementary schools? And you've done so much work to make behe hopefully with that grant air conditioned. And I can only imagine that once one elementary school is air conditioned, that's gonna be something that other elementary schools want.
So I really appreciate you thinking about the whole system and then being so careful with the grant, looking for grant funding. I, and I really appreciate slide number nine because as we think about our elementary plan, I just have never seen it put out, put out that clearly. And so I appreciate how your brain works. I'm supportive of this and I just thank you for having the forethought, the executive functioning to plan this far ahead. Speaker 1: I see Mr. Patel online. Speaker 2: Hi. Thank you. I just wanted to ask a couple questions.
What are the implications of going through a RP at lilja, you know, now or until 29 on its core application should be, need it 10 years down the line. And I guess the real question I'm asking is what's Lil's whole useful year life left Speaker 11: You wanna answer? Speaker 1: I don't Speaker 14: Sure. I mean, generally MSBA looks at u useful life of a school building. That's about 40 years. They like to see 50, you know, Lilja was renovated in 97, so if you add 40 years to that, this should,
this should work out pretty well where the building will be ready for another renovation or addition and so will the HVAC. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 11: I did wanna, I, I am not sure this was Mr. Patel's question, but participating in the accelerator repair program doesn't impact our core program project with Memorial. And they've confirmed that many times. Speaker 2: Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell. And then Dr. Fen. Speaker 7: Okay. Sorry, just one more question again, because of your, for your thinking ahead of this, I was curious about whether
or not we should be looking at the windows at Brown so that we could in two years possibly apply to the, this program for Brown? Speaker 11: That's a good question. I I feel like it'll be too late at Brown because Brown's boilers need to be replaced. Now again, I would defer to our facilities director on the severity of that problem, but that's why there is such a, an effort in planning ahead for these to really get it
before you really, you know, I don't, I don't know if, if Brown's boilers could last another two years before you apply and then another two and a half years to, to I see. Speaker 7: Yeah, she's shaking her head no behind you, so no, they couldn't the audience Speaker 11: Like that was the right answer. Okay, good. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 12: I don't have a question, but since you asked about the support, I'll, I'll just add to what Ms. Brunell said. I definitely supported, you know, not only did you lay out the arguments for making use
of the funding, all this additional funding that we can get that we might not get otherwise to build, to incorporate air conditioning. In addition to that, I just, I'll just point out that we also received earlier today a letter from the principal of little judge Dr. Marshall, who also strongly supported this project and laid out, and I'm just saying it not 'cause your arguments weren't strong enough, but just to add to your arguments, she added her own around the importance of having these air conditioning for safety for, you know, I guess like we talked before, physical health safety
because you know, that way you can keep windows closed, which allows for greater safety of students while they're inside the building and better working conditions for educators. So it definitely seems like the right thing to do at the right time. Thanks and thank you for rushing on that, being willing to rush on that grant. Oh Speaker 11: Yeah, I've had work deadlines before giving Speaker 12: Though. Really? Is that the Speaker 11: Line they're giving you? I, I have it started. So yeah, I was hoping you would say yes that you would support it. One thing that you brought up that reminded me at when one of the designers that I spoke to about this project
and just kind of figuring out what kind of things we should get smarter on is they shared that, you know, why in that one slide we included historical and like projected future temperature data that's for outside and indoors that's often a lot higher. And so during the schematic design phase, one thing that I wanna do is to have sensors inside to better understand what the indoor classroom temperatures are like, because I think that would help us better understand the value of doing this project. Speaker 1: And I just wanted to speak too as well.
We, we also got a letter from Elizabeth Klich who's the chair of the Natick Special Education Parent Advisory Council who shared a little bit about the struggles of some of the students who are in the sub-separate program at LILJA and being very sensitive to temperature changes and that there's especially vulnerable to heat exposure and is also in support of having this work done at LJA to support the students in this program. So Great. Wanted to acknowledge that. Okay. And then Ms. Gomes, did you want to speak?
You can raise your hand online Ms. Gomes if you want to, and we'll recognize you. Speaker 15: Oh, I know this is kind of outside of the Metro Metro parenting and I apologize for the background noise, it's last time over here. But I just wanted to kind of reinforce that comment made by the parent. I know that those classrooms can be, you know, really hard on our sub-separate students who learn in the sub sub-separate classes. And regulation is already such a hard, you know, such a hard area that the students are working on. So anything, you know, as far
as like environmental modifications that can be made to make the environment more comfortable and pleasant for the students and optimize their learning, I think is a really good thing to invest in. It was just, that's all I had. Speaker 1: Can I just have one more question? So do you all, are you also planning to go to the select board for, to ask them about this vote? Or is it just the school committee who you're interested in having support from Speaker 11: For that? For the grant application? Yeah, I don't need either group's vote to apply. I wanted to ask you to make sure that if we were
to receive the funding it would be something you would be interested in doing. Okay. So I'm not planning on speaking with the select board. Speaker 1: Okay. So then I, I feel like I'd like to ask our administration if, if, how they feel about that in terms of the timing of the project, et cetera. Speaker 10: I mean, I can start, but I, I think it's a great idea. I feel like Jillian's done a lot of work to try to make the impact, the dollar impact less on us, to make it more like an equal to what would've been purchased had we not been going gone with the sustainable option. Which I think that is a part of the mission
that Nat has lifting. And so that, I'm assuming that for you to have brought it to us, there's support from the townside around the sustainable nature of this project. By my calculation, your estimates are more like 25 cents on the dollar or that we would pay that the rest would be covered. So that's deeply discounted for a sustainable option, which is, which is going to cost slightly, slightly more. So I'm a hundred percent supportive of air conditioning in every one of our schools. I understand that comes at a cost and some timing. Everybody can't have it at once. So I'm really grateful for your partnership
and your kind of innovation in finding projects and funding for on behalf of the school. So I'm very supportive of this and I'd invite teammates if they have anything to say in addition. Speaker 14: Totally agree. Slide five explains it pretty well. You know, the, the cost of the project and then what the potential cost is to natick. Should we be awarded all these grants and MSBA? We, we we're pretty sure we're gonna be awarded, you know, with it. So it should be an easy Yes. Speaker 1: Elise, are you, are you looking for a motion? I am looking for a motion, yes.
Move the school committee vote to support applying for the climate leaders grants for little J-H-V-A-C project second. Do a roll call, vote online. Mr. Patel? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Dr. Fen? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And I am a yes at 6 0 0. Speaker 7: Can I say one more thing? Yeah, go ahead. Just really quick. I thought when you asked about the capital plan and the select board, it's so good that you're, that we are working together already on this because when you're talking about two summers of potential projects being happening, happening,
Sergeant Center happens at LILJA every year, run through the parks and recs department. Right. So that would probably displace, I have no idea, but I just think that it's good to stay in communication about these things because if a summer camp in Natick gets, you know, moved, we're all gonna have to be in communication about that. Again, I'm not saying that that would happen, but it's just so important that we stay in communication. Speaker 11: Yeah, agreed. And speaking to town support, why I don't have the opportunity to bring this to select board, mostly because of the timing, Mr. Erickson.
I, I do need a certificate of the application and Mr. Erickson has offered that and was supportive of this project. So I'll be submitting that with it. Thank you. Thank Speaker 1: You so much, judge. Thank you. Thanks Jillian support. Thank you. And a happy thing. Thank you. Okay, I see a member of the public. Yeah, I can't quite read the name. Can you read it? Yeah. Ms Ba Ham. We'll just unmute you so you can speak. Okay. Speaker 16: Oh, hi. Yeah. My name's Sarah Basham. I'm a a parent of a child at Lilja and another child will be in Lilja and a couple years
and I, I I'm just very happy that you're also supportive of this. I study climate change resilience is my job and this is just like a, a really important step that I think, you know, you noted it so well, we're gonna need air conditioning in these schools and this is, this is really a great opportunity for us to be financially supported for it. And I also was attending the meeting to represent CPAC and to bring up the ACCESS program. So I'm really happy that you also noted the, the document that Elizabeth sent over. So I'm, I'm just calling to join all of you in, in agreement
that you know, as a parent of children at this school now and in the future, I, I'm really happy to hear that you all agree this is the right thing to do. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments. Okay, so why don't we move to our other agenda item where we have a guest, which I think is the capital program. Yep. Speaker 10: Thanks Matt. Do you wanna lead this piece for finance around the capital submissions and with Ms. Schatz here too? Speaker 14: Sure. So you, in the packet, I've got my spreadsheet open, but in the packet there sh there should be,
let me get back to the packet. Both the summary of the capital request from last week and then added the priorities. What? Let me just find the, does anybody know what page those links are on in the packet field trips? Hold on. Oh, all right. We've got the, the presentation. Hmm. Is Deborah doing? Deborah's doing the presentation but we'll pull up the summary afterwards. Speaker 1: You're welcome to come up to the table. Speaker 17: Hello. Good evening. So I will talk about the facilities capital request for fiscal year 2027.
