good evening everyone calling the Tuesday March 11th public hearing to order I will start this public hearing by reading our school mission statement the Norfork Public Schools offers a safe joyful and challenging learning environment that meets the needs of our diverse students through school family
and Community Partnerships we provide an education that inspires lifelong Learners and cultivates caring and productive citizens of our changing world can I have our roll call please Grace lockhead madora champagne Lisa Sheldon Miriam Goodman Victoria San
and G ly I will hand it over to the budget presentation sure so thank you all for joining us tonight um we are thrilled to be able to present the proposed fiscal 2026 budget for the norol public schools
um I think we like to start by just acknowledging that we're fortunate to be part of a community that regularly shows such strong support for Education um not just fiscally through town meeting but also through all the parents and community members that regularly volunteer in our schools whether it's lunch duty or for special events and
programs um that attend our our concerts and our evening events so um thank you to all of you for the work that you do to help our schools and help us uh provide the best education possible for all of our children we have a brief budget presentation tonight we'd like to start
by just sharing the district mission and vision statement which you can see up on the screen um Norfolk has always been committed to offering a safe joyful challenging learning environment um and we work hard during the budget process to make sure when we have to make reductions or when we're looking to add
that we keep the instructional core at the center of all of our decision-making so we work hard to protect programs academic programs to provide support where it's needed and to make sure that any decisions we make will have the greatest yield in return on student achievement and learning
presentation tonight is divided into six sections so we'll start with giving you brief history of the um the budget in norfol and what that's looked like over time we'll talk about per pupil spending comparisons and how spending in Norfolk um aligns with our uh comparison communities and our our regional
neighbors and then we'll talk about the 2026 budget request specifically so what's included in the budget uh where we are making some minor reductions and where we're looking to grow programs uh we then we'll talk about enrollment in class size projections and what we were not able to fund in this budget request
that are that remain critical needs for the norol district um after the presentation we will take public comment and feedback on the budget from the public so starting with the budget history I think it's really important for the town to be aware as most of you
are we've had a lot of conversations around this but enrollment in Northfolk has been steadily growing so if you look back in 2015 we had about 825 students in our school schs that number has grown steadily between over the last 10 years um entering 2026 we will have 190
students more than we had um back when when we looked at this first at 2015 so enrollment is growing steadily it's been a little bit uneven so if you look at patterns of growth the largest growth started at the age all of day which makes a lot of sense when families are
looking for uh uh to move and to find a community they often come in at the younger grades so that students start within the schools so we've seen the greatest growth at the AG all of Day in 2015 we had 331 students currently we've 454 and that is only K to2 that does not
include our preschool numbers we have 62 students in our preschool currently um preschool enrollment is capped at 62 because that's all the space that we have back in 2015 all families that were interested in preschool came into the district and registered and started in
the program currently the demand has increased significantly but we don't have space to grow the program so we now have seven families approximately on the weight list at all times for preschool um again that shows you the net growth between two buildings uh over
the last 10 years at about 190 students it's critical to recognize that as the enrollment is growing that does have a direct impact on how we staff our school dist our school buildings and on budget and um budget planning so as we add more students to the district we
have over the past 10 years had to add additional classroom teachers in order to maintain appropriate class sizes we've also added special education teachers about 19% of our students receive specialized services so that the population of students within our district receiving Services has grown
proportionally to the overall growth um so we've added paraprofessional staff members we've also had to increase our special subject staff so art music and wellness we've added time to the schedules for all of those positions because they've had to pick up an incorporate additional class Home Room
classrooms um we've had to increase hours for cafeteria staff at the HL day um our lunch program begins really with brunch at 10:30 with the first lunch um and that is because we have too many students to have them all eat together at one time so we have multiple uh lunch
periods for individual grade levels we've increased hours for cafeteria staff and we've also increased general education support so we've added reading Specialists and math Specialists over the years to meet the needs of more students it hasn't increased frequency or the amount of time students are receiving but just to um uh address the
expanded case loads maram I think you're doing federal funds yes all right so uh just a little bit about our federal funding Federal funding is based on student enrollment um and our Title One title 2 a and title four funds are uh based on our lowincome
numbers um they offset the cost of a part-time math specialist at the HL of day and they also provide funds FS for um professional development programming the lwi income data is pulled from the federal census data which has historically um underestimated the
number of students eligible and in 24 FY 24 we were notified that we were in a warning status um so we were thinking uh at the end of 24 that we might not be getting our Title One money in FY 25 we did end up getting that money um as well
as title 2 um and title 4 as well um so uh but was a year in FY 24 in FY 23 that we did not have Title One money and in FY 24 that we didn't have title 4 money so we're getting all of that now to the
tune of a total of 36,000 in change um we um our low income numbers have uh risen over time um from roughly 4.7% in 2019 to 7.7% in 24 um now they're at
9.03% anticipated for FY 26 um we we believe that that's due to the opening of the base State uh temporary resit Center and we anticipate the funding will continue as a result of that um that those limited funds these
title grants will be available next year based on that funding uh on the right side of the screen you'll see Federal funding for our special education programs um also based on student enrollment data in those programs students on iips um our idea Grant funds
um par professional support for students uh with special needs our our Ida preschool program funds the same par professional for in our preschool programs and um our sped professional development Grant funds professional
development and some technology um for uh the special education program we anticipate that this Federal funding is going to remain the consistent and it has remained consistent over the past several years and we anticipate that we will be getting it next year as
