Speaker 1: Hey Speaker 2: Kathy, it is 6 0 1 and I'm going to call the meeting school committee meeting to order and I'll do a roll call. Dr. Welsch Speaker 3: Present. Speaker 2: Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Goeth online. She is. Oh, I see her. She is. And she's thumbs in. So she's a thumbs up. So she's present and Dr. Fugman is not present yet, unless he's online. I don't see it. All right. So I'm gonna make a motion to enter into executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations
with non-union personnel, or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel superintendent, director of nursing it MOUs and IT security analyst. Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 2: Thank you. And I will do a roll call. Vote now. Dr. Fugman has entered the chat. Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Ms. Patel? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Corset? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 2: And I'm a yes. So we're now in executive session.
We will return at approximately 7 0 5. Just gently. One more. Oh, thank you. Speaker 3: Do Speaker 2: It one more time. One more time. Wait, do it one more time. So, Kathy, Speaker 3: Thank you. The Speaker 2: Power. We're gonna call, we're gonna call this meeting to order. I just broke my rule about never touching. Thank you. All right, we're gonna call the meeting to order the open session part of the meeting. Thank you everybody. All right. Before we get on with the meeting, we're gonna rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
In a moment of silence, I pledge allegiance to the flag Speaker 4: Of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 2: Thank you. We take that moment for, to honor all of our troops serving domestically and abroad. Is Ms. Goeth online? Did we, is she got in? Speaker 3: Great. Speaker 2: This meeting, by the way, is being broadcast and recorded by Pegasus for future consumption and current consumption announcements.
Dr. Pash, do you have any? Speaker 5: I do. We'd like to extend our thanks to the Redhawk Foundation for their support of Redhawk Fest, which is going to happen tomorrow at Natick High School. Redhawk Fest is a free end of year barbecue and celebration for our students, and it's become a wonderful opportunity for the school community to come together as we close out the year. The event would not be possible without the partnership coordination and sponsorship that the Redhawk Foundation provides. So on behalf of all of us at Native Public Schools and the school committee, I'd just like to say huge thank you. And give them appreciation and hope the kids have fun tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of announcements. Does anybody else, okay, so first announcement, congratulations to all of the, well, I don't know if they're technically considered seniors anymore 'cause they graduated, but congratulations to all the people who graduated a week ago. A very fun night and good luck with whatever you're doing next. It was a really fun time. And the other announcement is that I just wanna make sure I get everything right here. There is a community reading on, it's this Friday for Juneteenth of Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech
called What to What to a Slave is the 4th of July, and it is put on by the Natick Historical Society and Natick is United and they are looking for readers to volunteer. If you are interested in that, let me see how I can get you that information. Do we know how to get, I mean, I have a, we can maybe put it on the website. It, it's the na historical site. We can, we can put a link if you're interested in signing up. It's a great event and they are looking for people who, who would like to read of all ages of all ages. All right, now no more announcements. Okay.
We will go to public speak. Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted a maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics within 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. I see one person signed up for public speak. Maribel Zare. I hope I got that name right. Did I get that right? Lambrecht. Lambrecht. Okay. Are you here? Yes, she's right here. Oh, great.
Please, if you don't mind stepping up to the podium. Oh, is that all right? You can also, you can also sit here if it's more comfortable for you. That's okay. Okay. And if you don't mind just introducing yourself and then you can have your three minutes. We won't by the way, interrupt you, but I will like raise my hand or something. Wave at you when it gets like 30 seconds left if you're still okay. You have three minutes. You got it. Speaker 6: Okay. Thank you. My name is Maribel and I'm a sophomore at Natick High School. I'm a founding member of Black Lives Belong and the Black and Hispanic Student Union.
I appreciate that Natick flies the progress flag ev like year round. I understand that the flag is intended to communicate that lgbtq plus students are welcome, valued, and belong in our schools. I'm not asking for that flag to be removed. Instead, I'm asking for the school committee to consider flying the Juneteenth flag on or around June 19th and to consider ways to visibly recognize black history. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and is both a federal and Massachusetts state holiday. It represents freedom, resilience,
and an important part of American history that deserves recognition. As a black student, I know how meaningful it can be to see your identity and history acknowledged by your school community. When schools choose to display symbols, they send a message about who is seen and who belongs. Because Natick already flies the progress pride flag year round. I hope the district will also consider it can consider how it can visibly Speaker 3: You're doing good. Speaker 6: How it can visibly recognize black students in black history. This is not about choosing one group over another
or taking anything away from anyone. It's about expanding recognition and making sure more students feel seen. Natick Strategic Strategic Plan talks about belonging, equity, and creating a community where every student can thrive. I believe recognizing Juneteenth would be a meaningful way to put those values into place and practice as one of the relatively few black students in Natick. I know how it feels to look around and not see many people who look like you
flying the Juneteenth flag would tell students like me that our history matters too. Thank you for your time and consideration. Speaker 3: Is that Speaker 2: It? Thank you. Thank you. Anybody online for public speak? No. Okay. We will move on. We'll start with the, we don't have a teacher rep tonight. Do we Speaker 3: Do? Speaker 2: Oh, Mr. Woods online. Mr. Wood, do you have an update? Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not an update per se. First of all, I just wanted to apologize. Originally, Shayla, Billy and I had both intended to be there tonight,
but an issue came up conflict for Shayla, and I'm fighting the onset of a summer cold. And so I figured I would not come to the meeting tonight and second you all. So in that case, I am a hero. And you're welcome. Yes. I I actually, I just wanted to take a moment to say something in another public forum that I got an opportunity to say a little bit earlier. And that is thank you and congratulations and good luck to all of our retirees, including you, Linda, I see you over there. The district, as, as many of you know,
is losing a, a, a set of luminaries from the high school down to pre-K throughout the district, both as classroom teachers and paras, as well as support staff, administrative assistants. And it's, it's going to look very different next year. We will continue to be a high functioning district as always, but I just wanted to recognize the contributions that have been made over the years by all of our retirees and all the different facets in which they've worked. Natick truly has been a fabulous place to work because of all that they've done and,
and they leave quite a legacy behind. And so once again, I wanted to say thank you and good luck in retirement to, to all those who are leaving us this year. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. Speaker 2: Thank and thank you also for not being here in person, Mr. Steinman. No updates. Alright. And Ms. Gomes is, I don't, she just emailed that she wasn't going to be attending, so I don't think she's online. All right. So before we move on, I know we have a lot of of folks in the room. I just want to tell you what we're gonna do in terms of the agenda tonight. 'cause we have a lot of guests. So we're, we're gonna do the consent agenda that's next on the agenda.
Then we're gonna do, if you're following along on the agenda, we're gonna do the, the first three things in the superintendent's report. So the unified Games recognition, Eagle Scout presentation, and then the end of your acknowledgements. And then we're gonna jump down to the MSBA portion of the meeting. So we'll do that right after, before we get to the other items on the agenda, like the superintendent evaluation and the curriculum rollout and strategic plan discussion. Okay. So we're gonna deal with the consent agenda now. If anybody has a motion, Speaker 8: Move to approve the consent agenda.
Speaker 2: Moved by Ms. Brunell, seconded by Ms. Collins. We will roll call, vote tonight. One of our members is online, so every vote will be roll call. Dr. Welch. Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Gors? Yes. And I am a yes. 5, 7, 0, 0. And we will move on to the superintendent's report. Dr. Sp. Speaker 5: So we are excited to welcome folks from the Unified Games. I'm not sure, maybe you can just show who you are in the audience with Mr.
Mr. Nick de Antonio. And we just, you guys are consecutive champions four years in a row. It is a phenomenal experience. I've only done it twice. But to be down there and see all the different communities and towns, the beautiful spirit. We have our national anthem singer in the house, the collaboration of, of the groups of kids is just beautiful to behold. And I know Nick, it's a, a very near and dear to your heart. I don't know if you wanna say a few words around it. You weren't ma I don't know if you had planned to, but we're so grateful for your leadership and for the heart you put into it.
And for the kids' spirit. You guys are amazing and we hope we get a fifth one next year. So no pressure. Speaker 2: We're do you, you can, you can sit anywhere you want, anywhere you're comfortable. You can come sit, you can come too. Speaker 5: Anybody's invited. Speaker 2: Just make sure the light's on. Yep. There Speaker 9: We go. Yeah. So I, I thank you all for having us. We have a, a bunch of members of our unified track and field team of that came along tonight. I think one of the reasons that the unified team has made such an impact, both from basketball, bocce strength and conditioning and track and field of the high school is, is based on kind
of the inherent reason as to why we have it. We have so many students with and without intellectual disabilities involved in the program. And it really gives a voice to our students who otherwise wouldn't have that same sort of, that same sort of voice. You know, I, I love Unified Track specifically because of the way that the, the students are segmented. I always say it's not segmented by disability, but rather by ability. So in some of our, you know, in some of our events, we have students with intellectual disabilities competing against, and in some cases beating, in many cases, beating some students with without intellectual disabilities.
And I think that's one of the really special parts. 'cause for years, right? Our, our, our kids with substantial intellectual disabilities are, are kind of kept off to the side and not not able to participate in varsity sports. But this has been a, a voice for our kids, which is fantastic. We've been really fortunate in Natick High School. We have every year close to 80 or 90 partners that wanna join and be a member of it, to the point where we need to take applications and, and actually whittle down, you know, the, the interest level just because of how many kids at the high school wanna be a part of it. It's a, you know, overall it's been a great movement. I think we have a lot of people in the community that,
that see the impact of it. We are extremely blessed to be able to host the state tournament every single year at Natick. And we'll continue to do it as long as the MIAA will let us, because it's, it's a, I think it's just a great community environment. We already have kids that are asking to volunteer at it next year that are juniors and seniors in the upcoming academic year. I was, while I had the, the microphone. I was gonna say, we also have an event every March that's called the Unified Polar Plunge. And it's a fantastic event. Last year we raised over $16,000 for Special Olympics,
Massachusetts, and I think it would go a long way if there was a school committee team that was put together to jump into it. Speaker 2: So I'm in, let's go. Speaker 9: I'm just, I'm just saying. There we go. All right. I think it would, I think it would be a pretty good thing for, for we've got at Speaker 2: Least Speaker 9: One for our community. Two. Excellent. Speaker 2: We'll get enough. We, Speaker 9: We had 120 jumpers last year, so I think we're, we're trying to top that this year. So yeah. Thank you all for your time. I really appreciate it. Speaker 2: Thank you. Does anybody have any comments or questions or thoughts? Please, Dr. Welch, Speaker 10: I would just like to extend my thanks to your, to you
for your commitment to this. This really exists because someone is willing to take leadership of it and to own it. So thank you very much. And to the student athletes who are willing to represent Natick in competition, really appreciate your commitment and obviously that has led to a lot of success and something that the whole community can really be proud of. So really much appreciation to you, to the other faculty who are involved and to the student athletes for your hard work and your representation of Natick. Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you very much. It's definitely a community effort. We have a lot of ton of coaches, faculty members at the high school.
I know oftentimes I get a lot of the recognition, but I wouldn't be able to do what I do without our amazing paraprofessionals and support members. And most importantly are student athletes. Speaker 8: Well, I just wanna say that we see things at a high level here with, with the schools and it's so impressive to me what you've built through the unified sports, not just unified Track, but through all of it, I see that the roots go into Arrowhead in Natick, which is, you know, a town entity that supports all of our students, you know, that volunteer at Arrowhead or work at Arrowhead
or go to the camp. I see students join the Connections Club because of unified sports. So it's just like when something, when excellence happens in one area, it spreads out and there's excellence in so many other places. So I've seen that as a mom that's been a part of this program. And as a school committee member, I'm very proud of our town. I'm not shy to tell everyone that we, that we won four times and I just want, I mean here, Nigel won the Athlete of the Year, right? Or freshman of the, Speaker 9: Yeah. Nigel, where's Nigel at? That one's at me. Speaker 8: There he is. Speaker 11: Come here. He's behind me. Come here.