Next slide please. So just to explain a little bit how facilities works, we have a five year stewardship capital plan that helps plan out all of the projects for next year and the next fiscal year and the upcoming years. This capital replacement strategy helps follow the lifecycle of the building components with the goal of replacing building systems as they come close near to the end of their lifecycle. The category categories that we have are roofs, windows, elevators, ex exterior envelope, MEP,
space renewal and security. An example of this is, for example, a roof needs to be replaced every 25 to 30 years. So we put this on and we project it on the capital plan. Another example is tiles and classrooms usually have be between 15 and 20 years. And a third example is windows usually have a life cycle of about 30 years. Next slide please. So for fiscal year 2027 for exterior envelope, we are requesting $100,000 for masonry repairs that Ben had.
You can see on some of the photos of how all the masonry really needs a lot of repairs. It's falling apart, it's becoming a safety hazard. We're also asking for 100,000 for exterior doors and weatherization at the high school. A lot of these doors are also passed or lifecycle use. They're not closing properly, it's become a security issue. There's little holes sometimes in between the doors which let critters come in. And we are also asking for 125,000 for auditorium entrance repairs and exterior doors at Wilson Middle School.
So same with the doors and masonry work at this entrance as well. So for fiscal year 27, for MEP, which is mechanical electrical plumbing, we are requesting $700,000 for boiler water heater and electrical upgrades at Brown school as well as in the modular classrooms. The boiler right now at Brown is, is living is last few moments. This is something we really need to do. We are also asking for 30,000 for the UPS upgrades at Kennedy School. UPS is backup power when the electrical
supply is interrupted. So this is, so continue the use of the building if there's any electrical issues, we're also asking for 30,000 for a water heater replacement at Lilja and 245,000 for sprinkler updates and replacements on Route two roof top handlers at Wilson, which its lifecycle is also coming towards an net. So for space renewal we are requesting 50,000 for water damages. At Benham Elementary School, there was a pipe
that leaked a little bit and it created a little bit damage on some walls and flooring. We are also requesting 150,000 for flooring and painting at Brown school. A lot of these floors, tiles are popping up 'cause they're past their lifecycle. Some, in some cases there's carpet that's becoming a trip hazard. We are also requesting 75,000 for hallway and stairwell painting at Kennedy Middle School, just because of the usage of the classroom, of the hallways and the stairwell, there is sign of wear and tear.
We are also asking for 75,000 for restroom partition replacement at large elementary schools. A lot of these, these partitions, bathroom partitions are, are not in a good state and needed new update. We're also asking for 50,000 for interior painting at the high school and 200,000 at for flooring and painting at Wilson Middle School for elevators. We are requesting 40,000 for an elevator belt monitor replacement at Kennedy School. Just to explain a little bit what a belt monitor is,
a safety device, it continuously checks the condition, tension and aware of the hoist belts in the elevator. It's really a critical safety requirement. Those are all the requests I have for fiscal year 27. We do have other plans for the rest of the years, but this is specifically what we have for 2027. So any questions? Speaker 4: Okay, Speaker 1: Thank you. Questions from the committee? Ms. Brunell, Speaker 7: Do you have a total for all these slides? Speaker 17: I do not at the moment. Okay. Speaker 14: It's, it's in the you Speaker 17: But it would be in the summer. It's part of Speaker 7: The $6 million.
It this is part of the $6 million total. Okay. That's, I was so nervous that this was over the $6 million and so I was like, okay, perfect. Well maybe Matt pulls that. The, the Speaker 14: Facilities total is 1,945,000 of the 6.6. Speaker 7: Okay. Speaker 14: And you can subtract 600,000, that is medium priority versus high priority if the town doesn't, can't afford to do every, do all of the requests. So it is somewhat broken out in the two summary sheets that are color coded.
There's a hyperlink in the, in the packet on page, well I hyperlink to it 1 0 1, but back at, at the beginning of the agenda on page two, if you go to FY Finance FY 27 summary memo one and two, it'll bring you to both. And if you see the request and priorities, that'll give you the, that that'll give you the color coding and everything for FY 27. And then the five year capital plan shows you all the requests for the next five years. Which I think as folks that have been looking at this
for at least a little while, understand the things several years out are a little bit malleable with needs as new information and new things come to light. Speaker 7: And then just one more question. Okay. Dr. Fiman, the estimates, how do, how do you come up with like a $75,000 estimate for painting stairwells? Like, that sounds expensive to me. So can, how, how do you justify that to orders? So Speaker 17: It's, it's stairwells and hallways. It's usually we estimate upon square footage and past projects that we have done on painting Thank you. Or tiles or roofing, et cetera.
Like usually we, that's how we estimate Speaker 7: Pretty standard per square foot, sort of whatever the job is. Okay, thank you. Speaker 12: At first of very quick clarifying question for Mr. Gillis. So I didn't have the chart open until now, until after you spoke. So is what's in the slide deck, obviously it's from the list of facilities to the orange colored, is this just the items design designated as high or high and medium? Speaker 14: I, I'll defer to Deborah, but I believe it's high
and medium as she, she pointed out some of the, the painting in the interior space renewal stuff. Speaker 17: It's all, everything that was requested for fiscal year 27. Oh, Speaker 12: Okay. So the items not here would be anything that is $0 for next year, but okay. No, this is helpful. I mean, it's not an easy job because to, to sell this because it's not exciting. You know, if you came here and said here's how much for a new pool, you know, the high school, I'm sure I'm sure people would enjoy.
I'm just making stuff up. So you you have something fun to write in your notes? No, but I mean like, you know, this is not exciting stuff, you know, but it's important stuff. So you've gotta do, you've gotta do, you know, like when you need to fix your roof of the house, you don't put aside so you can buy yourself a new vaca, you know, go on vacation. So Speaker 13: You don't, Speaker 17: It really is all about lifecycle. So everything has its year obviously sometimes some things need repairs a little bit more urgently and then we have to move things a little bit. But really this planning has to do with the years
and an extension of, of all the life cycle of the different components. Speaker 12: Okay, thank you. Speaker 7: Other Speaker 1: Questions from the committee? Ms. Collins? Speaker 13: Thank you. I actually have two comments if that's okay. First, I'm so happy that we've continued to refine the lifecycle analysis. So that's an every year thing. It was wanted for a long time and only has been reality for the last few years, but it's been refined going on and I'm very happy with that. The second one, replacing tiles and flooring it brown
and Lilja hurts my heart because I was on the finance committee the last time they were approved. It makes me feel really old. It makes Speaker 7: You feel wise. Speaker 13: No, it makes me feel old. Speaker 7: Stay Speaker 18: In it. Thank, thank you. Speaker 7: Older than tile. Speaker 1: Longer Speaker 13: Lasting, anyway. Longer Speaker 7: Lasting tile Speaker 13: And older. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Are, are we looking for, do we need to provide any statement of support for this or we're just hearing this today? Will this be included in, I guess I'm asking Mr. Ellis, would this be included in the overall capital plan
that we'll eventually vote on? Speaker 14: Yes, it would. So I mean FY 27 is what we're submitting and we sort of prioritized it via ranking high, medium, and low for items. And so if the committee wants to, I guess add or remove anything from the list to change the, change the number, you know, it's, we're getting to the point where it's speak now or forever hold your peace or hold your peace until next year. Speaker 1: Okay. So to speak. So, oh, Ms. Brunell, Speaker 7: I have a process question. So this is not a number that our committee decides, right?
This is, this goes down to town meeting eventually. So if people were really interested in the capital plan, what would your suggestion be as to how to follow it between now and April and what happens with these, this process? Speaker 14: So I, I, the town deputy administrator, John Marshall sort of oversees that plan. We meet and we discuss things. People sort of make a case for their requests and then ultimately there's only so much money that's available each year for, for capital and things get prioritized.