well so talking a little bit about Chapter 70 um Chapter 70 impacts all communities differently it's a formula ba it's formula based on and it starts with the foundation budget which is based on three key factors enrollment a
wage adjustment factor and inflation um we're going to talk about inflation in a minute as well um the the state determines the foundation budget as an amount that is needed to provide an adequate education to the students of norfol from
there they decide what the local contribution should be how much can norfol afford to pay towards that education and that's based on um local effort from property wealth or from income and from uh Municipal Revenue growth factor and then they take the
difference between those two and they backfill it with state aid so what what's adequate to provide an adequate education minus what the community can contribute backfills state aid um so our Chapter 70
money this year is comprised comprises about 22.8% of the FY 26 budget um we are what's known as a minimum Aid Community which which basically means we are only going to get the minimum amount
determined um by the soon Opportunity Act which is written at $35 uh at $30 per pupil but this year has um been increased to $75 per people uh at the at the governor's level um so we I see that as a floor so we're only
going up from there so we'll see um so this is where our state aid has been um since fy1 to fy2 24 state aid historically as it's written into the law will go up each year districts are
not going to have a loss of state aid that's what's called the hold harmless provision it provides it allows um some stability and predictability um what it doesn't necessarily keep up with is inflation over time so the Chapter 70 formula caps out at 4 and a half% caps
inflation at 4 and a half% so when they apply an inflationary rate to all of the um pieces of the foundation budget they cap that inflation rate at 4 and a half% and in specifically in you know in the mid 2021 through most of 23 um inflation
was much higher than 4 and a half% you know highs of 8% in 2022 so the the formula doesn't account for that um there's also uh some changes that were made to the formula about a decade ago where they would have um
where they changed the the law so that any money that you didn't get as a result of the cap on inflation is is now lost funding it's no longer made up in future years where it used to be prior um but as you know we are facing higher costs for instructional materials and
utilities and Fuel and health uh health insurance and and other other items that are just Outsourcing that four and a half per outpacing that 4 and a half percent um on an annual basis um the student Opportunity Act did help some of
this uh but it's it's it's we're still in in some areas getting more than 4 and a half% increases on certain items but this the cap is there um and obviously that is going to impact um students as we struggle to maintain
um adequate resources and experienced teachers and smaller class sizes and um updated facilities um so some of the advocacy that can be done um and is being done is from teachers unions from school
committees from state senators um and and calling lawmakers to to address the changes to the formula and so folks are looking into that um um there was a suggestion about uh adding additional percentage point to the inflation rate um or changing the law so that any loss
funding due to the cap can be made up uh so stay tuned we'll see where that falls so I'm going to talk a little bit about um federal grants um opportuni so the Massachusetts Department of Education makes um funds available to
districts through competitive grants and every year they release um they is determined by their priorities um and they release the grants for districts to apply so for example it could be um to support Staffing shortages support curriculum Innovations and adoption
expand professional development um but it changes every year so for example in 2021 uh there was a social studies grant that was released but it hasn't been released since then so it does it does um change every year so we the district we've always repeatedly applied to the
state to secure grant funding um to offset local cost and and unfortunately northark has been regularly turned down as a district does not qualify as a high needs Community Based on demographic and economic data um priority for State grant funding has been given to Comm commun communities that are chronically
underperforming rural communities um with higher percentage of students designated as low income nevertheless Norfork um public schools are still required to comply with um new mandates and regulations despite the lack of being able to receive um the new Revenue
sources so some of the um as you can see the grand applications that we have applied um since 2021 that we were denied um uh despite our best efforts um but the ones that we found some success are the
regional Consortium grants we were able to get the um Regional Behavior Health Grant um uh in 2025 um we also were able to get two years in a row or Regional Title 3 to support English language um
uh programming and um and also back in 2022 23 we applied as a regional um forign Esra funded which we did bridge to KP which is to help sixth graders kind of transition to seventh grade but F Grant has been discontinued one of the challenges is that a lot of Grants we
can apply apply regionally because they are very District specific the next um part I know that we've presented on mcast data a few times already so I'll go through these quickly but just kind of just looking through the lens of budget this is how
our our teaching and learning priorities are set um so you can see that um overall our M mcast scores in English language arts have um either remained relatively flat or have declined since pre pandemic so you can see the 2019 versus uh this past Year's date of
2024 um we definitely need to continue to focus our efforts in raising these scores um for example grade four does show a stud growth over the past 3 years we still have not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels and as you can see the MK scores in grades five and six
have shown a gradual decline which is aligned to the overall trend that we are seeing in Massachusetts um but nevertheless we do want to kind of see it um to start getting closer to our pre-pandemic numbers um I do want to just mention
that our screening data indicates an upward Trend over um which uh we presented our Benchmark and Baseline report rep so we're hoping that with current interventions and our new Ela program um that we have uh instituted this year we're um going to see
improvements in future mcast in terms of uh math uh we have put a lot of effort in strengthen math fact fluency across all grade levels the last couple of years um as well as Implement a strong mtss program with targeted interventions for students who are
struggling so we have it has led to some set improvements in math scores from the 2021 post-pandemic dip um all grade levels have shown Positive Growth as you can see between 2021 and 2024 I do want to just
emphasize that 2021 had a different test it was the bridge test so it's not the best year to compare but it's still um kind of part part of our data so I thought it would be beneficial for us to see the numbers in each year um as you can see that actually Grace three and
four achieved um achievements surpass our pre-co um levels which is very encouraging um grades five and six continue to show progress um towards recovery um but grade five scores do lag
um behind all the other great levels so this is continued to be an area of focus for us as well um when I presented The Benchmark and Baseline um report when we looked at specific domains when we broke down the mcast to um by skill set um we