Yeah, come over here. Speaker 9: Yeah. So we actually have a few of our, of our award winners that came with us. We have, Nigel was our, this year was our Athlete of the year. And then where's Nash at? Oh, Nash is right behind me. And then Nash right behind me here was our Rookie of the Year. And then we have Anna Elise was our, was not only our national anthem singer, but Anna Elise was also, she finished fourth in the 800 meter this year at the state tournament. Wow. And then, and then Maryville as well, who you heard from is a member of our team. In addition in the Unified, unified program. So yeah, it's, it's a great experience. We're really fortunate to have it, you know, it's,
it's even grown into our, our summer strength and conditioning program that we run at naic. We offer an 11:00 AM session and Nigel's one of our members in that as well. So we do strength and conditioning throughout the summer for them as a part of the ESY program. So it's good stuff. So thank you all for having us. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Speaker 2: We have a couple more I think, comments for you. Speaker 12: Yeah. I'll just start saying, Catherine said she's not shy. I am shy. That's just 'cause my parents named me that I had to say, I had to make that joke in all Speaker 2: These years is the first time that's happened. I can't believe it Speaker 12: Anyway. But no, on a serious note, I know people thanked you and,
and your team, but I had to say I wouldn't be here if it wasn't because I was trying to make a better world for my daughter who has special needs. It begins at the field. It begins at the track. But as you probably know it, it, the volunteers, the participants, everyone takes the lessons they learned out to the home, to the neighborhoods, to the community. You are making a better world for kids like my daughter. And I don't know if you know how much that means to us. So thank you. Thank Speaker 9: You. Speaker 2: Any other comments or things? So I'll just say, I said this two weeks ago.
I'll say it again. 'cause now there's people in the room just being an observer at the track meet. It is, we have a lot of great events in town over the course of the year. There is no event that is filled with more joy and support and happiness and comradery and all of the things across all. I was, I, I forget who I was talking to. I'm from puberty and just hearing the, the, the microphone work, we'll call it prior to everything getting started and hearing like it, it, everybody is just having the best time
and it's so supportive. And so I said last time, and I'd say it again, if you have not been to this event, I encourage you to go if you, if not to volunteer and help out to just watch because you will feel you'll spend the rest of the day the way I did with like sore face muscles because you'll be smiling the whole day. It's the most incredible thing to see. And so please go watch anything else. No, thank you again for being here. Thank you to all the athletes and students for being, everybody for being here.
And we look forward to coming to support you next time. But before that I have to get ready to plunge, I guess next March. Great. Yeah, Speaker 9: Don't worry. Now that I got your approval. We'll I'll be in touch so Speaker 2: I'm not hard to find. Speaker 9: You can, you can ask some of these other numbers that I, I Speaker 2: Know how it goes. Speaker 9: I'm Speaker 2: Pretty, I know how it goes. Speaker 9: Pretty persistent when it comes to that. So, we'll, we'll see you in March. Alright. Speaker 2: Thank, thank you. Excellent. Thanks so much. Wait, Speaker 9: I guess the le yeah, I guess I didn't even realize 'cause he's like a big shot sitting at the table. Ryan Steinman over here. He was one of our state place winners, I think. What were you second? Yeah, in the long jump at
the, at the state tournament. So, oh wow. Sorry Steinman, you're, you're so important. I forgot. Speaker 2: Thank you. Okay, yeah, please. Speaker 5: All right, we're gonna move to the next item. We're excited to welcome again Kenny Wu who's here to present again and at the next iteration of his Eagle Scout presentation. So welcome. And we have Claire Relli here as well from the town who's sponsoring this. So Kenny, Speaker 2: Just make sure the light is on, on the microphone. Speaker 13: Alright, so I came here earlier this year to present
to you guys the My Eagle Scout project. Right? So pretty much what I will be doing is I will be building box steps to like in the trail head to the Timothy Coolidge Woods Trail located between one hundred and seventy one seventy seven and 180 1 South Main Street. It's, if you could go forward a few slides. I have a picture of the trail head Speaker 2: Right Speaker 13: There. Yeah, right there. So that's the location of the trail head. That's a picture of a trail head right now it's pretty
obscured and the trail head is pretty like steep. The entrance is pretty steep. I wish to build the box steps there to number one, like reduce erosion and make it more safe and safe for people to like enter and also to make it more like obvious to the public who like walks by it. 'cause right now it's hard to really see the trailhead. So what I came here this time to do is last time I didn't end up giving you guys like a estimate of like how much it would cost, but after like review with the Eagle Scout Council, we I,
they accepted my fundraiser proposal. And so I was estimating that the total amount that this project would end up costing is about $2,000, a bit under $2,000. So I was wondering if I could get the approval for this project because it's on school property. Speaker 2: Is that the end of your presentation or do you have more slides? Speaker 13: I have more slides. If there's any questions, Speaker 2: Let's go through all the slides and then members will ask questions. They would think Speaker 13: The, if you go back a few, I think that's a,
there's a diagram of the stairs. It's approximately five feet of elevation across the entire like run of the trail head. And I'll build about T 12 steps, give or take. And yeah, it's pretty much everything there if there's any questions. Okay, Speaker 2: Great. Thank you. Questions. Ms. Collins Speaker 14: Comment after you first presented here, I went and looked at it and there is no way on God's green earth that I would ever be able to access that path without steps like the, like being proposed.
And the trail is lovely, but if you can't get to it, it's not as lovely as it could be. So I would encourage members to support this. Speaker 2: Other comments or questions? Ms. Brunell? I Speaker 8: Was just gonna make a motion. Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll, we can take a motion. We can discuss if we have further discussion. But yeah. Motion's. Great move Speaker 8: To approve the project as outlined tonight in the June 15th PowerPoint slideshow. Second Speaker 2: Motion by Ms. Pernell, seconded by Ms. Collins. Any discussion? Seeing none. Alright, well we'll vote then I will do roll call again.
Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Cor? Yes. And I am a yes. 7, 0, 0 Mr. W, the balls in your court. Thank Speaker 13: You. Good luck Speaker 14: Sir. Thank Speaker 2: You. Thank you. We all appreciate it. Congrats. And we look forward to going to the trail. Speaker 15: I'll be sure to let the committee know when the trail is done so folks can visit. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thanks Speaker 8: For being here Carol. Have a good Speaker 2: Night. Speaker 5: Moving Speaker 2: On. Moving on. Speaker 5: Okay, so we're on item C in my report
and we really just wanted to take a moment to do some end of year acknowledgement. We wanna thank our teachers and staff for a fabulous year. I can't believe we're in June, but the hard work is fabulous. The collaboration, you just feel it every year in Na Natick. We had lots of wins. I'm not gonna go summarizing all the different ways Natick showed up, but just wanted to acknowledge that. And we have two kind of very special ones to do here in our community. One Shayla's not here today, but we wanted to recognize Shayla as our union. One of our union reps who stays here for half the year,
who's on the exec board of the union. She's moving to Florida. We're super happy for her, her choice. She's very brave, kind of switching up her life. So we're thrilled for her. Excited to have worked with her. She's a fantastic partner. She often does a lot in Memorial. You see pictures, she's always asking for pictures to kind of celebrate staff. She's the heart of kind of the spirit center there at Memorial. And we've, I thoroughly have enjoyed working with her and meeting with her monthly as part of the union, as part of the negotiations team. She's a real treasure and I wish her just the very
best where she heads next. Can't wait to hear her stories, so wish she was here. But Jefferson, I'm sure you'll pass that along. And we also wanna make a very special, it's no secret our friend Linda is retiring. I'm gonna read a few words just to take a moment to recognize you. Linda, as you know, she's the executive assistant to the superintendent, but also to the school committee. For the past three years she's been doing this and she's been a steady hand behind so much of the committee's work and, and our work in the district from agendas and minutes to meeting logistics and countless details that most people never see.
Linda has helped ensure that everything runs smoothly. And of course in her final year we rewarded her with a complete technology transition in the school committee room. And I'm fairly certain this was not on her retirement list, but she handled it with her usual professionalism and, and patience and grace. One of my favorite traditions you may not know about is it happens in the days after school committee meeting. You'll often find her with earbuds in and listen, she's not listening to Ella Langley, she's listening to the Pegasus recording and preparing official minutes and she affectionately calls these that she's catching up on her stories most.
Mostly this would mean to people that this is a good Netflix run, but it's not. That's what's, that's what Linda does when she writes our minutes More than anything, Linda has been a very trusted partner, a calming presence and a kind and supportive colleague to us all on behalf of the school committee, which I'm sure they'll do on their own as well. And Natick Public Schools, thank you so much for your years of service and for your fabulous support of our team and all of us. Yeah, Speaker 2: We have more. Does does, does anybody from the school committee have anything that they would like to say otherwise? I'll do it. I'm gonna, anyway,
but does anybody wanna go first? Ms. Collins? Speaker 14: No. If I took the time, we'd be here. Yeah. Much later than Linda should need to be here on her final meeting. But thank you. Speaker 2: So we got you a little something that required sneaking, because when I get to meetings, Linda is almost always in here before, but we, we had to sneak in so on behalf of the school committee now it's fine. Now she's just as good as it. Yeah, so she sees it, she sees it sneaking. Yeah. Sneak we, so
for those who don't know, and Dr. Stash sort of talked about it, Linda is the person who does all the agenda posting. I don't know if there's anybody who responds to an email faster when than when I email. It's, it's really important to have a partner. You know, none of us, the school community members are full-time employees of the town. We all have other things going on. So to have a partner in in the office here who you can rely on that helps get all this stuff prepared is invaluable.
And so, and she does it with a smile on her face. She's always smiling. It's like, I dunno who's that happy all the time. But, so on behalf of the school committee, we really appreciate all the work. We're gonna miss you. Not a lot, but you know, a little and, and you have to come back and visit us. So thank you. And I think, does anybody else wanna say anything? Because if not, we're gonna take like a five minute recess because there's, there's some snacks in the room. Sorry, Ms. Corset who's not here? Oh, there's a, oh look at this. Oh, there's a cake for those viewers at home.
So we're gonna take a, we're gonna take a five minute recess and then we will reconvene and get back with our meeting. Thank you. Welcome back. So we are gonna jump down now to the group 10, the MSBA update. And so we're gonna start with the OPM update and then we'll do the educational pro, the memorial school education program, scope options discussion, Dr. Stash. Speaker 5: So I'm gonna pass it to assistant superintendent Gillis who's gonna bring us through the memo that he and Mr. Myer wrote with an update
for the committee on the OPM owners project manager details, which you'll remember the last time we spoke about, I think we were in the process of RFP in the meetings there. So that plane has been landed, which we're happy to report. So Mr. Gillis is gonna give an update on that. Speaker 16: So if folks want a deeper review of the background of the whole like hiring process and procurement process, there's a hyperlink in there for the April 30th memo from the superintendent and the Memorial School Building Committee chair on where we were in the process on
June 1st at about two o'clock we met with the MSBA review panel for the OPMs and our OPM gave a present, our selected OPM gave a presentation and answered questions. They had a few questions for me regarding the procurement process. And then on the third they sent us a letter that, that they approved us hiring RO Hill. We finalized the contract and we sort of had a initial pre-meeting just, just just last week to go over to start setting some agenda items, which is
what the OPM helps us do for the feasibility study phase. There's also an attached project schedule because the next thing that we really need to do is hire the architect. The project schedule is, is really, it's in there that's hyperlinked really just is for the architect. And we've, we've started that process on a draft mode and, and it'll be discussed at the next school building committee meeting. And with that I would say I can turn it back to the superintendent and see if there's anything else to add. Speaker 5: I don't have anything else to add on the
OPM process, but thank you. I do have a very brief update on the, if you recall, we had, I think in March, a team from the MSBA come in for that new module nine on Kennedy for the post occupancy evaluation. POE it's called. We got in touch with them. Thanks Linda. All the million things she does was she got in touch just to say hey, the year's closing, when are we gonna receive that report? I think the committee would like to know and the answer was quite in late summer. So we won't have an update for you until then, but it is imminent. Speaker 2: Great. Shall I? Are we good? Yeah. All right.
So thank you for those updates. We're gonna go on to the Memorial school education program scope options. So I'm gonna start by sort of providing some context around the discussion that we're gonna have now, which we've been having for in since the beginning of May. And then we have with us tonight also town administrator, Mr. Erickson and Deputy town administrator and director of finance, I finance director Mr. Sky. So they're gonna join us to answer any questions
that people might have as it relates to any of this process or finance or anything like that. So for those who are tuning in now, don't or haven't seen the slides in any of the previous meetings that we've had. Obviously I think at this point people are familiar with the process that we are currently in to potentially build a new memorial school. One of the other things that we're considering, and one of the things that the school committee has to weigh in on is a recommendation on what the education program is going to be. And one of the factors there is preschool
and how that might affect the various buildings in town. So on slide seven in the agenda, the memorial ed program scope presentation, there are a couple of priorities that have that we've discussed at previous meetings. And so I'll just read them real quick. Maximize MSBA reimbursement, ease high school space constraints, design spaces for all learners, maintain current district capacity for pre-K and consolidate pre-K to two or less sites. So we've discussed a bunch of different options on the following slides after that. There are four options laid out in these slides
and I won't go through all of them right now. People are of course welcome to look at the agenda and they can and they can see all those. We've discussed those in the past. I just want to be blunt in like a little bit and we clear, 'cause we've gotten a couple of emails from people that have, some of the information is not totally accurate and I just wanna make sure that we're all aligned on what we're discussing. So there is no plan. There has been no decision to close anything open, anything to the location of a potential new memorial has not been decided.