So seeing what leaves here and goes to the warrant is kind of the next step. And then what gets approved at town meeting is sort of the, the, the final step in the approval process. And then I guess we could always look at what didn't get in and then try to find out why or how do, how do we, how do we move those things forward the next time around. Hmm. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 1: So I'll just look to the committee one last time. I'm taking this as no one wants
to remove anything from this list. Everyone's comfortable with the list. Okay. Speaker 13: Are we talking the facilities list Speaker 1: Or The facilities list? Okay. The one we, yeah, not Speaker 13: That I have a problem with the generalist, I just wanna know what I'm Speaker 1: Yep. The facilities one. The one we just reviewed. Okay. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Super. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate you coming tonight. Thank Speaker 4: You. Speaker 1: I draw the guess. Yeah. Okay. Lisa, Speaker 13: Could I answer Catherine's question a little bit on timing? Sure. The capital plan is due out the beginning of January. It got moved when the budget got moved to February 1st.
Oh it used to be December. It used to be December 1st. So it got moved to January 1st. Yep. So after that point, if anybody is interested they should be able to find it online. As Mr. Gil said as things are done for the warrant, the capital articles in the warrant, there was more specificity and when the budget comes out there will be requests from departments that may or may not have been funded, some of which are capital, not all of them, some of 'em are operational but some of 'em are capital and you can see why it wasn't moved forward if that's helpful to people. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Alright. Why don't we move back to MSBA
and just finish up that piece with the elementary and early childhood space and programming vision. Speaker 10: Sure. So I wrote a memo to the school committee last Friday really just trying to orient several times. We've heard in the in session a request for some visioning around broader than just memorial. Just kind of how we'd be making recommendations related to all early childhood in elementary. And so this gives some background, I convened a group, I don't remember if it was late August or early September,
but a group to kind of inform the fall meetings where we actually voted for the appropriation for Memorial. So that went really, really well And that group has stayed intact. That includes Principal Gani, myself, Mr. Gillis and Deputy Superintendent bbo. And we've been meeting every few weeks to kind of vision and this memo really memorializes and kind of serves as a catalyst to several different working groups that we'd like to have work over the next month and a half or so to prepare a memo, which is how I'm envisioning it
around all the different pieces that will help to inform an ultimate recommendation. So I'm gonna kind of just read through those different working groups 'cause I think that's very at the end of the memo, but it's kind of the salient point. The rest of the memo goes through really delineating what feasibility is and what happens there. So I wanna mention that we're ahead of what I would say the feasibility work is. That is not the job of of ourselves in a small committee of or working group. That's the job of the school building committee. But in, in advance of that we wanted to pull together some analysis to help inform that committee
and, and to inform the school committee around projects. So one of them is to take a look at special education and elementary program structure across the district to elementary and early childhood. Same thing. We wanna do the same thing for multilingual learner demographic and needs as a growing population in Natick. We also wanna take a look at pre-K program analysis and recommendations. We're right now in three different sites. We have a mix of half day and full day programs. We wanna take a look at what the research says about some districts are going to full day models overall some are not. We wanna look at kind of what those trends are
and what the recommendations are. We've asked facilities to provide us with, with full reports on the mods at both Brown and Lilja, which would go through useful life as well as maintenance records and things like that. Take a look at what would happen for Nat High School, which we all know is overcrowded. It was we, it was opened overcrowded by 14%. So we wanna ask the high school, what would you do with that space if we moved the the preschool out, what would that be used for and how would it solve some of the problems that we have there right now? Class size assumptions and an analysis of current elementary configurations.
And that will include some research, a review of research and best practice in elementary and early childhood program and space models. So things like, would it be better to have a preschool on one side of town and another preschool on the other, or one preschool altogether? These have like logistical, operational and people pieces as well as just what's best for families. So we wanna give the pros and the cons and a recommendation or an orientation towards a recommendation from the administration. We wanna take another look at enrollment, actuals and projections including pre-K and then a a transportation overview.
So all of this, as you can think about it, there are all these tendrils that co come off of this project that we really want data and stakeholders to be involved in giving some information to the both committees for consideration. And that would back up any recommendation we make. So just wanted to let you know, part of this memo is to be, to tell you we're working on it and to please give us some patience as we do because that's, this is on top of like regular work we're doing every day, but the team's very excited about it and we wanna help the committee and the school building committee really build the right
thing for na Natick in the long term. Speaker 1: Thank you Dr. Bash. Questions or comments from the committee? I just wanna thank you so much for putting this together 'cause this is something that I know we have been asking for a lot. So it's really wonderful to see it developing and I just feel like so much work has already been done and I can really see that, that this is going to be a really helpful way to inform many of our decisions coming up. So thank you all for putting this together. Speaker 10: Thank you. And if the committee thinks of something we did not, we welcome any, you know, feedback whether today or in the future. Speaker 19: Okay. Speaker 1: Alright. Okay.
Why don't we move to superintendent report if that's okay? Speaker 10: Sure. I have one item on here and it's really from myself and Dr. Folkman. We wrote a memo to the committee really just to give an update on where we are with the long term strategic plan development. If you remember, this is one of our bridge plan items for the year. And the memo basically says we have kind of onboarded our partner teaching and learning alliance. We, we met with them several cabinet members, Dr. Fugman and myself last week and started to map out dates.
So we really, it's a three to four month process. It includes two community forum days, which will be very expansive and have wide invitation to that. We have to talk about how we do that. That's not done yet, but we did anchor the dates. So January 26th and 27th. Those are eight to 10 different forums. That's pretty much the limit of what the days can handle. We are, we, we contracted for two days, not three or that's the best practice from the many long-term plans they pulled together as a two day program. We welcome feedback
'cause it's, we get to decide what forums we do, but we took the ones based on our group conversation and based on what they do as best practice, we recognize that we'll need to be doing some recruiting, some work with the school committee around, you know, really informing the public that these are happening and that we really want them there. We've set up some that are virtual to intentionally bring people in who might not either live in Natick or who might just not be able to get here in person. So we're trying to really be inclusive and to open up the ways we do this.
But they're only on those two days. There's six strategic planning meetings with a steering committee. We're in the middle right now trying to kind of develop the roles and recruitment method for the people on that committee. There will be some school committee members on there that we will recommend. And ultimately this will turn into kind of a process that starts, let's say after the new year. And we'll end or conclude with a presentation to the school committee on June one. My hope is that you have no surprises there because you will have been so involved throughout the process that it really won't be a big surprise.