did um we did identify that we need targeted instructional support in problem solving reasoning and Applied Mathematics across all grade levels so that is one of the things that when we talk about kind of our budget needs and things that we're we um that's one of the areas that we're kind of
prioritizing for future and just really quickly looking at our um Regional comparison so these are the districts that are like communities for us um so you can see that norlex results exceed Regional
averages with only 3% decline since the pre-pandemic levels um for in mathematics um we saw an increase from 60% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in 2023 to 67% in 2024 and we have either aligned or
surpassed most of our comparison districts which is um a great show on some of the returns that um uh our students were able to support our students despite um a need for additional
resources um the highest performing districts do remain at 70% so um we definitely um there's an opportunity to refine our Core math instruction and intervention strategies and hoping with the new math adoption um next year that we will um continue to see a a a strong
growth in this area in ter in terms of ela um so our recovery rate since the pandemic if we're comparing to our like districts um we're probably in a mid-range compared to the regional districts um reflecting a moderate progress in regaining
pre-pandemic proficiency levels um there has been a 12% decline in proficiency since pre pre since 2019 um it does align with like I mentioned before with the broader Regional and state Trends um and while the increase reflects the significant
academic challenges brought on by the pandemic um I do believe that are ongoing effects as I mentioned before the target interventions and the adoption of the new program um are going to help us uh reverse some of the last couple of years and and for us to see a
more upward uh movement in in this area all right per people spending Mar sure um so if you look at the per people spending graph uh behind you you can see that in the last eight years um that we spent significantly less than the state average to to educate our our students
um in 2017 we came closer to close to closing that Gap um however you know post pandemic um 2020 20 2020 and 2021 didn't keep up with the rate of uh enrollment um enrollment growth at that
period of time and now we're looking at more currently um a gap of about 4,000 just over $4,000 um I think this is exacerbated by the fact that most of our state competitive grants prioritize chronically underperforming districts um
or schools with higher percentages of students qualifying as lwi income um and so that will um exacerbate that Gap as well um and our um Regional comparison communities that we're going to talk about in a second they also fell U below
the state average um you're seeing 23 numbers because that's the most recent data that's available some districts haven't even finalized their FY 24 in the year report which is where some of this is U generated from so um in terms of our per pupil
expenditures um and for the purpose of data analysis and review the department of Ed comes up with a list of comparable communities based on each District's um either communities that are similar demographically or similar structurally or by students or um or how you spend uh
amount of spending so we use this set of data um to Benchmark as Benchmark communities to evaluate our per our programs our instruction our student achievement um attendance rates um class sizes and other measures of uh educational
quality um and so we use these districts also to compare for pupil spending and and budgeting and Staffing uh rates and so you can see that we are still spending um less than most of our comparison communities uh and for the
past 3 years there have only been um three districts uh under the state average there there are eight now but consistently under the state average um for the past three years we've been second to last with only um Berkeley spending less than us we now spend um
roughly $1,579 less than less per pupil than Ram um and $1,257 per pupil less than planville um um there are of all these communities you can see that there are eight that spend under the state average uh and
they're all reflected in green and again with only Plainville Norfolk and Berkeley um consistently falling below uh and again I think that this is a a result of the supplementary grant funding that goes to more urban districts who have higher populations of
low-income students um or are chronically underachieving uh and that that that makes it difficult for Suburban districts to access uh additional competitive Grant funds as as you just heard um our performance however
significantly outpaces some of our comparison communities um who have a much higher per pupil cost so for example Lincoln spends close to 80% more per pupil than norfol but norfolk's achievement is higher um and and we
should note also that the town of norfol allocates Revenue uh they allocate a comp a comparable percentage of Revenue to the schools as um it's comparable to what our neighboring communities allocate to
their schools as well um but since there is no commercial Revenue in town the revenue itself the total funding available um is negatively impacted did I miss I think I'm out of order okay so
Charter School um so charter school we certainly believe passionately that um all children in norol deserve a high quality um education that promotes academic social and emotional development um there's also financial reasons why it's important for the town
to invest in our schools because parents have a choice to send their students to Nara Public Schools or to send their students to a charter school um we have two fairly large charter schools in our immediate area uh the Ben Franklin charter school which expanded from 450
to 750 students uh in the past few years through through K to8 as well as the Foxboro Regional uh charter school and they serve over 1600 students uh and so when students enroll in a charter school
the Money Follows the student charter schools are funded based on a an average I'll call it per pupil spending of each of the districts that attend the Charter School uh so every student that leaves narol to go to a charter school the
district loses Revenue up to the tune of $1,436 um and so so it's important for us to maintain our instructural programs and and our class sizes at low levels and otherwise we're going to risk um significant um a significant loss in
funding um and we'll likely Lo lose more in funding um than we would save by by making program cutor reductions so I'll talk a little bit about the 2026 budget and the budget drivers so our budget request that we are bringing forward to the school
committee tonight for consideration and to the public for public comment reflects a 4.59% increase over fiscal 2025 um it's 16, 279,000 um and it's a reflects an increase of about $715,000
uh the budget request does allow us to meet all of our contractual obligations for cost of living increases for Teacher steps and Lane changes it also allows us to make a slight Market adjustment to the rates that we pay for Norfolk uh for substitute teachers that is really critical that we stay current with the
market there's a a substitute shortage across the Commonwealth we have a very difficult time getting enough Subs to cover classrooms and if we fall behind all of our local competitors the very few Subs we have is going to dwindle down further so it does fund a a market
adjustment we are in the process of doing a comprehensive review of math program and we will be implementing a new math program next year again we've applied for the state funding um to support that adoption we've been declined in the past we will reapply if the grant becomes available but