So there's a lot of discussions and a lot of process that still has to happen. What our responsibility here now is to provide a direction to the district, guidance to the district on how to properly design an educational program. Okay, so the, I guess, and maybe I will just real quickly list the options. So option A would be to the, the proposal for the new memorial is has four preschool classrooms built into it. There is option A, which is to get those four classrooms,
leave one classroom at Bennett Hemingway. Right now remove four classrooms from the east that's currently there and leave the five pre pre-K preschool classrooms at the high school. That's option A, option B, same thing four new classrooms in memorial. Lose the classroom at at benham. Add two additional classrooms at East and remove the five classrooms from the high school. So two sites, no more pre-K in the high school
East would stay the same option C one site a single site. So that would be taking the four initial pre-designed, you know, are currently designed into the new memorial project, the four classrooms and add six more. So that would be 10 pre-K classrooms in a potential new memorial. No other locations. Option D, new memorial with the four classrooms. Add an additional classroom to Behe. So there'd be two there. Leave East the way it is, four current classrooms and remove the five classrooms that are at the high school. Those are the four that we've discussed.
We've also, in previous conversations brought up the idea of exploring is the Johnson school a potential, is that a potential building that we could use if we we, if we had discussions with the select board and requested to get control of that building back. And we've talked a lot about the finances that would go into that. So, and what that would, all of that would cost. Those are the things that we've discussed over the last six or so weeks through these various presentations. So at this point, if you don't mind, do you, you don't mind if, if there are questions from the committee.
So what we'll do is we'll take questions and comments from the committee. We will have an opportunity for questions, comments from members of the public and hopefully we can get all those answers in place so that people feel good. Ideally, I believe we have to provide guidance to the district by June 30th. So if we can't do it tonight, then we will have another meeting and another meeting and another meeting until we do it. So it doesn't have to happen tonight, but we can have that discussion now. So we have, the last thing I'll say
for the moment is we have explored and had discussions about lots of different options. We've considered lots of different things. We have not come to any decisions yet. So I think the committee has been open to discussing all things and we've gotten a lot of data and we hopefully we'll have more productive conversation now. So does anybody wanna start with any comments or questions or thoughts or ideas on this topic from the committee? Dr. Fugman, Speaker 12: I hope this doesn't sound like a redundant question, but can you just clarify, so tonight's decision, or rather June 30th decision is basically between
one of these four options or option E, F, or G if anyone comes up with one, but we're not deciding on what the alternate space is. We're not deciding, I, I wanna figure out what is what, what's the yes, what are the bounds of the decision? Speaker 2: So that is my understanding. We are not deciding on a space and and there's a also in the agenda for those who have seen it, the, when you look on the website it looks like one link, there are actually two, there's the slides and then the word memo is a separate document
that you should take a look at too if you're interested in. But that is my understanding Dr. Bash, is that the correct understanding? That's right. Alright. We are not deciding on locations or anything like that. Ms. Collins, Speaker 14: Given that this, you may decide this is outta scope, but do we know or when will we know when the school building committee chooses a site for the memorial redo Speaker 2: That is in scope? I think it's a useful piece of context. So the timing that I understand and feel free, anybody who's, who knows that decision on the site would not be until I think early late winter.
So beginning of 2027, right? Roughly. That's right Mrs. Yeah. Okay. There's a fee clear, there's a thing, right? Speaker 14: Comments that I've received about, I don't wanna drive all the way to Memorial. Conceivably wouldn't be all the way to Memorial because the school building committee might choose a different site. Is that a fair Speaker 2: Restatement there? There is. I think it's fair to say that there is no guarantee that if a new memorial happens it would be at that site. Okay, thank Speaker 5: You. Speaker 2: Is that fair? I mean you guys, you can just jump in anytime. That's fine. If I say something wrong, you should correct me. That's Speaker 17: My impression of the process. Yes.
Speaker 2: Alright. Speaker 17: And the MSBA review. Speaker 2: Yep. Other questions from the committee or comments or, you know, you motions are allowed as well. I mean if we, we again, just for everybody's clarity, if there is a motion made and seconded, there is opportunity for debate and comment so we're not speeding through anything. So Dr. Perman again, Speaker 12: So I'm trying to figure out, and I think we have this information, but just might be helpful to review the cost that is associated with not so much the options, meaning lettered options, but the actual location options.
So just to review, plus for adding four preschool classrooms and memorial, the new memorial is within still cost money, but it's within the MSBA overall reimbursement. Right? Speaker 2: Let's start, let's start with that. Let's do it one, one at a time if that's all right. Okay. Can you go to slide six? Speaker 12: Oh those are slide six? Speaker 5: Yep. Slide six outlines that where it shows, this is what the MSBA gave us based on our enrollment projections and our enrollment study and our enrollment meeting last August. And this is based on their statement of interest.
So just to refresh people's mind, both in the public and on the committee memorial at the time of this had 436 students, the MSBA is allocating a space for 570 students. Those 134 additional students are taking into consideration the aging modular units at Lilja and Brown. They're not just the freebie, they're not also something we ask for. It's literally they're looking across quite aging elementary schools here and saying let's solve this with one building where we add some additional capacity to the question you asked,
they put into this neighborhood pre-K, which Mr. Gillis is estimating at four classrooms and that for all of this, the five 70 school and the four classrooms there would be the applied reimbursement rate, which is not yet finalized, but the base rate is 45.11%. Does that answer your question? Yeah, Speaker 2: That's the first part. Speaker 12: Question one A Yes, one B is plus six. If we do 10 classrooms at Memorial, what is the plus six cost? Speaker 5: So that is on slide 12 with Mr. Gillis's estimate. So he could be, he could answer additional questions
but that would be under option C, 6.8 to 8.1 million. Estimate to add six classrooms there. That's not reimbursed. Speaker 12: Sorry, where's that Speaker 5: Slide 12? Oh 12. Option C in the yellow Speaker 2: And not reimbursed for those. I just want to make sure that we, the base doesn't apply. Yeah, so we want to make sure for people listening not reimbursed means that we, that's the one we would not be getting any money from the MSBA for those extra classrooms. Speaker 12: This am I missing? Speaker 2: Okay, you got 'em? Speaker 12: Yeah, I don't have the, Speaker 2: Do you have a part C?
You can get it through native ma org if it's not showing up. Forus. Speaker 12: Okay, thanks. So that's between six and 0.8. Speaker 2: 6.8 to 8.1. Speaker 12: Any option that, well there's only one option that has 10 and then the all obviously benham and the high school are quote unquote free. Meaning any, any classroom we leave there, there's no extra payment. Correct. The alternate, the alternate space, obviously we don't know the space yet, but is there, there would be cost with Johnson, I know we discussed that. Would there be, and I guess this is where the questions really geared towards you all.
If we decide to go for say option C, could we keep the East school? What is that pro, I mean I'm not asking you right now, give it to us, but what is that process to request it and would there be any cost associated with the district taking in back the eSchool? I'm just trying to figure out all the costs of the different options. So if, if eSchool is one of the options, what cost? I mean both I guess the process and the cost. Speaker 2: Mr. Eon, before you answer that, can you, do you just do one minute on the current
arrangement on eSchool? Sure. 'cause I think there's some clarity needed on those two. The Speaker 17: Slight history slash current arrangement. So the eSchools, my understanding since it closed, but it could just be for the last 20 plus years has largely been a swing space for the town. And by town I mean town and school, just any town use, including even the YMCA after school program has been there for a good six, seven years I think at minimum. And that swing space has accommodated things like the senior center while the community senior center is being built. Many different departments of the school department. I think our IT department was there
asap, the Achieve program. Other departments were there for a while. So it's really accommodated. We had some police offices there for a little while. Like it's accommodated like all types of uses through the years it's, and because of that it's largely stayed. We, we've kept up with the capitol. We just replaced Windows I think two summers ago. We have a fairly new roof on it. It's in good shape is my point. Like it's, it's, it's been because it's been actively used, it's in generally good shape. Our rec parks has programs there at nights and weekends. Not throughout the year but at a certain time. So that leads to the costs in the sense
that any future use there, because it's in decent shape, it's really, there's a couple capital items that are, are already planned in the outer years of our capital program. We need to replace the electrical panel for example. We need to update the boiler. It's just reaching its useful life. And so just, and that's just with any building. So if we keep any future use in there for town school, whatever the future use is, we're gonna have to do those capital costs. There's not a lot of other costs related to that building for really any future use. Currently it houses 4, 5, 4 classrooms
for the pre-K preschool program. And it's been that way since about 20 20, 20 21. It was a pandemic sort of relief valve that we worked in partnership with the schools on back at that time. And that's been in there since then. It also has offices for the ASAP program and it has a couple classrooms worth of afterschool programs for the YMCA. We partner with them to do some afterschool programs there. They also expand their programs a little bit. It's not like an expansion like crazy, but they also offer a summer camp program at that location. So it's been that way for largely the last,
I wanna say four years, five years. And so we largely, the town about six years ago we, we were embarking on a space analysis program. This was when we still had for example, five Auburn, which we've since entered into development agreement with the developer on the coal center, which is still part of our space analysis and the e school. And then at that time there there had not been a decision on the Johnson school. So we were looking at those, those schools altogether. We put the E school component of
that on pause when we started with the pre-K program. And then we were working with Dr Sp I wanna say maybe a year and a half, two years ago now, about the need to expand that, not expand but extend that timeframe. So at at this point the foreseeable future is really that space really continuing as like a swing space for whatever town school uses. And the cost is largely just these regular capital costs for upkeep and maintenance long term, which would be for any future use logistically we would have to explore that a little more.
It's, it's a park space. First and foremost, it was invested as a park space about four or five years ago. If you recall the Connor Heffler park is now what it's called. And so the town invested about three plus million dollars into that public park space, which includes the grounds, the playground, pickleball, pickleball, which everybody loves the pickleball. There's a baseball field there, little league field there. There's basketball, courts, lights, parking. So first and foremost it has to remain that what we, what I don't know and I just haven't done the research yet, is whether it's considered what's called Article 97 land, which is like the state's protection for, for open space.
It doesn't mean you can't use the building, the building's already actively being used. It just means you can't extend certain uses onto that space. And it might limit the ability to do like a transfer of ownership, but it doesn't mean that logistically there can't be some type of arrangement like we currently have for the, for who knows how long. Yeah. So I think there's, logistically we just need to figure out what that path is. It might not be a formal, like traditional transfer of ownership to from one one like, you know,
in this case the select board to school committee. But it might be some type of MOU or lease agreement or something for a a long-term arrangement. Should this be the decision? I mean I, I still haven't had the conversation with my bosses about this yet in a more formal setting. I've individually talked to to some of them, not even all of them. So there's still some logistics that would have to happen on, on sort of the town non-school side. But those are the basics of the costs. It's relatively speaking minimal because it's in good shape and it's really gen general upkeep or or regular capital.
I'm not aware of any other school building retrofits that need to happen. 'cause we did a chunk of those when the preschool went in there originally for like bathrooms and stalls like that. There is, there's no main, there's no major a DA compliant issues in that building. I know like the cafeteria space or the, it's kind of part part, it's not cafeteria. The gym slash Speaker 5: It's gym a capto gym, cator everything. Speaker 17: I know that has some a DA compliant challenges but that's, so it's off to the side and it's not really heavily used and there is a way to get into that space from the outside.
So it's not like it's a, it's a major issue. It's really not preschool been a non-issue really for long. And the YMCA mostly uses that space Speaker 12: And very quick follow up. Does that, does your answer change at all if we add two more classrooms and I, and I, I ask 'cause that's option B. Option B is to go from more to six classrooms Speaker 17: In all likelihood. No, because it's set up as a school. It's a former e it's a former school. So it's set up as a school. It's really a logistical question of what is that new classroom space displacing because you have the ASAP program and the YMCA program in there.
So what is not there? 'cause the building is pretty much at, at capacity right now. So if you're adding something you have to remove something. Yeah, so that would be the question. But no, it's, it's, and and interestingly at the time that the preschool, actually before the preschool program we had the, the school IT department in there and a couple others, we were already seeing some of those other interim uses sort of move on naturally. So we had the space open and available. It's been interesting, it was one of the first projects handed to me by, by prior town administrator to say figure out what to do here. And from day one it's just been, oh we need use space.
Okay we need flex space. Okay now we need flex space for this now. And we've just always been using it for the last my time, 11 years. But even before that, I think 20, 30 plus years of the town has just been using it. So I don't know if there would need to be any retrofits for an expansion of the pre-K program though. Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think it's worth noting that our preschool, our purpose for preschool as part of the school district is integrated pre-K, which means it's really intended for early intervention for students with disabilities And it has typical peer match. We usually have seven to eight.