But that'll formalize the report out. The community forums include, like I said, there's eight to 10 sessions, but they include high school students, school-based staff. So you can imagine we have a lot of staff. This just isn't teachers. It can be paraprofessionals, it can be custodians, it can be people who, nutrition services, anybody who wants to participate in. We're gonna hold three different sessions in different spots in town so people can get there. And based on dismissal or start times in the day, parents both in in-person and virtual offering, offering school committees,
elected leaders and municipal staff. The cabinet the administrative council, which has a lot of our administrators who are assistant principals or special education administrators, et cetera. And then community members. In addition to that, there will be a survey that goes broad and wide to literally anybody who wants to participate. So it could be, you know, people can take it twice if they have kids, you know, in the high school and also kids in the elementary and wanna represent both of those. So we're learning about that from our partner and we're working on kind of working on that survey
before it releases out in January. So Dr. Fugman, did I forget anything? Speaker 12: No, that was very complete. There were two other comments I wanted to add. So one is, so the TLA consultants are great, it was great meeting with 'em. They, each of them brings a lot of experience. One of the things that I especially appreciated is their explanation of what strategic plan is. Not that we didn't know, obviously we were, we were doing it, but it's a, it was a great, they provide a great metaphor, which I really like and, and I wanna share with you all. So think about it. So it's basically a train
moving to a train station. Obviously we're gonna have our school district forever, but the idea of having a surgical plan every couple of years is to define what is the next train station. Three years from now, we're gonna find the next train station. So that's really setting the goals. And then they talked about the tracks being our values. So how we get there is, is based on our values to also do a little spoiler alert to another item on the agenda later on, which is the MASC conference, ref reflections. I attended a session on the superintendent school committee relationships and there was a point there,
which I think goes back nicely to the strategic plan about, you know, we do governance, we set the goals, how, how we achieve those goals is up to the superintendent and the team. So I think, you know, we are collectively working towards identifying the train station once we figure that how to get there will be the administration. The other thing that TLA people talked about is, you know, there's goals, there's objectives, and there's the actual activities of the strategic plan. So obviously the activities are gonna be the, the nuts and bolts that the, the professionals design. But this is an opportunity for the community
to come together to define that. What is that train station? And then for the school committee, what I'm most excited about is everything that Dr. SP just said. I think that a huge part of having a very strong and a very well reflecting so strategic plan to the community is getting as many people as possible to participate in the forums and, and the surveys and survey one survey multiple roles. I know that we have two goals, two overlapping goals as a committee to engage the community. And this is just something that's very concrete, very specific, and is gonna have hopefully a huge
impact on our district. So one of the things I wanna be thinking about and, you know, we can figure out in our little subgroups by goal, but it's like, how do we use farmer's market? How do we use, you know, the New Year's Eve rail trail event, those kinds of things. How do we engage both wide and deep, meaning as many people as possible and as many different members of the community educator, students, parents, large community members. And also how do we make sure
that we're reaching all the people, all the different groups within the community, the na public school community at large, including medical families, families who are recent immigrants who are part of our school community. So that that's, that's the, both the challenge and the, the opportunity that we have to be very active in that over the next couple of months is getting people to the forums and, and fill out the survey and explain why it's important. That's what I had to add. Great. Speaker 1: Thank, thank you. No, thank you both. That's really comprehensive questions from the committee. It's from the committee. Ms. Brunell,
Speaker 7: I really appreciate that metaphor, Shai, and I think we should get that out because that was one of my questions to the administration are, are we doing some education about what a strategic plan is so that people when they come know just sort of how to, how we, how to keep it contained in some ways so that it's actually actionable and doable. I, I love that metaphor that you just shared. And I, this is a good challenge for us right now about the New Year's Eve rail trail to farmer's markets. 'cause I think we have this desire to make some connections with the community,
but as a committee we haven't done it yet. And so it's nice to have something tangible. Like I think we should probably just put a farmer's market in December on the calendar and we should send around a sign up for the New Year's Eve, not at Rail Trail event. I happy to go to the rail, happy to go to the farmer's market. But I think that, and I know at one point Jamon was talking about a social media account. Maybe this is the launch of the Natick school committee Instagram account if we want that with comments turned off Speaker 3: And clearly there've been dance associated. Speaker 7: But I mean, I think we should get on this.
Like Jan, I, I'll be honest, January 26th and 27 make me, makes me a little nervous because I like my biggest fear and not, I mean, you've done more impressive things than that since you've been here. But, but the, like, the fear is that you do a strategic plan that you think represents the community and that it actually doesn't. Right? And so then that, like, that's a missed opportunity. So we have to go like all out right now to drive people to those two day events and to the survey. Speaker 1: I see Mr. Patel online and then Ms. Lathers,
Speaker 2: Sorry Catherine, to your point with regards to the Instagram slash Facebook account and having the comments off, one of the speakers at the MASC conference actually suggested that you should keep the comments on. And it was actually a question someone else asked about whether or not school committees should have Facebook accounts and whether or not to keep the comments off or on. And he suggested that keeping them on but us not engaging is the proper way to go as that allows the community to discuss whatever they want, you know, and we can also have some sort of heartbeat
of the community and what they are saying about whatever agenda item it is going into the agenda. But yeah, that might be something we can discuss with the committee, but it's just letting you know that that's, I thought it would be better to cut the comments off, but I'm not sure. Yeah, now Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Patel. Ms. Lathers, I was just gonna maybe put Anthony on the, on the hot seat for a second. Just wondering, in that those January dates, I mean are there any groups within high school that could get involved as being involved as ambassadors into these of, I mean this, the strategic plan that's who it's ultimately impacting is the experience
that students have and what they see as important and like their ability to be involved. Like how do we get students involved? Speaker 5: Well I think the Instagram is a great way to get students involved. As many of my peers and I included spend many hours on a app. Speaker 10: So it's an admission. Speaker 1: I love that. Speaker 5: Yep. It's a great way to get them engaged. And if you want, I can try and communicate with the student council groups, maybe Ms. Blocker's, principals round table group to see if they would be interested in participating.
Yeah, if we could tell them that Speaker 1: They're interested. Speaker 5: Yeah, we could reach out to Ms Blocker, ask them Ms. Blocker, the principals of the middle schools, ask them if they have any opinions on this, if they would like to share with their students and open it up to like student engagement because Ms. Blocker sends out like those weekly emails that are very helpful and she can like include it in one of the weekly emails. Speaker 10: Yeah. Thank you so much. Awesome. I'm gonna find you. I wanna add some context here. It's a great question and the right question. There are four we're envisioning and we've been recommended
to have four students on the steering committee, which is huge. Four students out of, they said 30 to 40, you know, Natick, we'll probably do 40. Was that funny too soon? No, but I believe in that we believe in voice I feel. And so having four is, is very important. We'll also have a full, one of those forums is entirely dedicated to high school students. And so that's a 70 minute sessions only with students. And the other piece is the, the surveys are middle school and high school. So every single middle and high school student will have a voice through the survey. So I think that's pretty deep. We, it will be up to us in our engagement
to make sure we feel it's sufficient. But I think it's a great first step and built upon advice from, from a partner who does this all the time. Speaker 12: Dr. Fugman. And just to add, just to echo both what Dr. Spa and Ms. Lazarus just said, and Anthony as well. One of the things that the TLA consultants said is in their experience, the extent to which students can shape the conversation, especially at the steering committee, how, you know, they've, they've talked about all these strategic plans that they've developed where the whole
conversation is going one direction. A student will make a comment or a couple students will make a comment and that will really literally steer the group to realize that they were get thinking about it wrong or that they're thinking about it differently. So it, it's great, it's great that our facilitators are kind of on board with that idea too, which is again, speaks highly to them being involved that they really value student voice. So I completely agree with everything that was said, that it's, you know, we really wanna make sure we're engaging students because their vo your voice matters and, and can make a huge difference. Ms. Brunell,
Speaker 7: So what's the plan for the committee? Like do for example, like should we be reaching out to the groups that we're liaisons to asking them to re, to advertise things the way that we advertise their piece? Yeah, can I, yeah. Speaker 10: So one of our next steps, even though we don't have a communications director right now, will be to actually build a communications plan. The director of human resources, Jackie Menza is on our team for that very purpose. And I think part of that is to understand and embrace the school committee goal, which is shared, right? So that we, if there wants, we thought we'd go through Dr.
Fugman and sees the working group assigned person from the school committee. But I love the idea that was said earlier too, around educating our public around what a strategic plan is, how it bridges from profile of a graduate, which was done in the not so far away past to the entry plan that I did. So there's, this is definitely meant to be a bridge. If it takes a different turn, that's okay. It also has a bounding of five years. And so these are some of the things that I think would be helpful for people to know and we can share some of that draft communication plan and content.
We know how to push it out. It's a matter of getting kind of the right piece and we just haven't done that yet. So it's definitely on our list and you're right, that time's gonna come very quickly. That has to be done before we all leave for winter break. For sure. That plan. So that's the next steps. Yes. And I appreciate the suggestion. I really, I hope we can do that in a joint way. I, I think not only because we both share goals, but because we really are working in partnership on behalf of the community. And so I think a joint message will be really powerful from this group. Including people here who represent teachers, who represent students, students and who represent metco.
Like that's very important piece of kind of rolling this out. So here we go. Onward. It's gonna be fast. Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell, Speaker 7: There was an interesting topic at one of the MSC conference sessions about a survey they had done to graduates. One committee recently did that and it took a long time to get the survey out to graduates. So I, but it would be really neat. I don't know if we could do that there Speaker 10: Included. No, alumni are absolute, this is like a massive push. It can go everywhere. Okay. There's really, basically we're gonna get a QR code and just we can be sharing it and they can identify themselves.
We're working on translation, Ms. B's working on the translation. So it's accessible to everybody. And we, we actually were gonna put it, they had suggested to put it in SurveyMonkey. We feel like it'll be a little bit better to put it in thought exchange. So there's that like technical aspect where're working on where we're working on data sharing agreements with. So there's a lot of like behind the scenes stuff that we need to kind of do to get ready for this. But I think we're underway on the immediate things. Thank you. But alumni are included. Mm. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you. Any other questions from MCM on this topic? Okay, thank you. Exciting stuff. Alright, can we go to the policy subcommittee?