currently we are budgeting for about half uh the cost of the new Adoption with the intent of negotiating that over uh with whatever vendor we choose to pay the cost of the program over two fiscal years so it funds partial adoption of a new math program we are experiencing an
increase in cost for special education and transportation in tuitions so this budget allows us to meet the obligations that we have for specialized services and it maintains most of our class sizes within the school committee uh class siiz policy
limits in order to achieve this so a level service budget for for the norfol public schools for this year would have been over a 10% increase 10 10.1% we know that based on the revenue picture for the town that the town
cannot afford a 10% increase in any of the Departments um so the budget subcommittee um Lauren deves and Peter faal and I have been working to reduce the budget request so that it was reasonable and affordable for the town but trying again to address some of the
areas of need that we have as we looked at the mcast scores we do have need for additional support and intervention in math so trying to address that need maintain our uh other instructional programs and find reductions that would have the least uh impact on our students and our Learners so we are looking to
reduce in this budget to par professional positions they are um special education par professionals every year we have students aging out of the district um who may have additional support positions we have new students coming in um we are able to reduce those
two positions without impacting students that require support um so we're looking to reduce two par professional positions and a third position we are reallocating so you'll see on the right hand side we're looking to take uh a further power
reduction and repurpose it as a math par professional support up at the Freeman Kennedy to address those learning gaps that we were talking about particularly in the upper grades we do have to reduce 1.6 professional positions that is one classroom teaching position at the Freeman Kennedy it is a retirement so we
will not be refilling that position it will increase class sizes in one of our grade levels which I'll preview with you um when we get to that part of budget presentation so one of the professional positions is a retirement that we will not be filling we are also reducing art
at the Freeman Kennedy from 0.9 to8 so it's a 0.1 teaching reduction that's also a retirement we have fewer classes next year at the Freeman Kennedy so we will need less time in the art schedule to accommodate that so again all of
these uh reductions are not actual um we don't anticipate they will be layoffs because we have openings currently for par professional positions that aren't filled and we have a high turn over many of our I I think we're really lucky we have a lot of par professionals that come to us um that are getting their
teaching license and so they they leave to pursue additional teaching positions sometimes within the norol schools um we are still trying to finalize uh a05 professional position reduction so we are working through that as the budget subcommittee but we do anticipate we
will have a total of 1.6 reductions in professional positions and an additional 02 reduction in other positions again we're working through those final reductions um but it will be a total of 3.8 fdes other adjustments that we're making
we are in the process of restructuring our business office we have an HR director who has been with us for over over 20 years should I she may not want me to share that but for a long time um who will be retiring we are going to be
replacing that position instead of an HR Director we'll be hiring HR specialist um it's a different lure it's a different requirements for the position um we will partner with the town the town has in the past had an HR Director so we can kind of align our services and
support each other um but we're looking to hire a specialist we are also looking to uh uh we have a business assistant business manager who is leaving the district also um moving on actually physically moving um so we are going to be restructuring that position from an
assistant business manager to a payroll accounts um payables position um again that's a lower salary so we will generate some savings for that uh but also looking to increase efficiencies and and and work with the town um to to look at the best way to provide those
services on the Staffing uh this is just a quick snapshot of the budget changes from fiscal 24 so the majority of the cost increase is uh um adjustments for Teacher Co cost of living steps and Lane changes per the collective bargaining
agreement that's about 569 th000 we do anticipate saving almost 999,000 in retirements and resignations so we've we've deducted that as a savings pair of professionals we'll be saving about 15,000 that is a reflection of the the positions we talked about eliminating
those two positions um but we won't see the full savings from that because we also have to adjust for a cost of living increases for our PA professional staff so that's the difference after those things are accounted for um all other staff which would be food service custodial clerical staff it's about
34,000 in um salary adjustments as I mentioned earlier we're looking to increase the substitute rate of pay so that we can retain our qualified subs and then other contractual uh benefits that are part of the collective bargaining and individual contracts are
about 45,000 so the total net change on the Staffing side 563,000 .97 on the expense side is where we really worked hard to try to make reductions again so that we're not impacting classroom positions and instruction we um the full math adoption
would be about 250,000 we will have 125,000 budgeted for it in in fiscal year 2026 we'll have to make up the difference the following um the following fiscal year you can see um as far as services and supplies at FK and
HD both are down by over $20,000 this is significant because our expense lines for the last probably 5 years have been level funded even though inflation's gone up so our paper supplies costs have gone up we have not increased we've actually decreased
annually the expense size so it's very um I would say it's really tight we don't have a lot of excess anywhere um special education instructional services are up in this budget as I mentioned we have additional tuitions and transportations we are accounting for circuit breaker is the state program for
reimbursing special education cost so there is an offset of savings about 30 close to 38,000 there um transportation so our contract that we have with homes the um we will be in the third year I believe of our new contract and the
increase for transportation next year is 56,000 again district offices we've reduced further um on the supply side the only two things that are up slightly are facilities maintenance that's driven by energy costs um the cost of paper tows paper supplies um is up by about
6,000 and then technology that's network and infrastructure is up slightly by 2700 we have eliminated from this budget all of our Capital requests so we did have budgeted for copier replacement future laptop replacement um other Tech
equipment all of that has been taken out of this budget we are hoping to pursue through the regular Capital process in the fall with the town funding for some of those critical needs but again we that was one of the reductions that we made in order to balance the budget and get closer to what the town can afford