And so what I love about it, it's beautiful bright ground level, all one level rooms other than the gym a cator which is not needed in this case. Beautiful light comes in. They're big spaces. Something that's really important. You, you go into any preschool, whether it's the high school or at the school and you see kids in the halls in various different types of equipment using these long beautiful cop corridors where they can have a lot of movement along. So it's just a delightful space kind of for the needs of an integrated pre-K. In terms of reconfiguration, you kind of mentioned it, it would displace something either the two
classrooms used by the Y. We are not saying that's what it was, that's just two rooms that happen to be, they're already configured as classrooms. There's also a very large ASAP space that they use. There's a huge table and some a few offices. So there could be a reconfiguration there possibly into two classrooms as well without displacing anybody else. So there's options that are not super invasive I would say. Speaker 2: Other questions, Dr. Welch, Speaker 10: I had mentioned in a previous meeting that I wanted to raise this issue and it has to do with funds from the Kennedy School Building project and to what degree there are surplus funds
and what restrictions there are in those funds and what uses they could be put to. So I'm wondering if among the, the three of you, maybe you could offer some thoughts to the committee on what is available and what are the restrictions on the use of those funds? Speaker 17: Sure, absolutely. I'll take an initial stab and then I'll have Ari sort of explain some of the, the logistics of it. In brief, we have about 4.9 million ish amount of dollars remaining from the Kennedy. It's part of the debt exclusion vote of the town. So therefore the revenue that's covering the cost of those funds is the debt exclusion vote that everybody now sees on their tax bill is debt exclusion.
And I say that because it's an important note because if those funds get repurposed for something else, you then also have to find a revenue source to cover that portion of the fund that gets repurposed. And again, Ari can go into a little more detail on that front. In brief though, those funds need to be used because of the way they were borrowed for and voted on. They need to be used for like projects I think is the term. Yeah. And in essence like projects is like another building type projects something with the same useful life useful if a building project is usually 30 years, I think that's an MGL requirement actually. Yep. And so it would be
for another like building type project. So it can be for systems upgrade in a building, it can be for windows roofs, things like that are related to a facility. It doesn't have to be school, it can be any type of building use project. So in theory at the next town meeting we could repurpose the 4.9 million to cover capital costs that are related to upgrades at at any any one of our town and school owned buildings. We would then also just have to change the revenue source from the debt exclusion to general funds so it actually gets absorbed in our tax levy. Did I miss anything there?
Speaker 18: No, mostly there there are, the exact amount is about $4,895,300 in change and some sense. But the, is there really two things to think about when considering what to do with this fund, these funds, they are free and clear in the sense that they were excess proceeds for, they weren't needed on the project, but they, that is money that is, that is issued and being paid for right now outside the levy. So the, the, the two things, the two things to think about are the our MGL requirements as well
as arbitrage requirements when it comes to issuance of debt. So Jimmy was alluding to the, some of the both MGL in arbitrage issues. When you have a, when you have a project that was voted for and issued for a certain type of project, you, if you need to rep, if you want to repurpose that money, you generally have to do it for a similar like process. And we've talked to bond council about that and they've confirmed all that. So we know that's the case. The, so in theory, you know, you could put it toward any kind of building project, but then you get into the, so the, the the MGL issues,
which is the, which is issue of, of, of issuing debt inside or outside the debt. Le the, the levee limit. And this was as you know, debt, those issued outside the levee 'cause it was a debt exclusion. So it's possible to use that for a project within the, within the levy limit. That wouldn't be a debt exclusion, wouldn't require an election. But that would mean, you know, going to town meeting and, and finding, as Jamie said, a revenue source for that, presumably general fund revenue. So it's, it's not free money. And, and in fact the impact is very similar to if you were to issue debt anyway. The only difference being that you're taking
a little bit off of the, you, you, you're taking a use for that, for that exit. For that exit, those excess proceeds and putting them toward something else. Speaker 17: Another to, to the point of what I mentioned, if you keep it in excluded debt, it's, it's also a common practice for communities to choose to sort of put that towards the next building project. Right. For an excluded project. So for example, in the case of like memorial, like Memorial, yeah. Assuming that's gonna be funded through excluded debt, you incorporate that into that ask of, of the voters. Yeah. Essentially. And therefore it's occluded to excluded
and it, one, we don't have to to bring it into the general fund revenue, but Right. Speaker 18: Anything that's possible with this, anything that's possible with this, but something like a programming to Memorial is kind of, it's, it's easy because you're really just, you know, Memorial gets approved for x millions of dollars, so you just issue x millions of dollars less 4.9 million and you're, and you're there. Yeah. So yeah. Speaker 10: One other question if I may, Mr. Sure. Go for it. One of the options before us is, and I know you don't have the slides in front of you,
so I'll try to just try to briefly describe it, which is to take the reimbursed portion of Memorial and to add an additional amount of funding to that, that would be solely locally sourced to add some additional pre-K capacity there. It's what on our slides is called option C. You mentioned Mr. Sky, that one of the ways that these funds from the Kennedy excess could be distributed is that we could ask for a certain amount of money, less 4.8. Is it acceptable under the law to ask for the full amount
and then for the use of this 4.8 to cover the local portion of this additional square footage at Memorial? Speaker 18: I think the way you would handle it is that you come up with a project budget that would be, you know, whatever it is M MS B doesn't really care too much about how much you pay for a project. Right. They just know how much they're gonna pay you back for. Right. So if you know, and then that's because there are a lot of costs associated with schools that are just not just excluded activities when it comes to MSBA can't build a pool, you know, with MSBA money, things like that. So, or demolish an old school, that kind of thing.
So, so, so they, so they would simply ask you to prepare a budget that's, that complies with their project funding agreement and, and the rest is kind of up to the, at the local level. So if it becomes, if it was a, I don't know, a $70 million project and you find $4 million more, you wanna do you and you get the voters who approve a $74 million project, SBA won't care, they'll just be paying you the same amount anyway. Speaker 10: And to devote it to a building other than Memorial. Say if we needed to do some sort of repairs at East, or as the chairman mentioned, other folks have mentioned some po possible rehabilitation
of the Johnson building for this purpose. Is that an acceptable use for these funds provided we go through the proper channels? Speaker 18: If it's for a building renovation of some sort, then yes, it would be acceptable as long as the, the term of life is what you're thinking of is as long as you're not building your plane to tear down in five years or something like that. Right. But, but the, the, you get into the question of are you doing this within the debt limit or outside the debt limit and so on. If Speaker 17: It could be future budget implications, right. From that perspective. Right. And town meeting approval and authority that needs to go there because Speaker 18: You would be, you end up, you, if you bring it within the debt limit,
you're basically rolling about, I don't know, about about 350, $400,000 a year in debt, debt service into the general fund. Speaker 17: So that, that's part of our budgeting process annually that, that would be impacting, Speaker 2: I yield back Thank thanks Ms. Collins. And then Ms. Brunell. Speaker 14: Okay. My first request this 4.9 we'll say for round numbers, I know it's 4.8 something, something, something came about because we bonded before we had the final budget. Can we stop doing that because I and every other taxpayer in this community have been paying
on that full amount even though there wasn't a building supporting it. Speaker 2: So, and no, I, I think that is, let's leave that as a comment for Speaker 14: Now. Yeah. So my question is what life do we use? Do we use the life since the original bonds were issued, do we use 20 years or whatever the current for a building project? You mean for like is now Speaker 17: For like, if we repurpose those funds, what the useful life is? Yeah. Speaker 14: It has to be the same, similar useful life and similar in scope. Yeah. Speaker 17: It's, it is based on the actual capital project. So it's not the useful life of the bond, it's the project.
So if you borrow, sorry. Yeah, sorry. If you borrow for a building that has a useful life of 30 years. Yeah. Right. And five years LA later, you can't necessarily borrow for a vehicle with the useful life of five years. It has to be for another building with useful life of 30 years. It's Speaker 14: Okay. But we would get the full 30 years or whatever a useful life of a building is at this point. That Speaker 17: Is be, Speaker 14: It wouldn't be penalize, in other words, for five years having taken it out, no, five years ago. Correct. And not using it. Speaker 18: There are, there are life expectancies or terms useful terms of life that are
set forth in mass general law. So you know, so that, that's the main focus that you have to use it for a similar type project. So you can use it for, I don't know, a fire engine or something like that. You you, but you, you have to use it for, yeah. So, so the term life doesn't matter as much as the type of project you As the Speaker 17: Category. Yep. Yeah. Under MJ Speaker 2: All set Speaker 14: Kathy? Yeah. IM Brunell. Thank you. Speaker 2: Okay, Ms. Brunell. Speaker 8: Thank you. When does the high school or when does the excluded debt come off? The tax bills that we have taken out for Kennedy and for the high school and the community center
Speaker 14: When 30 Speaker 18: Kennedy is a while. Speaker 17: Yeah. Kennedy Speaker 8: Kennedy's a long time. Kennedy Speaker 17: Is a while. Okay. That's why Speaker 8: Another 20 years. Jamie's like, I won't be. Yeah, Speaker 17: You can hope. The high school, we had a portion of the deck come off, I wanna say last year, two years ago. Same with the, the senior center. I'm not sure. We'd have to check that and get back to the, to the school committee. We don't have that in front of us right now. Okay. Speaker 8: Yeah. Closer to 2030 though Speaker 17: Probably because the, the building was built about 20 13, 20 12, 20 13. So figure 30 years from there Yeah. Is when the, I mean there depends on how it was borrowed
and I just don't have that in front of me. Okay. If they use different borrowing mechanisms, Speaker 18: Kennedy's in 20. I know the Kennedy's in 2038. That much I know. Speaker 16: Okay. Sounds right. With a 25 8 term, I don't think 30 years was a lot then, Speaker 17: Right? No, it could have been 25 for the, for the high school. So it was probably 25 years to the high school is when all like all of it would come off. Speaker 8: Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. I would like to make a motion for, to move forward with option B. Speaker 2: Could do we have a tell me what option B. Option option B is, is the two sites. So it is the four included classrooms in potential memorial
five, nine, dropping the room in Benham, adding two additional rooms in the alternate space, which is currently east and removing the five, reclaiming the five room rooms at the high school. Speaker 3: Second. Speaker 8: Second Speaker 2: Is there somebody Speaker 8: Unmute Lisa seconding. Speaker 2: Oh sorry. That was okay, got it. Thank you. All right. So we have one motion we will con do you wanna speak on your motion? Speaker 8: Well I do, I do wanna say that I, I'm making this motion contingent upon the, the school building committee.
If they needed some flexibility for us to pivot to option CI would be open to that. I think that our administration wants one direction right now and I do wonder about if, given that we don't know where the site is, I don't, I don't think it's, I do will not support a preschool being built in the farthest section of town for the majority of people in town. So that is, that's why I'm leaning towards option B given that it hits all of those other factors and it keeps a preschool option central not only to all
of the people who use it but also to our high school students that benefit and preschool students that benefit from that high school relationship. So that's why option B is the most OB like the one to me. Were there another site to be chosen that would make option CA possibility? I would be open to option C. And I wonder if picking option B then allows us some flexibility to go to option C if we need to. Does that make sense? Speaker 2: It does, it does make sense. Yeah. But so before, so we're any other motions
for the moment and we can add more or we can be in debate of this one 'cause I have some thoughts and did anybody have any other motions? If not, I might make one that I could be convinced out of, but I'm gonna make one, unless you're about to do something, I have no Speaker 10: Other motions. I'd like to be recognized to discuss Ms Pernell's Speaker 2: Motions. We will do that. I'm gonna make a motion to consider option D and then I'll explain why and if, if it is seconded it's second for discussion anyway. Okay, thank you. Alright, so before I give my thoughts on all the motions,
I think it's probably a good idea if Dr. Bash or your team would like to weigh in 'cause we have not had that yet. Would you like to weigh in? Speaker 5: We'd be happy to. Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Speaker 5: So I think there's a lot of moving pieces and as we said on slide 12 in our original presentation, all of them have some trade off. But our preference, analytical preference truly is option B. It gets us down to two sites. It keeps within kind of the plan that the MSBA gave to us without co, without requiring additional investment.
If we had limitless money, option C would be where we want to be a fully consolidated preschool that's modern and it would be a fabulous thing but it costs money and it costs six classrooms worth of not having a reimbursement match to the funds from the MSBA. So I think that's more of a taxpayer answer than my own. But my analytical preference would be B because every single other piece on here is checked green with the understanding that we just have to kind of have an agreement around east or a different alternate space,
which isn't ours alone to determine. So the second one would probably be D where we are still at three sites, but when we go back to slide whatever the one is with the priorities seven seven other way Speaker 2: There's seven. Speaker 5: We haven't memorized these slide numbers at all. This really outlines where we started to frame this analysis since you know, really late April was where the priorities were. So maximizing the MSBA reimbursement, that just means for every dollar we pay we want 45 cents back.