Speaker 6: Yep, we can. So this is, this is definitely the official second reading for the career technical education policy IJJA. So there haven't been any changes since we last read it. So I actually, I'm not, unless anybody has any questions or comments. I think we can as a second reading vote on it, Speaker 13: Move approval Speaker 1: Of policy IJJA career technical education Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: And I see we have some questions, Ms.
Speaker 13: Collin? Well I've gotten a lot of feed, not a lot. I've gotten some feedback from parents that they think this is a new thing and that going to KE tech is a new thing and I just wanna assure them that it isn't, this is our policy was light years ahead of what the state was asking originally, I believe. But going to KE tech has happened every year. And so I just, it's not a new, it is a new policy. It is not a new thing. Speaker 6: Not a new practice. Right. Speaker 20: That's absolutely correct. We've always done this.
So our practice has been in place for a long time. The policy is a new mandate from the state. Right. Speaker 13: That's now I'm set. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: Any questions from the committee before we vote on this? Okay. So we'll start our roll call vote online. Mr. Patel? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Flas? Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Speaker 6: Dr. Speaker 1: Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Brunell? Yes. And I am a yes. And we're now at 7 0 0. We are, that is great. Thank you. And do you have any sneak peeks
or spoiler alerts for future items that might be coming our way? Speaker 6: We have our next meeting on December 9th. Ninth. Ninth at 10:30 AM m in this room. The agenda is being formed now. There's definitely one item and I forget exactly what it is, but we have a meeting here on December 8th, so then you can have a sneak peek. Oh, Speaker 1: Perfect. That will be in Speaker 6: The library that will be posted. Right? So you won't be able to It won't be, it won't be here. It will be right. It will be in the library.
Our policy subcommittee. Unless there's another room in this building that we can do. Yeah. 'cause we don't televise those. We don't need Pegas for that. But we do need a space that can be open enough. Okay. Downstairs. It could be probably downstairs too. We'll figure that out. But we'll announce it on the eighth where we are. Speaker 1: Okay, sounds great. Speaker 6: It's gonna be a fun meeting. Speaker 1: Well now you're making me wanna come, so maybe I Speaker 6: Will. Just saying many Speaker 1: A bigger room. Speaker 6: Yeah, if you're attracting Speaker 1: People once we have done the Instagram account, it'll be Speaker 6: That's right. Lineup up Speaker 1: The door. That's Speaker 6: Right. Although it'll be during school, so students
probably shouldn't come. Speaker 1: All right. Johnson, future youth discussions. So I'll turn this over to Ms. Flas and Mr. Patel. Jamon, do you want me to get started? Speaker 2: Yes, please. I, I've lost my voice. Do all the talking for us. Okay. Speaker 1: So we met with Dr. Bash last week, I think all of you both this, the email that we sent and the original memo are attached to the meeting agenda. A few, a little bit of context for both that meeting and our thought process. If we, we, as we were launching into having a conversation, we also received communication from
Mr. Evans from the select board. One thing to note is, while there was a lot of Johnson future use conversations happening in the spring and summer, the select board has actually changed the tone of that to be more holistic as a Johnson Coal East. Like how do we look at our facilities that we need? And when I look at those, when we looked at those facilities, you know, that's spaces that are available, spaces that would require capital investment, spaces that house, preschool after school before school and community programs like recreation, parks and Rec.
So those are kind of stakeholders in those. So I know from speaking Dr. Bash that the memo was created really focused on Johnson focused on preschool and afterschool because it's like what could Johnson be used for? So kind of the first recommendation that following the lead set by the select board of being expansive, we were saying in our minds, okay, where do we have capital needs that will compete with each other? And that follow in the same umbrella of the kinds of services that are provided by the purview of what the select board is looking at. Which would be, you know, preschool, preschool parks and rec
before and after school. And so that's why the recommendation, the letter that we would write to select board, I think we should follow that same and actually be looking at high school, preschool school and fields because they're all kind of, they would be competing resources, similar constituents. And how do we address those? Particularly we, when we looked at the memo, which was scoped and originally when Dr. Sp and the team wrote it was scoped to Johnson, what could Johnson be used for? I think our letter really needs to emphasize the urgent high school needs as a primary driving consideration.
It's probably not something that's been on the radar of the select board. It's, you know, a separate, it's already a facilities project that's underway to figure out what to do to get the space the high school needs. So that could come up as, you know, competing capital requests that in the same time horizon. You know, I think Dr. Sps mentioned, you know, even when the high school was opened, it was 14% under capacity. It was specked to 1300 students. It is now well over 1700 students. And I remember Mr. Harrigan asking for that preschool space and probably the first meetings I ever attended
for school committee pre COVID. It's like this is not something new and I think and is much more time sensitive. I know they're putting a very thoughtful process together for, you know, for Johnson, for East, for coal. But the high school space needs don't have that kind of time. And so, you know, as you, if you look through the recommendations that, you know, Jay and I, after having the conversation with Dr. Stash recommending, following that same messaging of being holistic, both from the needs of these populations and competing capital requests, recommending,
putting the emphasis on the urgency and priority of these high school needs. And that that decision, you know, they can look at mods, they can look at, but again, you look at something like modulars that could impact parking, which impacts or it could impact a field if you needed to place them. So like these are, these are very intersected connected concerns. And the last, you know, we, we wanna make sure that they're considered holistically recommend that in ordering with high school, the preschool comes above after school because that's really, I think more of, you know, our purview and our priority.
So, and the finally that, you know, in the letter that, that the final letter that we're specific timely, I almost put smart, but like, but that our, you know, asks of the town wide project team are just very specific and achievable and not, you know, out of, you know, out of bounds of of what their per what their, you know, mandate is. And so the three that we said we feel like generally speaking, it's beyond time to determine what it would cost to make Johnson 88 compliant and usable. You know, we there a lot of numbers got thrown back, back when it was closed it was like 250,000
to 5 million like it depe depending on what the scope and before you figure out long term what can happen, like what would it cost to make that building usable for any purpose. It's just kind of a baseline number that it seems like everyone needs to work with that we like make sure that incorporating, like tying this into the evaluation of the high school space options, that incorporating those findings is built into kind of the time horizon for their decision making. You know, if they come up with the, if Johnson's not an option for preschool and they decide they're gonna put modulars
and those cost $3 million because there's no other pathway like that has to be like a town decision. So it feels like it should be part of like the overall town wide project. 'cause it really, it's a town wide project looking at these are spaces, how do we use these spaces? How do we meet these needs and what are the capital constraints of founded? And the third one is just to ask them to consider outreach to private afterschool programs. We've gotten a lot of feedback ongoing from community in this area. You know, I think the school's very clear and Dr. Pash was clear on the memo that that it's just we can't get the staff for it and that's kind of prohibitive to us
and it's just not a focus where we can focus on solving the staffing problem. But we know that this is something that a lot of members of the community need. And so understanding, do they have the same staffing challenges? Would they like to expand? Like is space an actual issue for them more than more than staffing challenges and are they satisfied with the spaces available? I mean this is only anecdotal for me is knowing someone who works at ASAP who worked at the, no sorry, works at the Y after school program and worked at Johnson last year and now is in the FCC basement feels very different.
Like, feels like it's just not nearly as ideal as space for elementary school kids as than what they had last year. It's like really different. But I, that's an anecdote so I don't know whether that's, you know, real feedback from, you know, the organization itself and are there any innovative afterschool offerings that are not feasible due to stay for STA space or staffing constraints? I know some of the community based ideas for the Johnson was community garden spaces, outdoor education, arts education. And so, you know, are there programs that would intersect, you know, like rental facilities to run programs
that intersect with other needs. So those are kind of the three asks that we felt like were really pertinent to putting in a letter based on this conversation. I don't know who's drafting letter. Jay and I are happy to meet again to draft a letter to put in front of you guys with whatever feedback you guys come back with. Or we can take a different drafting and approach. But I think the letter is from the committee and not from the administration. So yeah, it's definitely from the committee. So yeah, those are our thoughts. Jamon, feel free to chime in if I miss something. Speaker 2: You did a great job Suming everything up. Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Questions from the committee, Mr. Brand?
Speaker 6: So more of a, a comment. I, I particularly like the part about prioritizing preschool. It not that I, I think it's safe to say that we all appreciate the challenges and need for more afterschool, but it, it has always felt to me that because the word school is in the term after school, that the community sort of just assumed it was the, the school's responsibility. But it really is a town wide challenge. And it would be great because I know a lot of people outside of the school department care about this.