to fund every year we work really collaboratively with all of our uh Regional partners and with the town to generate cost savings about eight or nine years ago we worked and restructured the facility Department the norol public schools reached out to the
town to say you know are there ways we had a full-time facilities director just for the schools uh we reached out worked with the town to restructure that department to see if there was a way we could share that service and benefit both um the town and schools we continue to do that we save about 25,000 on those
positions we also uh are in the process of looking at merging and sharing more of the facilities Department we share a custodian now um and we staggered that work schedule so that we have somebody that works Saturdays that allowed us to reduce what we budget for overtime for for weekend in in special programs um
two years ago we worked with ram in planville and we saw an opportunity to restructure our food service program we had prior had a full-time food service director J for Norfolk we now share a food service director regionally with our other two towns and we pay a third of that cost um so that generates some
additional savings as we talked earlier um we are in the process of restructuring our business in HR office to generate another 25,000 of savings there and then we do continue to pursue every opportunity that we find for Grant competitive grants as Vicki said the
regional grants that we' participated in which means that we've written those grants in partnership with rent and plan fill and king philli um we have been more successful in securing so we did access a regional Behavior Health grant that funds programs across all four districts um we have several grants that
are in process we're estimating what we will um bring in for those grants based on current allocations um there's an opiate settlement grant that we have brought in funding for um student and parent programming metris Health has funded a part of a position for us um
over the past three years and car Solace and project aware our um referral services to support support families and accessing um outside counseling or wraparound Services um and we've funded that through grant funding so of all of the cost savings and competitive grants
we're seeing for 2026 is about 276,000 so one way we look at our budget um is by thinking about those types of f fixed costs that we don't have a lot of discretion over um including salaries transportation tuitions for out of
District placements uh and utilities and those things comprise um 93.6% of the F FY 26 budget um only 6.4% of the budget is allocated towards what I'm going to call discretionary spending
which includes cost of curriculum materials textbooks General classroom supplies paper and other expenses um so it's really not a whole lot when you look at the the whole pie um another way that we break down the budget as a whole
um is in terms of uh our salaries and contracted Services very similarly but um it's important to note that that at this point um 86.4% of our total budget is committed to salaries um we spend 71.4% on professional salaries for
teachers and administrators 3 and a half% for clerical salaries 1.5% for other salaries such as substitutes assistance Food Service facilities maintenance technology um 8.7% goes to Services um the majority
of which is for our transportation contracts um and 2.9% goes towards curriculum materials supplies and 7% goes towards expenses which um are fixed by contract like sick Lea buyback and other types of
contractual obligations um for retirement um and and only what at this point 1.2% of the FY 26 budget is allocated to towards funding um students uh placed in out of District uh placements to access the curriculum and
this is um dramatically lower than most other districts uh across the Commonwealth it's a it's a small percentage to pay for for our students to to be able to access the pr the class siiz projections um for 2526 uh we are projecting seven sessions
of kindergarten the daa most recent demographic study was projecting an enrollment of 148 we opened kindergarten registration right after we returned from uh winterbreak in January and currently it's trending slightly under that so the projection was 148 I think
we're probably going to see more like 140 145 um so we do think the class sides will be within the policy limit at kindergarten um uh grade one will have seven classrooms there's seven kindergartens this year 136 those are actual these the rest of the numbers are
B based on the number of kids we had um in place as of October 1 uh so 136 class sizes projected to be 19.4 grade two we have nine first grade classes they will be going up to eight second grade classes um that is a grade
level where we have 169 students the maximum class size policy at each all of day for students in K to2 is 21 so we will be exceeding the maximum class size um in grade two will'll be coming to the school committee at the next month to request at the school committee lift the
cap for uh class size for one year um part of the complicating issue at each of day is there's not a physical other classroom that we could add um so if we were to try to fund an eth classroom it would mean the art room would have to go onto a cart which totally changes the
art curriculum but we have no other additional space at that building um grade three will go down to five classrooms this is the position where we talked about a teacher retirement that we won't be filling um class sizes will be 23.8 which means
some classes of 23 some of 24 uh the budget subcommittee's priority is if Chapter 70 funding increases or weate additional Revenue that would be the priority for restoring that position um and bringing those class sizes down for fourth grade we'll have seven classrooms
143 students class sizes of 20 and 21 um grade five there'll be eight sessions class sizes of 2021 um and grade six will stay at six uh 131 students class sizes the 21 and 22 just for comparison again this is the
same Benchmark communities that we compare to class size in Norfolk over the last three years has been fairly stable between 20 and 21 students um next year it will go back up to 21 because we do have some larger class sizes at specifically uh grade two and grade three um prior to back in 2020
2019 norfol was on the lower end of class size of all of our comparison communities we had class size averages of 18 and 19 that has steadily grown we're no longer at the um lower end of our comparison communities our class sizes are on the relatively higher end
um we do prioritize smaller class sizes in the lower grade um uh the class size policy for Freeman is um for grades 3 to five is the maximum of 25 so we'll shift to unfunded budget needs um again you've seen what is in
the 2026 budget it is a very conservative budget there were a lot of things that we would wanted to address areas that we would like to see additional Staffing or resources um that we just couldn't fund uh in this fiscal climate so B you'll talk about what some of those things are um absolutely so as
you can see in the slide we've listed some staffing needs that have not been included in the budget and although our proposed budget does support core um needs for our district um we definitely have some um as you can see Restorations that would love to bring back and
critically and funded staffing needs um that we are looking to hopefully ReStore in the future um for example as Dr Lard has mentioned we do have higher class sizes in uh grades 2 and three um we had to reduce our technology um integration
uh uh uh Department from two teachers hod had a tech integration specialist and so did FK now we have one for the district which does impact the um how the program is is run um we also Al have not been able to we had a library