I think that's pretty important, especially on the heels of a very generous override which we're very grateful for and stay grateful for the easing of high school space constraints that happens in option B and D, which I think is very, very important. All of our, all of our families are gonna have kids go through our high school. So that matters to every single voter, which I think is gonna help get some favorability from the voting side on this. And then consolidating the pre-K to two sets or less or less also gets checked off with that. So those are the reasons, I mean three and four are already met with most of these, so thank you
for asking our opinion. Of course we're happy to explain further why if there are questions. But that's, that's our preference. Speaker 2: Alright, so I'm gonna explain, we're gonna get to the public, we're gonna get to everybody else too, but I'm gonna explain my rationale and on the motion made the motion so that we could discuss it. So because I had been thinking obviously about this a lot, option A for me is, is was a sort of non-starter because it doesn't, it, it removes east and it doesn't solve the high school problem. So that one I didn't spend too much time on it. I like option B. My only concern is like let's assume
for a moment that we extend the MOU or we figure out whatever the alternative space is, if it stays at east, my only concern and I think it's surmountable, is the reclaiming of two additional. The making two, those two finding that the two extra classrooms someone, there's more flexibility there. So it's a little less easy to make that one happen. But I like that it checks all the other boxes. I like that it frees up the high school space. I like that there's some, there are two spots that are not in the same spot that we can, they're accessible from all over town.
I am a hundred percent in agreement with Ms. Brunell on the one site on option C. Unfortunately we don't know the location. I would not support a hundred percent of the pre pre-K being in a new memorial if it were in that part of town. I just think it's not accessible for enough people. If we knew where the new location was and it was more centrally located, I could certainly be convinced otherwise option D for me doesn't get down to the two, the two separate spaces, but does alleviate the high school, it's the least amount of change.
So I like option D as well. And I will say, because it's not on the slide, but I, I don't want it to go without being discussed. I've also spent a lot of time thinking about option E, like could we rehab a Johnson building and ultimately for me, what I have sort of learned over this process and maybe either Mr. Gillis or Mr. Erickson or Mr. Skye could speak to this, the cost just feels prohibitive compared to the other costs particularly. Well that's, that's, well I'll just leave it at that and,
and we've discussed the costs a bit at the previous meeting but I, I hate to put, I mean you're here to be put on the spot I guess, but I hate to put anybody on the spot, but maybe on the spot. Yeah, you're on the spot. You are sir. But maybe it would be helpful if, if you could spend, somebody could spend a minute or two just roughly laying out what it would cost. Nobody will hold you to it. Just generally what it would cost if we were gonna say, you know, let's add 10, let's use Johnson as 10 classrooms. I mean, so let me, let me, maybe I can, there's an a DA component to it, right? To make the building aada a compliant.
There is a component to prep the building for what it would take to be suitable for pre-K Mr. Gillis has is ready. Sure. Speaker 16: So I, I took the 2020 study from TBA architects and and added like a 5% straight line annual in increase for construction costs for that, that project. And so that, that range, you know, was up to almost $50 million could be, you know, low to mid thirties we'd need 10 classrooms.
There's more more space than that there. But once you trigger about 25% of the building's value, you have to bring everything up to code even if you're not gonna use the space. And using the space with other groups is certainly possible, but it's, it's not as easy as it sounds that that could also drive up the construction cost slightly to, depending on who else was gonna be in there and sharing space with, you know, some of our smallest and and neediest population.
So you, you can't really renovate two thirds of the building. You're gonna have to renovate it all there. There's choices you can make to balance things out. But I did ask MSBA had a conversation with them today just to confirm that, that, that they would only reimburse for pre-K that was in the memorial building, whether it's on the memorial site or a new memorial site. It's in that building, not a separate building on the same site, not multiple buildings across town.
And we did ask in our statement of interest and application for pre-K classrooms, so it'll raise some eyebrows if we decide to do that completely separately from what we had applied for. Not saying the community can't change its mind, but it, it, it, it's something to think about. So, you know, I I did mention it to the committee before, just for a matter of perspective, how many asks do you want to have? We've got a building project, a fields
and do you want to have another building project, you know, with that being Johnson. So that's, that's about all I have for there. I'm not sure if Jamie Ari want to add anything to that. Speaker 17: I i I would just, I would concur with, with pretty much all of what you said. I can't confirm the, the estimate on the cost but just 'cause we haven't done that analysis ourselves. But one 100% on what you said with regards to, you know, once you start touching the building to a certain degree, you almost have to bring the entire building up to code. If you're doing really minor things here and there
and not using the entire building for things that require a DA compliance, you might not need to do all of those costs. So a lot of the dialogue that, that I've been really trying to understand, putting aside that dialogue here, but we've obviously been looking at this at the select board level is what is the future use? 'cause there are future use scenarios, not pre-K using the building. There are future use scenarios that could limit the amount of investment that you would need to put into the existing structure at the Johnson property that might not trigger all of those code compliant requirements. Things like, like not that we're even looking at this,
but if you just use it for cold storage, you probably don't need to do upgrades If you're just using it for a back of house sort of like office space that's not public facing, you might be able to use portions of the building. So there, it really depends on that future use scenario will determine to what extent a any building needs to be updated to code compliance. That's, that's true with Johnson. It's true with any other building. It's become common knowledge just in the building world that historic renovations, not that this is deemed a historic property, but it would be cost of like a historic renovation
are actually exceeding new construction. So it's very possible, again, depending on a future use of any historic building or any building, that it's actually cheaper to demo rebuild for the same purpose than it is to to renovate an existing building to bring everything up to code. To what extent we have no idea on this property. It's just, that's a general understanding in sort of the building trades that I've been hearing from through our developers that we work with in town. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 17: So very, I'm just generalizing now so don't hold me to all those Nope. 'cause every building's different, every
property's different for sure. But those are some general things to, to keep in mind when it comes to repurposing a building that is really not up to any sort of modern day right code compliance. Speaker 2: Right. Thank you. So the summary of my motion and reasoning is that I, I'm, I would support B or DI just wanted to make sure we had a discussion about those two options. I'm gonna, Dr. Welch had a comment first and then I'll come back to Ms. Brunell. Speaker 10: I think my thinking along these lines is very similar to Ms. Brunes and I'm likely to support her motion in this regard. I think it is important that we achieve a number
of the objectives that have been outlined here and certainly the primary objective is that we build a new Memorial Elementary school. But in doing so, if we can achieve other objectives in a cost-effective way, I am likely to support motions and plans that would achieve those objectives in a cost-effective way. Namely we are gonna relieve a significant space constraint at a high school that is significantly overpopulated. It was, you know, 1630 built for 1,308 years from now. It's still gonna be 15, 20, 15, 25, 15 30.
I think it's incumbent upon us to support any motion that would relieve those concerns in a cost effective way. And I think secondly, many of us I think are intrigued by the idea of reducing the number of sites of pre-K across town and many of us have expressed different concerns about the different ways to do that. I would say I, nobody is gonna be on this committee or come before this committee with a greater love for the Johnson School and the Johnson building than, than myself. But if I were to say to the community I would like
to find a community space that used to be an elementary school that could support pre-K classrooms, that would help us consolidate pre-K space and get some of those pre-K classrooms out of the high school, somebody might reasonably come up to me and say we've got one at the corner of Route nine and Oak Street and Mr. Erickson has just described a number of upgrades that have happened in the last couple of years and I do feel some responsibility to try to vote for an option that achieves those things in the most cost effective way. And I, for those reasons, I think I am likely to support Ms.
Brunes motion here to say provided that we can, as reasonably as we can say that for the long, the foreseeable future we can find some way to make use of the east building given the investments that had been made. And given that there's no other law around is chapter 97, article 97, I'm working on my chapters and articles, you can quiz me next time. But given that there's nothing in the law that would prohibit us from using it for that purpose, for the foreseeable future, I think we could reasonably say
to the taxpayer in town that that option B gives us a way to do that in the most cost effective manner. And and I therefore am likely to support Ms. Bruno's thinking on that. I yield back. Speaker 2: So I Ms. Brunell will be next. Elise, I see you. So you'll be after, I don't know if you put your hand before and then we'll go to shy. So Katherine, I don't need to speak. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay, Ms. Corset We can, Speaker 19: Okay. Yeah, I think Mr. Welch
or Dr. Welch said everything that I was thinking, I feel like option B gives us a great deal of flexibility. So it's, it's regaining that space at the high school that we desperately need. It's using a space that is already working and will be, you know, a good host for pre-K for many years to come. And it's keeping us within the original scope of the memorial project, which I think is really important that we don't grow that proposal that we made. So I'm, I'm very excited by option B and I also heard what Ms. Brunell said about, you know, if option C
becomes a possibility at some point because of a choice of site location that would make that, you know, a more friendly destination for all of our preschool families, that that would be something that would be intriguing that I'd want to hear more about at that time. But I think I'd be very happy with option B. Thank you. Okay, Speaker 2: Dr. Fugman, Speaker 12: So I have two questions and then I have my my comments but suspense if I'm what Speaker 2: Go for it. Speaker 12: Is that right? Yeah. So my first question is for the administration and it's a educational education administration question.
I guess the overall, the three alternatives that we're talking about have the preschool in one place, so 10 classrooms in one place, in two places or in option D. Three places. Currently we're at three locations. Four. Four. No, three Three. Three. Three. Speaker 2: East Benham High Speaker 12: School. From the perspective of say the director of the preschool, from the perspective of teachers, from the perspective of central office, what are the benefits
and what are the drawbacks of having one versus two versus three sites? Like is one the best and three the worst or are there pros and cons of splitting them? Speaker 5: I can start and then if I miss, there's pros and cons of all of them. One consolidated site in a centralized area still presents a lot of traffic moving in, having it kind of on two, we've said many times tonight there's no site determined yet, but the old memorials on South Oak Street is north. So that's a nice kind of split. There's some economies of scale. I think when you get to three spots you have
what we call ancillary services. You have pt, physical therapy, occupational therapy, other therapies that are provided to many of our students there who are kind of traveling or become part-time FTEs to service smaller groups. Right now we have one class at Benham, we happen to have a veteran, very amazing teacher there. So it's easier. But I've been in my prior district at a place that had one preschool and it's very hard, let's say for a new teacher to acclimatize and feel part of the team there when they don't really have planning time together, they don't have like the time
to be part of a team. And we know that's a huge impact for retention when people feel they belong someplace. So to me, two or one are prime, three is harder, I would say our di I've talked to her many times, our director of the pre-K, she manages three amazingly well. I actually did, I met with her for her summative today and she said she made a schedule in the beginning of the year and she stuck to it and it was amazing. And at the beginning people were like, oh my gosh, you're here all the time. She truly was across all the sites. So it's totally doable.
I just think it's better for families as well as for the teachers, the staff, the leader to kind of have one or two sites optimally. I actually optimally, I think two sites for a driving standpoint from a community standpoint, one. So I'm saying very intuitive things, but they're worth kind of summarizing and maybe I missed some, I don't know. That's, that's where we are on this. We've talked about it a lot. Yeah, Speaker 12: I'm sure you did Shy. Hope she has three parking spots. Just like the next question is, is for you all,
one of the arguments I heard about Johnson is the town is gonna have to do something about Johnson, which means we're gonna have to invest money in the Johnson building. I don't know if you have an answer, but I'll ask, I'll ask a question anyway. Does a select board or you all have any kind of budget or budget range? Like have you ever, has anyone considered to say, we wanna spend no more than, or we wanna spend between this amount in whatever future use we do. Speaker 17: There? There's been no dialogue around like numbers. What we have heard very clearly from the public is minimize the financial impact on the, on the taxpayer as much as possible.
So that has been a clear message as well as, you know, try to make sure it's a a community use and, and like all, all those other things from around the use. But from a financing perspective, we, my impression, my my opinion is that we heard fairly clear that it should be minimizing the financial impact on the taxpayer. But we have not talked exact numbers 'cause so much depends on, on what it is that that would be happening there. Speaker 2: Okay. Did you have your comment that you wanted to make? Speaker 12: I do. Can I make a quick comment if it's clear? I mean now it's my position on the issue. I I will support the mo the first motion
to support option b. I wanna go through my reasons, although I don't think anything I'll say is, is has been, hasn't been said before, but removing those classrooms, some of the high school I think is key is one of, I know one of the priorities for the administration. I I agreed, I su fully supported it from the very beginning. Partially because it gives a benefit to the memorial project. The entire community, the entire community benefits from a new memorial school and the other alternate arrangements will, will be making in the case of option B to expand the space in the high school.