Like it would be great to get sort of a broader group of people trying to work on that problem together. And so I, I like that in particular. This is a town wide project to figure out what the use of Johnson should be and I I, we can solve a lot of problems that are outside the building. So I that's all my, my one comment is that I particularly like that emphasis those two. Speaker 1: Dr. Fugman, Speaker 12: I have a couple of questions. The first one's up for Dr. Pash. I was, I wanna just, if you don't mind clarifying the point of number one in your memo.
So the first paragraph basically says the issue is staff not space, but then it talks about, but Bud Johnson can still be a dedicated site. So is Johnson, I mean how important is it actually forget but Johnson specifically, how important is it to expand the space for after school versus we have the space, we just need the staffing. Speaker 10: Yep. I think Ms. Lathers really kind of encapsulated that well, which is to say that we probably need to do some outreach to figure that out.
What I know is that the demand is there. I know that through my entry plan, I'm sure we, the school committee hears that frequently. I'm anticipating hearing it in the long term plan outreach that we do. I can say the ASAP program as it stands right now cannot meet the, the demand. It just can't and based on labor. So I don't know this is one that we're, if we're talking about the town wide need, I feel compelled as somebody who actually, you know, dipped, dipped into that to hear the voice that it is a compelling issue And I'm just not sure to Mr. Brand's point who's leading that. Yeah. Collaboratively.
So I felt compelled on behalf of the students we represent and families we represent to say this could be a thought for Johnson. I'm not sure it's the one that I would want to lead based on the labor constraints we have. And I don't have all the answers yet, but I felt compelled on behalf of our families. Yeah. Since they had kind of dedicated their time to let me know how they were feeling to, to put it here. Yeah, Speaker 1: I was just gonna say and that's where in the letter constructed that that's just, that's something we recommend that they're thinking about as a town wide concern but separate it from our high school and our preschool programming needs.
Yeah. And when they didn't also didn't mention that there was conversation about half day versus full day and how that would input impact the amount of preschool space that's needed. Speaker 12: Yeah, no that, that'll make sense. And for me because we do hear a lot about the need for after school and both pre and both before school and after school. I wanna make sure it's clear that we're not saying we are deprioritizing Johnson for it. Not because we are deprioritizing the idea of afterschool programming but because challenge is not space, it's staff. So I think that's helpful. But just to put it out there
would, can we not do both? So if you make Johnson preschool ready, could we not also house a before school and after school program if that was ever became the issue? Like if space ever became the issue. Yeah, Speaker 10: I, I don't see an issue as long as it's somebody as a labor model and a program that can fit it. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'd asked the question are there any hangs of being able to do school-based, school-based classes and separately external and there isn't, it's a model in Easter already.
They have, they have Y preschool and Natick public preschool. So I mean it gives a forum to provide a i that's why I asked the community should be asking externally, who wants good space for doing afterschool programs? 'cause you could get both the rental income from an afterschool program. Speaker 12: So the afterschool program doesn't, it could be, could use Johnson without necessarily being an a A an NPS afterschool program. Correct. It could be a private afterschool program. Correct. That rents the space. Yeah. Yep. Great. That's it for me.
Speaker 1: So I have a question just about the, the piece about the high school priority. So do I understand it correctly? It's just that the high school's overcrowded we need to free space up there, which it brings up the preschool discussion. Yes. They need space and so they're looking at what are the options and I dunno if you've walked the grounds, I struggle to figure out where the heck you would put some modulars in that space without really impacting other things and moving the preschool out of the high school has always been a consideration since it opened. Yeah. So is the timeframe isn't, I thought the decision on what to do
with the Johnson property was gonna happen like June 20, 27, like over a year from now. Right. And then any action that would be taken would be after that. Does that fit the, it sounded like the high school is a very urgent need. It is an urgent need and so I think we need to have a tone of questioning whether or not if there's urgent needs within the tent. I mean planful a planful long-term decision doesn't mean you have to leave buildings unused in the interim. Which is why understanding how to make it, you know, a DA compliant, you know, we should figure that out because if there are many options on the table
that leave the building in place, you could morph out of that being the use as you have a long-term plan. I mean that's what long-term plan, even if that was just a two or three year solution, if it was feasible. But I think that's why these all need to be in the mix. Speaker 10: Can I add one more thing? Yeah, absolutely. So off also with preschool, our families are sort of turning over more frequently. So they wouldn't feel that impact of having a temporary space that's shifted over to some, it's just the nature of preschool. And the high school did put in a request, Mr. Gillis might be able to speak more to this, but they put in a request for mods in the capital plan.
So if they did that, we'd have to study it next year to Ms. Blathers point where to put it. Right. But they're, that's how urgently they're feeling. They need that space. And even then we could study it next year and implement it. They could be in there within the, roughly the same timeframe as the Johnson work. I think we might split hairs on where that would land, but they feel so strongly that they need this, that they put it in as a request to capital plan for Motts. Speaker 1: That's really helpful. Speaker 10: Thank you for that clarity. Dr. Speaker 12: Fen, I don't know if this is even a relevant question but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Does if it's a preschool, does that mean it belongs,
would the preschool belong to the NA public schools or even the preschool might be a private preschool And if so, whose capital plan does this go under the school or the town? Speaker 10: I'll take a shot at that. I think if it's a preschool that supports our integrated pre-K, which is early intervention, it would be under us and we would be matching that with community peers. So it would be our school and it would be to take the population classes, teachers we already have presumably at the high school and to move them over, possibly even from Behe as well. We have one class at Behe so we run that. Yes, I hear you.
There might be other options, other preschools who would want that space, but I would want it to help solve the high school if I understood your question right. Yeah, Speaker 12: Yeah. No that was my assumption. That would be us. I was just clarifying. But then it would be under our, does it make a difference if it's our capital plan versus their ca the town, the towns? Speaker 10: Well I would think they'd have to sign it back over to the schools if we were gonna run our programs out of it. Speaker 1: One thing to note though is we do run preschools out of east and east isn't part of the, isn't part of native public schools, but that creates its own challenges. So I think that's Speaker 10: That's true. Speaker 13: It's not under the care custody and control of the school
Speaker 1: Committee. Speaker 10: It's a swing space. Yeah. Speaker 1: Which creates its own right challenges to consider. I'm not Speaker 13: Disagreeing there, but I mean that's, that's the verbiage that Speaker 1: Ms. Brunell Speaker 7: Speaking about swing spaces, is there ever a desire for the school committee to have a swing space like East School for example, we've rented out from the town for the next two or three years. I think shy your question last week or two weeks ago, excuse me, I have the hiccups that they, you know when, when we got the total number for Memorial and you wondered like what happens if
there's another bubble? You know, I know we made a decision to go down to four elementary schools, but I'm just curious like is it, is it practical, doable? Does it happen where districts keep a swing space unused? Not unused? No. That that would be used for various things throughout what it, whatever like just a flex space that the district has. Speaker 10: I mean I can start that and I'm, I'm sure Mr. Gillis has, he's been in more districts than I have, but I've been used to the town or city having that space.
Yeah. Not the schools. Not to say it wouldn't also be, and I do wanna clarify and I'm grateful for it that we don't pay lease on that space at the swing space and I'm grateful for that. But it is still a temporary location and a shared location. So it does carry some, you know, just logistical collaborative needs. Would you answer differently or, okay. Speaker 14: No, but a swing space is something that cities or towns keep when they know they've got enough buildings and they generally have a project going on, I'm gonna call it the majority of the years in the decade.
So the, the, the swing space is only open for kind of like a year or two for some patchwork and then another group is in there, whether it's an elementary school or renovation of a police and fire station. It keeps getting kind of recycled and natick's kind of like in between big enough for really having a, a regular swing space and, and and just kind of having one when it was convenient, like in Brookline we had 83 buildings. So there was one school, it's on route nine,
the old Lincoln School, you've probably all driven by it. That has been the swing space in town for maybe 25 years and almost EE everything that's been renovated the last few years, almost everybody's been in there. So it, it, it's not an easy thing to maintain and it, it's a cost to have. So if you have enough buildings and space, it kind of makes sense. Otherwise it, it's like, geez, why don't we have one? And then is it, is it even gonna be big enough like the east school would be a, a good swing space
but it's not big enough to house any of our elementary schools if we were to pull everybody out of one and then renovate that building. So it's, it's not as easy as it sounds. And then just, yeah, we, we don't really pay rent. We have a lease agreement with the town and then having before school care at a, at a school, at a, at a location from the student's actual school is really kind of cumbersome. 'cause you know, then they'd have to get a bus and let's just call that 20 minutes and before school care is usually an hour.