assistance positions in um both our libraries which helps support the Librarians they do have a very vast um job not only um keeping up with uh the up keep of the library but also they teach classes so that has also impacted
um uh how our libraries are run we also have some critically needed positions for Technology support we are very much um underfunded in this area um our fix um we have a we have a lot of um plls in
that department in terms of being able to upkeep all of our not only up keeping up with all our servers and with all our technology needs they really do support the district on so many different levels and they have a small Department of three for um a thousand students and 200
staff members so um we're also unable to support the district business office um and increase uh the uh the office is really minimally staffed and we've been trying to put a clerical support in that office um we do
have a our HR department our payroll department we have um uh our our business department and it's they're really kind of Departments of one um so that is having clerical support for a lot of different tasks that now you know
we um we can't bring in that help um to make the Departments run as efficiently as possible you know um and that's something that we've been looking for the last couple of years um it also increas the district team chair position um which is needed due to Growing
enrollment um and also the increase in numbers of students receiving specialized services so uh uh so that's something that we have also been looking to um increase and ad um which is a again a pretty critical need for our special a department as
well um if we're looking at I also wanted just to talk about some other expenses and needs that were not included in our budget so um we would love to eliminate um fees for students participating in the Band program we want this program to be free and open to
all of our children so they can have equal opportunities to access this outstanding experience um the district is also currently pursuing grant funding and other sources of revenue to help offset the cost of the new math curriculum adoption but as I explained
before that's only if they uh if the state makes that available again um if we're not able to fully fund the program um through grant funding we will need to split the cost over two fiscal years which will impact funds available for
the 2027 fiscal year um we also are our next big adoption is our science uh program which needs to be updated we haven't had a science review in in quite a bit and I think are kind of overdue for that um uh we're also Alo uh
deferring necessary replacements for technology equipment such as teacher laptops and copers and I feel think if you talk to any staff member about copers in this building it's definitely a very coveted item so and we're overdue for um an update and um that will impact
the fiscal 2027 budget because they're just aging out and and they're um kind of you know have we've tried to repair them as many as much as possible um at this point so just kind of in summ um I also just want to say while we Face
challenges and balancing priorities and securing funding we are committed to making um thoughtful strategic decisions that support our students and Educators um so thank you Al to time I'll turn it over to Dr and I would just thank the
budget subcommittee um for many many hours of work pouring through um budget documents and looking to try toi identify the best ways to reduce the budget without compromising education so um at this point we will turn it to questions from the public so if you have
a question um come to the mic name address and we will try to answer it and if you don't because we don't have a vast public with us tonight uh we must be competing against something really good tonight on TV but if you don't then we will lift through close the meeting
and move into the school commit meeting I just wanted to chime in and say thank you you know to everybody who assisted with the the budget this year it was Tau it doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the near future um you know some of these Cuts were really hard I feel like we all worked really
collaboratively um there was a lot of different I guess opinions and things going on um but I think we all kind of came to the table and proposed different things and you know our our main goal is obviously impact to student educational
achievement and in their um environment here so um I think just to reiterate what you have mentioned about the the reduction of the teach position at rman Kennedy that one hit really hard um and I know there's a couple things in the work to hopefully have some sort of um
savings financially for next year and and that is our priority in restoring that that one teaching position um I'd love to restore it at hod as well but that's kind of a twofold issue as you mentioned because even if we did restore the teaching position we don't have a
classroom do it so you really have to kind of choose between one or the other um so yeah hopefully you know in in the near future the state prioritizes um you know funding for us not rural but
Suburban districts as well we can fund a lot of these things we have to cut and as you can see um you know just Cost of Living adjustments takes into account for probably 85% of of the increase that we're asking so we don't have much
wiggle room there not a whole lot to play with and just unfortunate any other questions I think you can join the to do that what a motion to adj yeah looking for a motion to adjourn the
public hearing so move any further discussion all right we're adjourned all right so we'll move right in calling the March 11th nor school committee meeting to order um I read mission statement prior it is still the
same so I won't read it one more time we do need one more roll call though Grace lock madora champagne we have any public comment I don't believe anyone signed up no correspondence so moving to the school
committee chair report I just have one thing to share with you all so based on the conversations we had last last meeting about reapplying to the msba and the chart that ingr showed
tonight and last week that really showed an increase of suburban District spending below um State average I reached out to both our state reps and it's not that long so I'll just read it because I know people watching the
replay don't always have the exhibits it says good morning Senator Rous and representative Von I hope you're both doing well as chair of the Norfolk school committee I want to reach out to you both on the following two items as you know School Expansion Project failed at the ballot last month the resounding feedback we received from the town was
that people realize there's a critical space shortage in our schools and the project plan was sound however people simply cannot afford a significant increase to their tax bills with our already high tax rate along with the impact of other needed capital projects such as a fire station and the Tri
County expansion debt payments with the lack of a commercial tax basee in our town our residents are burdened with extremely high cost in taxes I have heard from many of our seniors firsthand that they are worried about being taxed out of their homes as a result one of the options we are pursuing it still has to be formally voted on by the school
committee and select board is applying to the msba yet again for consideration of the project we've applied several times and have not been invited to participate however we would like to try one more time would you both be willing to write letters of support for the town and the schools to include include in our application package