It's almost like we're building more space in the high school by doing this, the financial impact after an override. You know, I'm repeating a lot of what other people said, but you mentioned the override. I'm constantly thinking, I feel like personally responsible. I mean I think we all were all those of us who supported the override, we told the community give us this override now and we'll do the best we can to keep the cost down moving forward. This is an opportunity for the school committee to, to really bring that financial perspective. And that's why I was asking those questions about the E-school. It sounds like the e-school will, option B will the e-school
as alternative will be the one in essence the best financial perspective. And the third one I was gonna say, this is the only, you know, I was the first one to say it except you stole my, my thunder. It's, sorry. With all the emails that we've been getting and comments here about Memorial, if the memorial school would be in the original memorial spot being far away, I was thinking I don't know that there is a great location anywhere in town that anyone, you know, I mean Memorial is particularly south, but anywhere you go there's gonna be, it's gonna be far. And I think especially as someone
who lives in the memorial area and had to drive a child to Benham, driving through the 1 35 partition is, is miserable no matter which direction you're going. So the idea of having no matter where Memorial is, I'm guessing given where the other three schools are, the, the new memorial will most likely be south of 1 35. East obviously is north of 1 35. So that gives us two options, two satellite locations across town. So people in the south of town can go anywhere south of 1 35 can go to one location again, regardless of
where it is and the people north of 1 35. And that way we avoid anyone driving through Main Street to take their kids to preschool, which is I think again a huge benefit to the community. And you can have confirmed my last concern that having two sites is manageable. So I think that option B is, is absolutely the best one. Speaker 2: All right, we're going to do these and then we'll get to the public. It's Mr. Brunell, Mr. Patel, Ms. Collins, in that order, Speaker 8: I just think this is, the Johnson discussion is totally out of scope here at our table. And I, I understand that we talked about an alternate space
and so I just wanna e emphasize that, that that's why it came up here. And that is definitely a conversation that the select board, I wouldn't say that I have perceived everything that I've, that was said here tonight in the conversations that I've listened to the select board, I haven't heard all of them. I know that we have an invested community in all of our properties and buildings across the town and people wanna see good use that benefits families and citizens and people that work here. Like I think people like everyone wants
to see Natick thrive in every way, which I think is what you're saying as well. But I just think that the Johnson discussion is entirely out of scope. So B for me is an alternative space without me putting my thumb on the scale of what that alternative space is. Speaker 2: Mr. Patel. Speaker 20: All right. Okay. I agree with my colleagues here in that I think option B of all the options is the best one. However, I do wanna recognize some of its limitations. Both options B and D, both do still jeopardize the early education program
that happens at the high school. I believe it doesn't happen at E-school currently, simply because it would take too much time to travel between high school to E-school and if we expanded to the E school that that problem would still exist. And obviously the memorial, same thing. I think it's 12 to 15 minutes drive both ways. And then additionally Memorial is still at least four to five years away. So with regards to easing the space constraint of the high school, are they gonna need that space sooner rather than sooner than that?
And then would that require additional modules being the modulars being built before this solution is put in place. And then I did have some questions, but, so with regards to picking the options tonight, a lot of it relies on our contract, I guess with the town regarding e-school expansion and extension beyond 2030. So do we have any timeline, I know we have a select board in the audience here and I think one in online too, but have you, I know you haven't talked to your bosses,
but would there be a timeline of getting that approval? Is that possible before June 30th? Oh, Speaker 17: Before June 30th? No, Speaker 20: No, Speaker 17: No. That would be something that we would work on concurrently with, with the education plan probably over the next handful of months for a while. I, I don't see us getting, I mean we have the concept already in an MOU, so it's not as if we don't already have a working model that we're building off of. I just don't see a formal agreement in place in 15 days for, for, for that purpose, for extending beyond 2030 in,
in some respects, the, the arrangement, because we already have one is, is really just trying to solidify what we currently have more long term. I I say I need to review this with a select board more because I wanna make sure that they're fully endorsing the program. But ultimately town buildings do fall under my jurisdiction as town administrator. So at least for the foreseeable future I can continue to work with school administration and, and advancing the preschool program at that location. I don't see that being an issue we already have until 2030. I don't see that being an issue extending that beyond
that time at this point. I just can't, I, I do wanna make sure that my bosses have a, have an ability to weigh in, chime in, express their opinions, express our thoughts on this as well. And we're doing that largely as part of our other space conversations around, for example, like the call center which we need to also explore with, with the select board in the coming six months to a year, among other things that we're talking that, that are really beyond scope of this conversation tonight. Speaker 20: And option B is contingent upon expansion as well, not just extension beyond 2030. So do you foresee e school being able
to accommodate two more? Speaker 17: Well that's really school for your own school department. 'cause right now the school, the E school is currently housing in the space that we're talking about the ASAP offices as well as pre-K. So if the school department can handle, I mean we could theoretically do that even now, but that's really for the school department to figure out. Speaker 5: Yeah, I, I agree completely on the same page. Mr. Erickson Retro I think, I mean I haven't walked the space and I'm not an architect, but from looking at the space that ASAP currently has and the rooms for the preschool there right now are very large.
So we just need to go in and take a look to see if we could fit two classrooms in there, which wouldn't displace the Y. So we, that would be, depending on where the guidance goes, I don't wanna get out ahead of my skis, but depending on where that guidance go, we can get a quick answer to that just based on kind of some collaboration. But that's the vision in terms of the early childhood program, that is an absolute priority for us. So we'll figure out how to do that. Whether with, you know, a van, how it fits into the school day. That's something we do not want to sacrifice 'cause it is a rich and revered program.
So I understand it doesn't make, it's gonna have some challenges to kind of figure that out, but we are not gonna give that up. And then it's an interesting point in, I don't see any mods if we go this route. I don't see any recommendation to the capital plan for modular units at the high school. I, I would not feel good about making that recommendation nor would I feel good about putting myself behind that investment. It's significant and it's not easy, there's no like open space to put that on. But there is a possibility for kind of some moves earlier if we were able to expand those two classrooms at east
to move two classrooms over for now and kind of start a little increment in the high school space. I do also wanna credit Mr. Roach who's not here right now, who is helping give us a little bit of space his IT department has right now he's always the team player. So we're finding a, that does not surprise anybody, but we're finding a little bit more space right now at the high school just from con reconfiguring how our, IT uses that space. So we're trying to find every little piece we can and this will be just one part of it, but to me, and I haven't had conversation with the town, but if we, you know, started to explore this as Jamie said in the next several months we could see if
there could be a solution to opening up a little bit more space at the high school earlier. Speaker 20: Thank you. I'm sorry, some more? Yep. How much more? One more question, one more comment. Couple more questions, more one more question. Then we go to the next person. We'll come back to you. Okay, sure. Okay. So sorry is the education one time? Yeah, thank you. Is the educational program binding or just initial guidance? Is it like static or dynamic? Just because I know option B, you know, one of the reasons I would be voting for is 'cause it does have that flexibility of possibly changing it.
But if that's not an option, Speaker 16: So when when we submit to MSBA what we're gonna do and that gets approved in a project, you know, budget, scope and agreement, it is, it is binding then so, but we're not gonna be submitting in in December, January. Like it's gonna probably take a little longer before before we get there 'cause we have to study all the options and then pick the most preferred one and submit it to MSBA and have them approve it and then we would get into schematic design. But once, once it's approved you don't really get the chance
to go changing it. At least I've never been anywhere where that's, some discussions have come up but where people have actually decided to change what MSVA already approved because you, you, you submit it pretty clearly, people vote on it, everybody knows what you're doing. Maybe not everybody is, maybe the vote isn't unanimous but everybody is pretty clear on how the project's gonna proceed. Speaker 20: Okay. Today we're just voting on a guidance that more or less, okay, we'll come back to you. Thank you. I promise Ms. Collins, Speaker 14: So don't shoot me. Is there space for an additional PK classroom at Benham?
Speaker 5: It's a good question and it's one that we did consider and if you look at option D need glasses D that's slide 11. Yeah blue in a pinch with not expanding those two spaces, we would move because we are prioritizing freeing up the high school. We would move one into Benham, which I think is our elementary school with more space that could be had. So we'll find it there. There's no identified space now, but we'll figure it out. Speaker 14: Okay, my concern with all of these is
that it doesn't increase the size of our PK program and that's what I hear from people. We need more slots. So my own preference is that we go with D except we make the four slots at the alternate space, which is currently east six slots to give us more rooms. And I think if you put another CLA pre-kindergarten class at Behe, then there's two and then they can talk and they can plan together and they're not so much of an island out on them on their own. Hmm. And Mr.
Gillis, while I love you and respect you, construction inflation is been considerably higher than 5%. So I don't think those numbers are real. So what I'm not sure is if we were to change the alternate space, would it have to come back to this committee? In other words, I'm not voting on any plan that would sink 10, 20, $30 million into Johnson. 'cause we don't have. Yep. Whereas East is, as Mr. Erickson said,
is pretty low cost and Benham is already functioning as an, as an early childhood space. I, I just, so I don't know really what I'm being asked to do here. Speaker 5: Yep. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 8: Can we move the question, is that an option in this committee? Speaker 2: I don't know if it's an option but I'd like to make sure they have. I Speaker 8: Think it is parliamentary Speaker 14: It is, it is under Robert's rules if that's your question. Speaker 8: Okay. I'm gonna move the question. Speaker 2: So what does that mean? Speaker 14: It means we vote if so if she gets a second we vote on it without taking any
more input or Speaker 2: Questions. So let me ask a procedural thing. 'cause I would like to be able to give the public an opportunity to ask their questions. Would that fill, allow this would preclude this would preclude that that is, what does that mean? I just have a quick question. Yep. Okay. Speaker 12: If we go with option, maybe it's for administration, if we go for option B, does that precludes us adding to classrooms and basically doing what can we do option B and then go to Kathy's option? Speaker 5: If I'm understanding right, I think what I'm hearing is some concern about
how would we expand were that to be the vision for the preschool expansion for the preschool and integrated pre-K isn't based on just pre-K demand, it's based on matching t typical peers to, I just wanna clear for those who don't, don't know that. So we'd automatically have two spaces there at Benham that we could increase to, to get 12 if that's what we needed. I did talk to the preschool director today and there is some pressure up in terms of, in terms of needing more students needing preschool. There's also other ways that we have
in mind first to kind of not need to expand beyond 10. Speaker 2: So before we proceed, Mr. Noll made a motion. Does anybody wanna second it? Speaker 3: I sorry. Seconded. Speaker 2: Oh did she, did she did you do? I'm assuming I didn't hear that but okay. Do Speaker 14: You want to ask Ms Speaker 2: Gothe go Ms to if she did in fact second the motion. I mean I trust Mr. Nel. I Speaker 19: I I didn't second it did not, I'm sorry I was muted. No. Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. You Speaker 8: Move the question ist a motion move the questions just something that happens, right? It doesn't move the question.
Speaker 14: Is that a procedural Speaker 8: Motion? Yeah, it doesn't need to be seconded. Speaker 14: Yes it does. Speaker 8: Okay. I have bad, Speaker 2: Would anybody like to second it? Okay, I'm Speaker 8: Gonna withdraw my motion. I just would like to Speaker 2: Move on. I know you do but we're gonna, we're gonna give an opportunity for the public to speak unless Mr. Patel, I promised you I'd come back to you if you would like to. Would you like to? Yes, please. Speaker 20: Okay. Speaker 2: Yeah, if you could be brief that would be lovely. Sure, Speaker 20: Absolutely. Yeah. I do wanna concur with Ms. Collin's suggestion about, you know, expanding into Bennett Hemingway, one of my, one of as a preschool parent who just had a preschooler graduate
or sort of graduate soon congratulations From the high school program. I just want us say have been very fortunate and it's sucks that not everyone's able to access this program because of the lottery system through the enrollment program numbers that we just voted on. The difference between pre-K and K is 147 to 361. So only 40% of the kids are able to access the pre-K in this town. And that mean that's not unique in amongst our DART schools, but Melrose is able to get up to 90% on that. So it's not that there isn't demand, there is clearly demand
for pre-K, it's just we don't have the space capacity. And I think Mr. Erickson said that with e school, whenever, you know they've had any space available, they've quickly been able to fill that up. So are there any any additional spaces currently available that we could move or expand the pre-K program to if you wanted to? Speaker 17: At the E school? No, these school right now is at capacity. You have the four classrooms plus the ASAP offices plus two classrooms worth of YMC after school programs. So something would have to move, whether it's the ASAP program
or the YMCA program out of the E school in order to add anything in there. It's pretty much at capacity right now, but it's just a movement thing. It's, it's, that's why I can accommodate real, really a host of different options. But at the e school, no. And then outside the E school that there's no other town building other than one that Shelby renamed remain nameless that doesn't have a DA compliance. So there's really no other ready town building. Speaker 20: I would just like to state that I, I understand it's an integrated program. I would like it to be a universal pre-K program if possible and in the future have the select board
and the school committee discuss options for possibly being able to make that come true. And just as they Melrose that dart school that's able to achieve this has a similar pay structure for classes. So it is still coming out of the parents as opposed to raising the taxes. Speaker 2: Alright, thank you. So we're gonna take, how many people from the audience are interested in speaking? I see one, two, anybody online? Three. Anybody online? Okay. Four. Four. Is this one person online? Alright, so we'll do all four people,
but I would ask that we keep our comments relatively brief, like one question, one comment, something like that. All right. Or whatever, you know, or keep the, let's try to keep it brief if we can. Dr. Mackenzie, would you like to go first? Speaker 21: Thanks Donna Mackenzie. I, I will be brief. I have a question and Mr. Rogers kind of question, if we're expanding the neighborhood, like welcome to the neighborhood and we're adding kids from possibly and some of the other schools because they're getting more filled to capacity and we're building the school a little bit bigger. Is there any wiggle room with MSBA?