Yeah maybe an hour and a half. It feels awkward to be dropping the kid off for a little while and then they get right back on the bus to go somewhere else. So before school care is not a match, but right after school care or pre-K or leasing it to private care facilities, those are all viable functions Speaker 10: For what it's worth. We actually have capacity in our before school care right now. So I think this is more of an afterschool consideration. Speaker 14: Yeah there's, there's seats open if parents do want before school care at all the buildings. So Speaker 1: That's a sales pitch.
Good job. Leathers, I was gonna make the comment about before school and the, in the final letter we maybe don't emphasize that at all 'cause it's really the afterschool side of things. The other thing I wanted to mention, the reason I mentioned how east is not under our care custody and control care, custody and control because as a swing space we're looking at several years to figure out long-term plans for the property. Similarly with, with Cole probably has a lot of thinking and planning to do. Memorial will be a several year process to do this. And so I don't necessarily think depending on
what numbers come back to make that building usable. You have, it could be another swing space as the real long-term planning of what the preschool strategy over the next several years. I mean I'm really curious as to what it would take to make that happen thinking about the high school and, and by making it a swing space that is controlled still by the town, that still stays a commitment to like we're doing a long-term plan, we're not advocating to make a knee jerk decision on some future use but we are saying that like there's urgent needs that we have the ability to fill right now
and that's something that should be given real consideration. Okay. Do we have a direction and, and I appreciate you volunteering to write the letter. I mean if the committee is in favor of that, I'd be happy to have you guys bring that to us for the next meeting if you have the capacity to do that. Thank you Ms La I thought you were gonna say I have to be happy to write it. Oh no Damon, you get to spend more time with me. Thank you for doing it. Yeah, no we really, really appreciate it. This is a great memo, really informative and yeah please go ahead. Thank you. Do we need an official vote on that?
What do you guys think? No. Okay, we already started that work. Okay. Alright so that takes us to the MASC conference reflections from our four members who attended. So dunno who wants to start off but Speaker 7: I'll go, I have a document that I sent to Linda just tonight so apologies if you wanna share that with the on the agenda. I, I was only able to go to it for the first day and so I just have a couple of notes. I always find it good to meet with colleagues and just connect. But the two sessions that I went to that I wanted
to highlight tonight are the one was using data to close the achievement gap and it, there's E two C is is a DESI website that where they're really trying to open the data, like just bring, bring data right down to the family level. There's a really neat section on that website called data stories where they show you sort of how it's used across the state and that the idea that really struck me there was that your data bear builds a shared language, which I know is
what we talked about this summer with Darsa. So it was neat that it connected to our professional development over the summer and this idea that you can use data then for resource prioritization. You know, everyone knows that I've always been interested in the budget but so now how do you attach student achievement to the budget And then you know like we talked about the capital planning today like this, it's all about resource pre prioritization, spoiler alert, that's what my whole at genomics class at Georgetown has been this semester too. There's not gonna be more money for schools. We're always gonna have to make hard choices. Schools have always had to make hard choices
and now can you do it with data? So that's just, you know, but this website E two C is really something that I would suggest the committee members look at and I think we should revisit what we did with ISSA when we talked about that data, like how to use the data. E two C is gonna do a web webinar for school committee members as to how to dig into it and they frame this as the questions to think about what does the data tell us and then what might be going behind it and what do we not know? Because there is a tendency, Mr. Wood,
I don't think you would think this about me, but that that that teachers can think, oh the school committee over indexes on student achievement and so we only think about MCAS or we only think about the numbers. Maybe you think that but but how does just let the numbers tell part of the story and then understand it from the teacher's perspective. Dunno if you wanna say anything. I also love that there was committees that stood up and like had really good examples. Ash, like I mentioned the survey, Ashburn, herm west minister, they were the one that did the survey to the recent grads. So that was the one session I highly recommend you guys look
at it and I would like us to revisit the ESA stuff based on the, my conversation there. And then one more thing was about working with municipal boards and we heard that all tonight with the capital plan. What I, the takeaway was that everyone struggles with it. These systems are built to sort of be a little bit adver adversary, maybe not on purpose but it's just because the funding mechanism and there's, there is a little bit of a rub, right? Like the school committee, we have jurisdiction over a hundred million dollars and that's different than the select board
and the town administrator's configuration. And so there is a little bit of a rub that we, we get to decide how to spend so much of the town's money. I think that we're careful stewards of it, but it's just like admitting that there, there, there's a little bit of like a, of a rub there and how hard you have to work on communication. I would love to have a tour of the capital plans that that was like one concrete idea there. There are districts that there take tours where they put FinCon members, select board members, school committee members on a bus
and they take a tour of the capital plan. I think that would be neat. And again, back to data they talked about here how if you can get a shared language then everybody takes responsibility and you're talking about the reality of the situations instead of just talking in circles. So I really, I really appreciated that session. It normalized some of the things that I think we've all experienced in Natick, that it happens in other districts and that we just have to double down again and again and again on communication. And you know, there, there were great examples
of like the select board presenting at the school committee, the school committee presenting at the select board making sure that if we have a big event, for example the PEP rally, maybe we should be inviting select board members to the pep rally, right? Like I'll be honest, like Saturday night, Saturday night coming in from the state championships, it was such a proud moment to have lived in this town. Like I was in the parade in a car, car behind the buses. You pull across, you pull into Dairy Queen and like, or across Dairy Queen and like the police in the fire are there to meet these kids that are hang outside of the buses.
People are coming out on the streets and like waving signs. Like it was just such a proud hometown moment. Like I knew we had done things for our kids that night and not just the soccer team for all of the kids that were coming out to enjoy and the families like this Is it just like, and to see the police in the fire with us, David rep David Linsky met us, representative Linsky met us at the high school and honored the kids there. Like it was just such a moment to tell you that like people love this town and they experience it as a community, right? They don't just experience it
as Natick town and Natick schools. We live here, we work here, we play here, we learn here. It's one budget, it's one town and I, it's a, it is on us as the leaders in this town to figure out how to make the marriage work. So that's, Thank you for listening. All my notes are in the document and I put a few other slides that I thought were interesting too. Speaker 1: Thank you. Can Speaker 13: I just chime in on something Catherine said? Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, go ahead. This is sort of a more, more casual discussions Speaker 13: As far as a tour of the capital plan on the finance committee. The subcommittee, the capital subcommittee
of the finance committee. Stick with it. I'll get there. When they look at that, they often do a tour that they post as a meeting that you can, Speaker 7: That's awesome. Speaker 13: Join in. That is good. Especially when they're talking like big trucks that they can't easily move from DPW and buildings and and such. So they often do that and I'm sure if you reach out to, I think, I think Mr. Jacobs shares that at the moment and just express interest to keep you posted. So that has been done in the past. Yeah, Speaker 7: I mean honestly it makes me think we should have a shared calendar too.
'cause like there, there are events that it would just be neat if that was just populated on our calendar. Maybe we already do 'cause it's on the town calendar. But I can't keep up with it all. I gotta be honest. Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know Mr. Patel or Dr. Folkman if you guys had anything to share. Speaker 12: I do, but Mr. Patel, do you wanna go first? Speaker 2: No, you go ahead please. Speaker 12: Okay. So I agree it's always a great conference to go to, not only because of what you learn from the formal sessions, but what you learn from just chatting with other school committees and finding out similar challenges, different challenges,
different solutions to similar challenges. But the sessions themselves were good. And also looking at the themes. So one theme that I, and I think Mr. Patel probably would agree, but I'll let him speak that came out loud in, in, in and clear from the, from the conference was ai, there was a huge emphasis across multiple workshops on ai, how to bring AI responsibly from policy to helping teachers use AI effectively to reduce staff burnout to
addressing student mental health. So there's a lot of important thinking going on there. There's a lot of different organizations talking about it, working on it, developing tools including finding the right balance between AI and traditional teaching and traditional thinking and traditional writing. You know, making sure students are still learning and that they're truly using tool AI as a tool. So actually Dr. SP's former boss, Jeff Riley led a great session and one of the things he talked about is
AI is not gonna replace people's jobs, but people who know how to use AI are gonna replace the job, the people who don't to see. Yeah. So that's what this is about. The other thing he said, which was set throughout the conference by different people who talked about AI is whether or not we have AI in schools is not a choice. It's not an option, it's already here. Teachers using it, students are using it, it's how do we manage it, how do we navigate it? How do we make sure it's used properly? How do we make sure it's the right, it's used as a tool. So there's a lot of, you know, again,
great thinking happening. One of the other things that I think is specifically relevant to us is when it comes to AI policy, and I would extend it to, you know, digital policy broadly, you know, cell phone bans and et cetera, is things are evolving and changing so quickly that this is not something you write a policy and forget about it for the next five years. You are revisited every several months. Too bad that isn't here to hear that, but several months, well they, he was talking about, you know, with ai, AI like every six months just, it might be worth just checking
in 'cause it's evolving so quickly. Wow. You know, that might be more aspirational than realistic, but, but the idea is things are evolving so quickly that whatever the policy is today might be different might require shifting a few months from now. So that AI was a big theme. Another, I mean this is just one session, but one that was very impactful to me was it was about addressing hate in schools. So it's the isms, antisemitism, racism, anti LGBTQ plus. And one of the things that was striking to me is there is data.