if this is something you would be open to we would certainly Supply you with relevant information that would be helpful for you as you craft your letters then the second item is I would like to invite you both to either our March 11th or April 8th school committee meetings to discuss a growing issue that is impacting our local public schools in
Equitable State funding while it is important that large urban districts receive the financial support they need it is equally crucial that Suburban districts like ours are not overlooked in the distribution of State education funding over over the years Norfork and many of the other towns you served have
faced Rising costs for Education Without a corresponding increase in state support and then I attached the chart that we saw tonight this has forced difficult decisions on school leaders and it's placed an undue burden on local taxpayers the Norfork schools strive for excellence and have a proven track
record of academic success however without adequate State funding we risk falling behind n ability to provide a well-rounded education to every student while large urban districts certainly require focused attention Suburban District should not be left to shoulder an unfair burden we must ensure that every student regardless of their zip
code has access to the resources they need to succeed it would be great if you could both come and speak to the committee about ways we can help you advocate for the schools and the towns you serve if it makes sense I'd also be happy to invite representatives from school committees in all the towns you serve that are facing this issue so they
can benefit from your thoughts as well please let me know if either date would work for you thank you and I look forward to your response so both Representatives have agreed to write a letter on our behalf to include in our msba application packet if we vote to
move that forward tonight and ingr has prepared some great points to include in their letters and I believe you and Grace have seen them as well may not have checked your email but I sent them to you this afternoon separately
it she includes some points so if you have any edits I can send it to them this week so it's ready before we submit the application and then the second item um Senator Rous cannot attend she
couldn't attend tonight and she can't attend in April but she did send me two bills she's working on Bill S400 which is um she wants an investigation and study by a special commission to ensure
adequate and Equitable funding for public education and then another resolve to establish a special Commission on special education funding so I will send the links to everyone just as information so if you want to take a look and see if it's something we'd be
interested in advocating for I did talk to representative V and he is looking at a schedule and is hoping to make the April meeting to come talk to us he did make the point that Norfork probably alone can't make a
huge impact so he agrees and suggests that talking to other school committees and trying to get more towns facing the same challenges we are involved could be a good thing so thinking if he can make April inviting plain Bill rth them I
don't know if millison Medway are experiencing the same picture about any local school committees who would be Millis is okay um so that I just wanted to make you aware that I sent that out to them and they're support of
in to what we could do as commun with other TOS to to kind of push this data or encourage them or is that something he canly present probably talk to us about that and just getting people talking instead of single small towns
like ours trying to go to the state just saying having more of a a group yeah so any questions or comments I I would recommend reaching out to masc because they had identified funding on several levels is a legislative priority
so I it may be a way to identify other districts who have expressed an interest in it that aren't our neighbors sure and I know Ram I believe their chair last year had actually written some similar correspondence not relative
to msba because they're doing just fine um but relative to funding okay great then that is it for me okay all right I get to start with something positive tonight um so we have uh Mr
forre here with us in the audience today and I wanted to share with the committee I think we sent the letter out to you in the packet but uh John was just named as the 2025 co-recipient of the Micah Paul Smith Hall of Fame award alongside
Ashley Nelson onischuk who is a choir director in the Medway high school and only two conductors Statewide are selected each year uh the award honors Massachusetts music conductors who serve as an inspiration to students the community and fellow Educators uh Mr Bor
acre will be formally inducted in the Massachusetts music educators Association in service contract at uh conference at the DCU Center in Worcester at 2:30 on Friday March 28th so coming up in a couple of weeks um Mr bker has been an instrumental music
teacher since 1996 at the Freeman Kennedy School where he instructs students in grades four to six and under his leadership the school's Advanced band has consistently received High rankings at the Micah concert festivals um Beyond his role as a teacher Mr por Foraker is an accomplished musician
who's per performed with a auset brass and the Jerry seo seo big band uh Mr porer currently performs with the com Commonwealth wi Symphony um induction into the Michael Paul Smith Hall of Fame is based on several criteria including a
minimum of 10 years as a Massachusetts conductor a variety of conducting experience involvement in Micah activities and a demonstrated commitment to professionalism and music education at the state and local levels so we wanted to offer our uh congratulations
to Mr Foraker tonight um on behalf of the school committee and the Nork Public Schools congratulations on this wonderful honor and the um upcoming mic Festival did you say is going to be recorded the on the great so we'd love to have a copy of
that that I can share with the committee so thank you um next on the agenda tonight is the discussion of the FY 2026 budget um request and followed by a vote of the school committee so I don't know if people had questions um from the
committee on the presentation tonight that we can answer I have two y one is easy and the other one is inherently a not easy question um how much after using 50,000 from the special education
stabilization fund how much will be left in the special education stabilization fund 5,000 okay so enough for one placement um but that is um that wasn't in the PowerPoint but that is in the budget um we are we are seeing a
significant increase and that is one way that we are hoping to try to balance that um that will require both both of the school committee and of the select board in order to apply those funds next year okay um the second question is relative to
the new curriculum adoption um and I guess it's kind of a question in two parts I know we did a segmented payment process with the ELA curriculum what was the breakdown of that so like what were we paying and then I know some of it was funded through Capital like how did how
did we break that apart so it was pretty much split in half we budgeted for half of it and then we requested the balance in Fall Town Capital which was appropriated so we will be paying for the full e like curriculum this year um so we don't have any obligations
carrying forward for into fiscal 26 my concern with the meth is that it feels like we're paying a lot less on the front end and there doesn't seem to be I mean if we're looking for another $125,000 going into the next school year is there some thought that we might look to Capital funding for that in the fall