I like the statement on this that the goal is to optimize the MSBA reimbursement as much as possible. Is there any way that they would reimburse for more than four classrooms if indeed we're expanding the neighborhood? Speaker 2: Yes. Mr. Mr. Gillis Speaker 16: Question. I can't speak for them but I'll I'll take a guess. And they already understand that we'd be expanding the neighborhood as we went from 436 students to five 70. They could see the buffer, they could see the, the, the abutting zones of Lilja and Brown that,
but the memorial zone. So that's likely where we'd get the kids from. That's also where the modular classrooms are that would be coming off. So generally it's gonna be the shortest distance. So that's already factored into what they gave us. So we can ask, I just, Speaker 21: It'd be great if you asked. I Speaker 16: I I, you know, I I don't want to get people's hopes up that it, that it's gonna be highly probable Speaker 21: And I, I appreciated Mr. Welch's comment about the use of the left over money from Kennedy and I'm wondering for me what isn't,
what's missing in this is not a strong enough stress on the educational focus. I mean, I see a real concern on finances and cutting back finances and transportation and all of that. But I wanna hear a more focus on the education. What is the best educational way to configure this for our kids? And are we introducing an equity issue if we are having a brand new preschool in Memorial wherever it's built. And I assume that those classrooms are gonna co cohere with an educ a new educational philosophy for preschool, right?
Like we did in the new spaces in Kennedy and in the high school. And are we creating an equity issue so that kids going to preschool in East are not gonna have the same opportunity as kids going to a preschool in the new memorial school? I, I just would like to see more discussion on the educational part of this and how it coheres and I don't think, I mean there's all kinds of questions about distance and everything else, but there really could be a great advantage with option C
and putting it all together. Thank you. Speaker 5: Yeah, I, I totally agree. I can't wait to get to a conversation about the educational program, but that's really why we're here because we haven't, that's the summer work and we wanna wrap that up by October. So this is the guidance to consolidate not four different educational programs which we wouldn't be able to get done to one. So that is coming. I appreciate and deeply respect your suggestion, which is to ensure we have an equity lens when we go through this educational program and kind of answer that question. Is there, are we creating an equity issue? 'cause that is definitely not what we wanna do.
So received and I agree. So you're ahead of us. That's coming once we get kind of the guidance that's part of the process. Speaker 2: Thank you Mr. Lunta online. Would you like to, we'll we'll ask you to unmute momentarily. Can you, can you unmute? Are we good? He's good. Okay. Can you hear us? Speaker 22: Yeah, I can hear you. Perfect. Sorry, I'm trying to make myself visual so you can see me, but that's okay. So I'm Brian Lunta, 20 Locust Street Town meeting member. If you don't mind, I'll keep this really quick, but I had like three questions in a comment. So first I'm just gonna go
as a town, not just the school committee, we're really looking at like three properties here, Johnson East School and Memorial. And the goal is to build a new memorial that fits all the town's needs. But without looking at these three properties consecutively and what they would actually do for the town and what the town's needs are, I feel like we're not really being efficient at all. I think that we're missing a lot that we're gonna kick down the road and it's gonna fall on the town administrator or the select board to fix a problem that we could have fixed all together in a conversation.
I just want to comment that. And then my two questions, the YMCA, do they pay rent there and what is it? Speaker 17: I, I'd have to confirm that we do have an agreement with them. I they, they do pay some level of cost mainly to cover the cost of the building like energy and, and their use of the building. But I don't think it's like a market rate per se. 'cause the intent of the YMCA programs provide an affordable aftercare program. So the more we charge them, the more we're actually impacting our family. So we were trying to make sure that it was, it's covering our costs but not something that we were necessarily generating revenue from. Speaker 22: Okay. So it's looked, it's more of a service to the town.
Understood. Yep. That perfectly good explanation for that. The other two questions I had were, my son currently goes to E-school right now, it's his last week before he goes to kindergarten. I have absolutely nothing but phenomenal things to say about the whole program and the whole experience there. When you count one classroom, are we talking about one actual classroom or are we talking about the AM and PM class counting as two separate classes? Speaker 5: That's a reference to the physical room space. Some of them have a full day program, some have half day in both sites. Okay. Yep.
Speaker 22: Thank you. And then you kind of touched on this too, but when we were at town meeting, I think it was maybe in the fall and we were approving the, the feasibility study for this. We went through a bunch of slides and stuff where all of these schools are at either at or above their capacity. So I'm just struggling to see, and I remember specifically pictures of Ben Hem 'cause I went to the old Ben Hamm and to be watch it get knocked down and rebuilt and then see pictures of kids learning with partitions
and stuff in between classrooms. How on earth could you even fit another classroom in there if that's what you're showing videos of to talk us into having a feasibility study to do this. Speaker 5: Yep. The video and all the pictures that were shown at town meeting were all of Memorial school, not of Benham. Speaker 22: Okay. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 22: Alright, that's it. I'm glad you took the extra couple minutes to answer my questions and thank you so much for digging into this and taking the time to help the town and get this going. Speaker 2: Thank you Ms. Vickers. Speaker 8: Thank you so much. Brinley Vickers Town meeting member.
I, so I know I've been maybe a thorn, so I really wanna start off by saying thank you so very much to everyone who has given me time and conversation and I wanna thank you very much right now and I'm just gonna do it for the whole town. 'cause E even if everybody's not listening, I wanna say there are a lot of people who've been waiting for this conversation to happen in this full of a manner earlier in the night instead of as the last agenda item. And I realize that that has been a little bit taxing, but I for 1:00 AM very grateful for it. And so I wanted to say that to you guys out loud so that it you, I'm thankful for the conversation.
So I'm going to keep my questions to a zero and my comments really quickly. I've been saying this a lot to anybody who will listen or anybody who's interested in, so I feel like I wanna say it out loud. This is a quarter, it's two sides. I view us as two sides of one coin. We have one pocketbook. So when you guys are talking about it's this project or that project or otherwise, it's the same pocket book. So whatever town administration is spending, it's the same pocket book as whatever school committee is spending. So I really feel like when we're having these conversations,
that conversations, we should all remember that 'cause it's not two separate pocket books. And sometimes it sounds like maybe we forget that. Secondly, we did spend money on an enrollment study. So I think that as we move through these conversations, that it's good to look at them again for where growth is in town and how that's happening. 'cause I think that should matter. And then when we're talking about Memorial and how it's doing, I printed a couple of pages for the size, for the footprint. And the more we put in that space, the less likely we are
to fit that building in that space. I actually think Memorial is a wonderful place for a school where it currently is. And if we don't try to have a conversation where it solves all of our problems, maybe we get to actually keep a school that fits our needs and our budget in that space. I also think that sometimes we don't have conversations that look at the whole picture more. And if we pick prioritizing MSBA solely
over having the conversation of who we are as a town and how as a town we want to spend our money, that sometimes we might be forgetting that there is also other things that will be affected that will cost us money. For instance, if Memorial is huge and we loof lose field space, we are then trying to figure out what to do about field space. Just as a little example, again, I am unbelievably grateful that you guys had this conversation this evening. I hope that we try to have these conversations a little earlier in the process next time. And I thank you guys very much for your time tonight.
Speaker 2: Thank you. One more comment from the public and then we will vote. Speaker 23: Hi, I'm Debbie, Sarah Lambrecht and the only, I had a point kind of to what Jamon was saying, there's a lot of families that are really distressed that they cannot get into the preschool program. And I just worry about equity in the town as we move programs further away. So you've got working parents, the HF Day program is already difficult for people when you're raising special needs children, that's an added burden for families that they're already dealing with.
And I just, the equity issue, especially if we were, I, I'm happier with some of the discussions. I'd like option B relatively, but some of the discussions around growing memorial and moving so many families down there, I just don't know how working parents are going to navigate that drive. On top of the, already I'm an admin on Natick moms. I look at the number of people that are just so frustrated with the preschool lottery system and just the confusion around it each year
and how it, it's just not a clear, and so when things aren't clear, I feel like there become questions around equity and sometimes clarity is necessary. And I just, I, I feel like the memorial space is gonna be very difficult for many families to get to. So, and then if the memorial space is the nice space, is there gonna be a con, is it gonna be another situation where the Wilson versus the Kennedy were really upset the families that their children didn't have the same experience? So that's my 2 cents.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank Speaker 23: You. Speaker 2: Okay. Shall we vote? We shall. Great. I feel like that was very loud. So the first motion that, so we'll take them in the order that we, they were received was the, was Ms. Purnell's motion to recommend option B as the educational program guidance to the district. So we'll vote on that first. And if that as if that majority votes in favor of that, we will not vote for the second motion, which was mine, but I won't lose sleep over it.
All right. Are we clear on what we're voting for? Great. So this is the motion to recommend option B, the two sites option to the district for the educational program. All right. Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? No. Mr. Patel. Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Eth? Yes. And I am a no. So that is 5 2 0. And the second motion is moot. So we have a recommendation. Thank you everybody for that.
This, we're not done with the meeting, by the way, but for those who are interested in that moment, I appreciate the conversation and everybody's hard work. And Mr. Erickson and Mr. Skye, thank you for being here. You got cake for it, so that's pretty good. Thank you. Could thank you so much. And Speaker 24: I'm gonna charge you more next time. Speaker 2: Oh, Speaker 24: Than cake. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Speaker 24: If you see a Speaker 2: Road runner style meet meep, Speaker 24: What the cost of the fight, Speaker 2: We can put the 4.9 million towards that. 40%. Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna continue to go a little bit outta order now, and we're gonna do the superintendent's
evaluation discussion next. So for those who are tuning in for the first time on our previous meeting, we did a working discussion where we, everybody gave feedback. We did Dr. SP's evaluation publicly. In the interim and attached to the agenda is the final report. I shouldn't say final until we voted, but the report, the actual evaluation, if anybody has comments or would like to make a motion, now is the time Speaker 8: Move to approve the superintendent's evaluation as
as reported on June 16th. June 15th. Second. I hate when you start out so. Well, it was a lot. Speaker 2: Any, any discussion or debate about that? No. Okay. We will vote. Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Yes. And I'm a Yes. You have an evaluation. All right, let's go back to the strategic plan memo. And now, we'll, now we will proceed in, in the order when we're almost done. Perfect.
Speaker 5: Okay, great. I, I wanna thank the committee very much for a unanimous evaluation. Appreciate all the work and discussion that went into it very much. Maybe next year the memo won't be 18 pages. So my apologies. 19. Was it 19? Speaker 8: No, you don't have to say next year. 19 20, 28. Speaker 5: I'll make an appendix. Joking aside, I love telling the stories of this district because it's pretty fabulous here. So, okay. Strategic plan presentation. We took the feedback and we incorporated it into a memo. I'm just gonna give a highlight to the things
that we tried to incorporate. We are seeking the committee's vote on this tonight. If it pleases the committee, we'd love to get it to kind of get published this summer. So the revisions that we made, we added to focus area three, the words two-way communication. We appreciated that and added it to the actual header of the priority. So in the deck you'll see priority 3.1 was updated from improve coherent and coordinated communication to improve coherent and coordinated two-way communication. We also added a glossary of terms. We do apologize that sometimes documents like this can get
a bit deep and jargony. And we did kind of put a disclaimer page on that. And actually, I think it's 39 items that we tag to put into the glossary. We then ta there's really just in the memo, we talk about budget and resource alignment and our just commitment to continue to make sure that we hope to be investing in our strategic plan using strategic allocations, which is what we've been doing. And we anticipate having robust conversation in our budget committee meetings around that. And also to really resource align. So everything we're doing right now should be aligned
to the strategic plan, then we're very committed to that. And then around value and resource stewardship. Again, the efficiency in implementing this, we wanna make sure that we're kind of not as having all sorts of extra acts in the future. So that, that's really the, the recommendations and the notes we took down. Hopefully we didn't miss anything. But those are all incorporated into the final version. Speaker 2: Any comments or questions? 'cause I just have one. And of all the changes you made, what you did not change was the awful picture of me. Speaker 12: Oh, there's a picture. I Speaker 5: Don't remember hearing that. And the Speaker 2: Feedback and No, I didn't give the feedback before, but it's not a great picture.