I mean this is kind of something that many of us probably suspected, but there's truly, there's true data to demonstrate that this is increasing, that there, that the isms are increasing in schools, that there is more identity-based bullying national data, not native data or, or even Massachusetts data. And he talked about some of the root causes of that and unfortunately it is par part of the peer culture part of the online spaces. So it's not starting at school, it's coming to school from the outside, but it's, but it's coming into school and, and that needs to be addressed. One of the things that he talked about is you really have
to address it all as one, you know, the isms, the hatred in general, it almost doesn't matter which group is a, is the victim in any given moment because the ideology of hate, the ideology of identity-based bullying is what you're trying to eradicate. So think about it across groups. So that was, and then I was just gonna, I have a lot of notes but I'll just share one last one. I'm gonna skip that one. And the last one that I thought was very relevant to us is ensuring newcomers academic and social emotional wellbeing. And again, there was all kinds of different ideas shared.
A couple that I want to raise is one, using asset based approach. So newcomer students are part of our community. They are, and they enrich our community. They bring resiliency, they bring cultural knowledge and expertise that we all benefit from. So think when you incorporate newcomer students into the community, you're not only making supporting them, you're supporting the entire community in creating just a more culturally knowledgeable community as a whole. So asset-based approach and relationships, how important relationships are,
you know, finding students who speak the same language or teachers who who can connect with students culturally is just such an important part of really helping them. New newcomer students feel at home. And last one is just being aware, not all newcomer groups but among newcomer students, oftentimes the reason why students come here, the trauma that might come along with it. Even just the trauma of transitioning from a one country to another but but also the traumatic experiences they might have experienced in their home countries and or once they're here. And obviously there's a lot of that happening here,
happening now in general. So thinking about how to ensure their safety, making sure things are predictable, creating trust not only with the students but the families. Anyway, it was a great conference. There's a lot more I can say about any of these topics but, and more, but I thought those were the ones that most relevant for tonight. Speaker 1: Thank you. No, that does sound like a great conference. No thank you guys for sharing. I'm gonna have to go back and look at some of these presentations. Click, there's a lot of really good information there. So Mr. Patel, is there anything you wanted to share? Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, as a new committee member, I had a, you know, fresh perspective on this matter
and so this is my first MASE conference. I'll share the slides and notes to Catherine's document for those that have missed it this year because you guys missed out a lot. Highly recommend it for everyone. Everyone, especially for new school committee members. Going there sort of just made me it, it helped me out a lot because it was at times it was inspiring educational and for informational and even comforting relieving just to see so many others grappling with the same questions and concerns that I have and asking them out loud. It made me definitely feel more at home. It was a great opportunity to connect
with other school committee members from other towns and discuss the differences in nuances of our collective goals and roles and their perspective and their challenges they've faced in regionals versus, you know, municipalities had a lovely dinner with our town council and you know, great chat. I think Matt Brandon Sha and attest to that. It was a pleasure getting to know and hang out with other school committee members here as well and talk about both school committee member school committee topics and non-school committee matters as well. I feel like we need to connect on a personal level
so we can better do our jobs. I think. And as there were so many sessions, I got to choose sessions that helped me fill in the gaps with my own knowledge and I'll get the rest from the notes from everyone else. But I had the pleasure of attending collective bargaining. I know I missed that this year, so I just wanted to see what I could learn about that before when that comes up again. And you know, it I high it highlighted the rising cost of insurance as the second biggest driver for school budgets and how GLP one drugs may be an issue in the next collective
bargaining sessions. Ai as Ashai mentioned, AI was a big topic there. I attended a session where they taught us how to use prompts and personas and give us some samples that we could use to, you know, get with the times and you know, whether or not we like it, we AI's here to stay and we need to learn from it. Another thing, another session I went to with about harnessing the power AI to fix temperature and HVAC monitoring. They, I mean part of it's a sales pitch to, for their own particular program, but the people are using AI to
save money on, you know, existing systems and installing new ones moving forward, which is especially keen as we move on to memorial ai. Is, is, is all, it was all over the conference and I think we really do need to focus on that at the policy subcommittee as well. There were a couple other sessions where breaking the spell of high conflict, which was really good and you know, one of the highlights from that session was how we need to boost our positive ratios by injecting food, humor and music wherever we can.
So I'm, you know, I'm gonna double down on that pickleball tournament under the session I went to was subcommittee 1 0 1 and MSBA updates where I learned about model school programs after, especially after going to see the Howard Beal school as well, which is a model school. And another session was about the onboarding processes. And the manual that we have in Natick was actually on the slide deck as one of the, yeah, prime examples. Speaker 7: That was so exciting. Jamon actually, that handbook is used as one of the examples
and I also heard from one of the committee members that read, they led the session on overrides and he said, he basically just talked about Natick the whole time and how we had passed our override last year. And I looked in his slide deck. We weren't in the slide deck, but he told, he said he just kept referring back to our materials. So I thought that was funny. Speaker 2: Awesome. Yeah, a lot of great sessions. Super. Speaker 12: You should also mention your favorite session. Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was about to do next. My favorite session by far though, where I learned the most was by this charact charismatic presenter. Shyman, who I believe a doctor too.
He did a session on digital wellbeing in the age of social media and ai and it was a full house. There was I, I think there was barely standing room in that room. Great discussions happened there. But yeah, we have a breadth of knowledge in Mr. Dr. Fon here. Thank you. That's it. I highly recommend everyone going next year. Speaker 1: Oh, amazing. Congratulations Hai. What was yours, call again? Yeah, yeah. What was your talk called? Speaker 12: Digital being in the era of social media and ai. So it was the mental health angle to
digital tools. Yeah. Speaker 1: Great. Awesome. Awesome. And thank you guys for, for collecting the slides in one location too. I think that's really helpful. I need to do that. Thank you. I see your slides. Yeah. Awesome. Speaker 7: Last thing there I, I grabbed a bunch of materials at about construction. I did keep the water bottle for myself. I just want you to know I want a water bottle, but there's a ton of materials here. If school committee members or anybody in the public ever wants to look through this stuff, there's just like, there was a huge table of construction stuff and one that I really like is a glossary of terms
for school planning and design. 'cause there's so many new terms that I'm learning. So I have extra copies if anyone wants them. Speaker 1: Cool. Thank you. Oh yeah, jam. Speaker 2: Just wanted to add one more thing. We, they have a exhibit hall which I don't usually find value in, but in this one I did quite a bit. We got to talk to a lot of OEMs and a lot of project managers about the MSBA process and I found that really informative and also found out that Catherine knows pretty much everybody there, you know, and everyone is family apparently.
And also I got the totes for everybody, but they gave us extra totes. I wasn't able to bring it in today, but I'll bring it in next school meeting or school committee meeting. Speaker 19: I Speaker 1: Just, one of those extra perks you get when you go with Natick. Yeah. Awesome. No thank you guys. Nice report. Appreciate it. So then just the very last item that I have is just to a call out to the committee for future agenda items. I'd said I'd make this sort of a regular agenda item. So if people do have items that they would like us
to have on a future agenda, please you can share them now. You can send me an email, let me know and we'll make sure that they got, get on a future agenda. So, okay. So I need one last motion. Speaker 21: Move. Return Speaker 1: Second. Okay. Roll call vote. Mr. Patel? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: Ms. Flas? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. And I am a yes. So we are adjourned. Thank you everybody.