Like there's a good one there. There. That might be the, that might be the better. There might not be a good one. Speaker 10: Is the chair accepting comments on his photo? Speaker 2: What's that? Is Speaker 10: The chair accepting comments on his photo? Speaker 2: The chair? Yeah, I guess I am. But, but maybe in the spirit of time we can save them for another. Does anybody have any comments on the actual substance of the, of the strategic plan updates? If not a motion. Dr. Fugman, can I do both? Yes. Speaker 12: So I just wanna say thank you so much for making the changes. I know that even till last minute there were some changes. So thank you so much. Sure. It looks great. And with that, I'll make a motion to approve the strategic plan.
Speaker 2: Second motion by Dr. Fugman. Seconded by Dr. Welch. He just by a nose me out. Yes. And that's it. Any comments or debate? Seeing none, we will vote. Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Pernell? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Yes. And I am a yes. And let's not let that moment pass. That's a pretty big moment. What just happened there? So let's, Speaker 25: That's true Speaker 5: In the interest of time. 'cause I know it's getting late. I can assure the committee we're already working on the
benchmark measures and surveys to our cabinet's. A little tired of me, but it's exciting. We're getting there. So we're already working on kind of next year's goals and stuff. So we have more to come. That'll be in September. But it was fun. Okay. You want me to Speaker 2: Go on? Yeah, Speaker 5: Let's go. The next one I'm gonna give to deputy superintendent, chief Academic Officer Sue Balone. And I just was so excited about this that I asked her to write a memo because they're already doing a lot to kind of start getting people ready to launch our new curricula next year.
So you wanna go over that? Sure. Speaker 25: So I thought it was important that we share with you the things that we are already doing as we're rolling out new curricula. So this has been a very busy room. In the past three weeks, we have already had six sessions of professional learning for all of our elementary educators, including our general education classroom teachers, our ESL teachers, our special education teachers, our administrators,
our coaches full day sessions with the CKLA trainers, in addition to three days of trainings at the middle school for all of the educators there. So it's been a very busy few weeks. Very exciting, lots of great positive feedback about the trainings. And in the memo that I shared also gives you the outline of all of the trainings that we have planned
for next year. In addition to that, we will also be hosting, it's not on here yet, but we'll be hosting sessions for the start of the school year for all of the educators that get hired over the summer or that have been hired this spring that we were not able to bring in for the trainings that happened. Some educators that we hired from positions that if they were paras and we're moving them into teacher roles or interventionists, et cetera, and we hired them within, then we were able to bring them in for the training. So they're already trained.
And then any Program programs. So you'll see CKLA language studio companion training. So any of those trainings, that's for our ESL educators. So those trainings are already happening and scheduled as well. So we were just really excited about the energy that was happening in the room. I actually spent a full day in the room here with our educators for one of the trainings and it was fabulous. It was, the vibe in the room was really positive and exciting. Lots of great questions. Engagement, they walked
through a full lesson together, so they were fully engaged and they're, they're excited. They're ready. So, great stuff. Any Speaker 2: Any comments, questions? Dr. Welch? Speaker 10: Just first of all, thank you for your work on this. I know this is a lot to, to roll this out. Just to be clear, this is at some point everybody in K to four will participate in this if they haven't already. Speaker 25: This is everyone right now. Yeah. Who will be with us next year. Got it. And then anyone who,
and that's all of our special educators. Everyone has had this training. Anyone who has not been hired yet or who's hired, but you know, they're still working in another district. Right. Or they will be hired at the beginning of the school year. Great. Right. Speaker 2: Thank you. I yield back. Any others? All right. We don't have a vote on this one, so thank you for, for the update. Speaker 5: I feel like you should just dropped the mic. Speaker 25: Done. Speaker 5: Feels good. We have new curriculum, K eight literacy. Like this is amazing. This is an exciting stuff. So happy. All right. Awesome. You wanna talk about an equity move? This is one huge one. So Ms.
Baldoni has one more, which is our annual update about kindergarten enrollment. Speaker 25: Yeah. So I came to you in May and gave you the update of where we are. Were, I've given you the update as of June 11th when I ran this. Some slight changes, just a couple of increases. But I also wanted to give you the anticipated enrollment based on when we send out our intent letters, asking families to let us know if they intend to enroll based on the census.
We have quite a few families who either let us know that they intend to enroll and either started their registration and did not complete it. They completed their registration paperwork and have not responded to their emails to make an appointment and come in and complete their paperwork or never responded. But the census tells us that they live here and they have a child of age. So right now we have 330 students who are fully registered,
but we have 366 students that we are anticipating. So there's 36 kids out there that we think should be coming to us. But we're not worried because based on the way those kids, their addresses, where we think they live, we have space for them without the need for additional educators. So we, they are spread out across the district. So we have, we have a space for them. So, and we always have a couple that might move out
and a couple that might move in. So we're in, we're in good shape. Our registrar, Linda Berg monitors it closely over the summer as she does registrations and she keeps me informed on, on a regular basis. So we continue to watch it, but our numbers align with this current year. So we're in good shape. Speaker 2: Any questions? Seeing none. Thank you. I shall take the floor before I forget. We're gonna, next thing we're gonna do is the action item that's buried on the last page.
So I just don't wanna forget that. So we're just gonna do it right now. This is a vote. So I would need a motion. Hang on, let's get the same motion now we're just gonna take a pause. Yep. There it is. Is Ms. Collins gonna get that motion or somebody else can do it? Who can get there faster? Speaker 10: I move there it Speaker 2: Is that we Speaker 10: Approve all it MOUs that were approved and presented in executive session second. Speaker 14: That's not what we voted earlier. Speaker 2: It's not exact. I mean we have to have to the Speaker 14: Future Speaker 2: The, the fu. Yeah. Do you take a friendly amendment to that? I Speaker 10: Absolutely Speaker 2: Would. Yeah. Once Ms. Collins finds it, you don't have to have it handy. Do
Speaker 3: I? Speaker 14: What's the problem is I can't read half of what's in Speaker 3: Front of them. Lemme give them back Speaker 2: What Dr. Sp might have it written right here. She's gotta get through the 45 pages of paper Speaker 14: Front. ITT MOUs current in in future. Oh, we did. We gave them all back. That's why I can't find Speaker 3: Papers that Speaker 2: I'm gonna start looking through my papers. Speaker 3: Nine 30. Yeah, Speaker 2: This was a, yeah. Ruffle, ruffle, ruffle or something. Speaker 3: I'm looking Speaker 2: Papers. Speaker 10: Mr. Chairman, I would withdraw my motion at this time. Speaker 2: I will accept that if Mr. Patel will withdraw his second. Here it is. Withdraw. Speaker 3: Can you give that to Speaker 2: Ms. Collins or yourself?
Somebody can make it. Thank you. Speaker 14: Move the school committee approve the use of this developed MOU template dated six 11 for all current and future shared it positions. Speaker 2: Second. There it is. Motion by Ms. Collins. Seconded by Mr. Patel. We will vote. Dr. Welch. Yes. Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 2: And I'm a yes. Six zero. Zero. Good job. Next. Next item. Speaker 3: Gardner. Speaker 2: Oh, right.
There's one more in, there's one more in there. Sorry. The non-res schedule one might not be on that memo. Speaker 3: Oh, the range. Do you have that one? The, the Speaker 2: Hold on. Linda's now looking through her 900 pages. Speaker 3: You remember the name of it With the role Speaker 2: IT security analyst both Speaker 14: Move to add the IT security analyst to the Mret PayScale. Speaker 2: Is that correct? Per the memo? Per the memo. Per Speaker 14: The memo dated six 11. Great. Speaker 2: Second Motion by Ms. Collins. Seconded by Mr. Patel. We will vote and
jamon Dr. Welch? Yes. Dr. Fnu? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Eth? Yes. And I'm a yes. Six oh oh and that. Speaker 3: Alright, Speaker 2: Now we can go to the FY 27 school committee calendar. I'll just say before we go, this doesn't have to be, I don't think a, a terribly long conversation. We have talked about this in in the past. This is the, basically the tentative schedule for next year's school committee meetings. For those still watching, this is our final televised meeting of the school year. We discussed potentially exploring the idea of
EE either swapping out some of those meetings that are scheduled to make them retreats that this doesn't preclude that from happening or finding other dates or things like that. So the, there, that's the FY 27 school calendar. School committee meeting calendar. I would take a motion. Oh, do we need to, it's not an action item. No. Do we need to vote on it? No, it's just an fyi. It's an fyi. Yeah. Great. Speaker 14: Done. Speaker 2: Fyi. Received. Received. Great. One Speaker 14: Last thing. Have it on Speaker 2: The public. What's that? One last? Yes, we know. I'm not gonna forget the one last thing. And so now we're gonna do the,
the policy subcommittee update. Ms. Collins? Speaker 14: Yes. We received information from DESI regarding the use of physical restraints and timeout practices in public schools. They revised the requirements they need to be in place by August 18th or 19th? 17th. 18th, 17th County. So it, it does things like says restraints are last option prohibits certain practices. It clearly defines what a timeout is. Some monitored, non locked setting
where students must be continuously observed and allowed to leave once regulated, enhances the safety. And two of the most important parts are it enhances the training that's required and the reporting that's required for monitoring purposes. So you got this the first time Speaker 2: Two weeks Speaker 14: Ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago. And then we didn't have a chance to do anything. And then last week we didn't have it on the agenda. So it was sent out separately, but you should have had a chance to receive it and read it. Speaker 2: Right. So just to, just for clarity, I neglected
to put this on the previous agenda. Normally our, our, our norm with policies is that we visit them, discuss them in one meeting, and then we vote the subsequent meeting. Unless there is a time constraint or a, you know, a need that we have to do it faster. And so in this case we have to do it faster, which is why we, I reminded everybody two weeks ago that this was coming up. So hopefully people had a chance to peruse any, is is that all the info? That's, any questions or comments or Ms. Bel, do you wanna, or do you wanna, Ms. Miller's, Ms. Miller's here to, do you have anything you wanna add to that
or you just wanna answer questions? Great, Dr. Welch, because I had Speaker 14: A good memo to work from. Speaker 2: Yeah, Dr. Welch with a question or comment, just a brief Speaker 10: Two part question. It was an excellent memo and I appreciate the subcommittee's work on this. My two part question is just number one, this policy would apply to all staff in the building, is that correct? Yes. And would that include school resource officers? Speaker 26: I, school resource officer? I, I don't wanna misrepresent that question. So I think I would, I would probably have to have some input from our safety officer
and to get, think about what our MOU says around that. Okay. I don't wanna misrepresent that answer. They they do not. They have a different level of safety care training. So I I I'm gonna add, I'm gonna get some clarity on that. Speaker 10: In, in an ordinary situation where a student was dysregulated, typically an SRO would not be asked to respond to that situation anyway. Speaker 26: SRO would never is not involved in our crisis management process. Yeah. In general. Okay. So that, that may help answer that question. They're not someone who would be, oh, thank you. Sorry. Speaker 27: They're not someone who would be involved in that process. The crisis management of whether a restraint
or a timeout would ever need to be used. They would not engage in that process. They have not historically Speaker 10: Understood. Thank you. I yield back. Speaker 2: Any other questions or comments? Seeing none a motion would be lovely. Speaker 14: Move to replace policy JKAA with the new and revised policy on physical restraints of students. Speaker 2: Second. Motion by Ms. Collins. Seconded by Mr. Patel. Any comments, questions, debate. Seeing none, Dr. Welch? Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 2: Dr. Fesman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes.
Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Goeth? Speaker 26: Yes. Speaker 2: And I'm a yes. 6 0 0. Speaker 10: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Second, Speaker 2: Before I vote on that, I would just like to say congratulations to everybody. Not debatable motion. It's not a, this is an announcement. 'cause the moment I, we vote this, it's gonna, I'm just saying have a great end of your school year and a great summer. Unless you come to one of our meetings we can talk about it. And to Linda, thank you again. Speaker 10: Thank you so much. Speaker 2: I was hoping that somebody would make a really long motion so she would've to write it down. Dr. Welch?
Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 2: Dr. Fugman? Yes. Ms. Collins? Yes. Mr. Patel? Yes. Ms. Corset? Yes. And I'm a yes. We are adjourned. Happy End of school.