or is it just anticipated that that will be carried forward as an expense I think that'll be a discussion for the committee as we head into the fall so we're budgeting for half of it which is 125 you see a 25,000 addition we had 100,000 in the curriculum adop option line last year so what you see in the
presentation is the change okay U but it is we will be looking for another 125 we could go to the fall town meeting and request or request that is part of capital but we also have some critical technology replacement needs um the next curriculum review cycle for next fiscal
year will be science but I don't think that we can we've just adopted a new e curriculum will be adopting a new math we need to give our teachers a a break for a year so I think we could dedicate the fiscal 27 curriculum money to
funding the the balance of the math curriculum and Reserve Town town meeting in town capital for the capital items cut from the budget but we can discuss that as the the financial picture shapes up a little bit with the town um as we enter the fall okay um and then just a
third question has there been and I'm not saying that they would not I'm just questioning if there has been any dialogue and I think actually the Town Administrator mentioned this at the advisory meeting recently um some confirmation or conversation um with the
select board and the town that if Chapter 70 money comes in higher it will not be a struggle to have that allocated back into our budget yes so we did have that conversation right now um the projections are based on $75 a student last year that money was raised to 104
and so there was an additional appropriation that we um had the S board agreed would be appropriated to follow because Chapter 70 funds are intended for educ they're they can't be spent on other functions the Educational Funding Chapter 70 for K King Phillip because
there a a Regional School District any increases in Chapter 70 go directly to them where um Elementary Chapter 70 money goes to the town to appropriate so we did have preliminary conversations and I believe the intent is the same um I will be at the select board meeting
next Wednesday uh to talk about the msba oh next Tuesday to talk about the msba project I I would like to talk about that as well um but the intent in the that we have heard so far is that yes it would be reappropriated um if we know that dollar number before we head into
the summer which we did this year um we may be able to reappropriate and and hire that additional third grade teacher the additional Chapter 70 Revenue this year funded the additional first grade we added over the summer that covers me for now thank
you um I have a quick question yeah um and I'm maybe should know this but can you help me understand the additional math pair of professional because when you look at the scores we score lower in ela than we do in math and with the new Ela curriculum adoption I know that's
been a heavy lift and so I would almost think we would want to support that while we're implementing the other and then flip if it's a good question Vicki I don't know if you want to touch base on that but we have um already are screeners assessments that we've been administrating that are local
assessments are showing an upward Trend in response to the new program in um uh in our informal measures that we use so we expect that those Ela scores are going to come up we also have reading Specialists and we're able to provide intervention services to students that
are struggling um across the grades with the read with the support staff that we currently have we are stretched in for Math and so we are not able to um allocate the service time that we need to all of the students that would benefit from that so the the greater the
the greater shortage in terms of intervention staff was in the math area but do you want to add to that Vicki or yeah and and like one of the concerns is that with um the lift that it takes to implement a new program our math Specialists also
support teachers as coaches they support with the implementation of the program so um and the need that we're seeing especially in our fifth and sixth grade students we just right now don't um have enough people on hand to be able to give the level of support in mathematics that that we okay so they're already
stretched then and we feel the trajectory on Ela is going pretty well right even though like it's not like I said it's not quite showing up in mcass yet but like our district benchmarks data like the um the number of students that are um in the needs
category um have are decreasing you know what I mean so which is great to see you know and we we're not quite seeing the same thing in math especially in the Upper Grade so we're trying to keep the Gap not widen youan we want to kind of keep the positive trajectory especially like I said with the lift of the new
math program we want to make sure that they're efficiently um sta you know that's helpful what we cut last year right what was that professional is what we cut last year yes yeah we did reduce one and we also as Vicki said um will be implementing a new math program next
year so that will also support the implementation process okay I don't know what buzzing but I know are you sure hope fix capital yeah we don't have Capital money so hopefully it's just in the background there hopefully
stop any other budget questions yeah I I have to ask it I the number that the town has been populating in all other public meetings for the schools is 4% Yep this not 4% so I you know just what's the status of that dialogue yeah we continue to work
collaboratively with the town their preliminary number for the schools was 4% they know that we are not at 4% um We are continuing to look at areas that we may be able to reduce further um we're going to talk later in the meeting about an early retirement incentive
which we hope the school committee will approve and that we will send out um if that generates additional savings we can reduce the budget without cutting further things um so that's one area that we're looking at um if that doesn't work I we're hoping that the town will be able to also find some additional
Revenue in meet us partway um but if we have to make further Cuts then we would have to come back in the April meeting um once we have a better sense of how the early retirement uh incentive goes with additional recommendations for the committee talked about um in regards to
the number and percentage that we be presenting to the town last year we came in with like onetime funding from the special education stabilization funds and we made it pretty clear when we Ed that that you know this is onetime funding so when we come back next year and the percentage is higher don't hold
us to to that so really it's probably closer to like what two and a half three% yeah so if you if you added the one-time funds we appropriated to fund this fiscal year which was stabilization a one-time tuition account plus extra Chapter 70 the actual increase from this
year's fiscal spending to next year that we're asking for is 2.6% so we we've shared that with the town because I think say 4.5 without recalling that those funds were added um even though we were very transparent and raised that concern last year in
agreeing to use stabilization funds so um hopefully that will help us as we work to that as well if I recall yeah um just a question on the governor's supplemental budget I know
we're still waiting on that reimbursement number it was $104 per day up until December 31st we don't have a new number throughout the remainder of the year but anticipating that it stays around the same that'll just help us get closer to
breaking even is that right there's not going to be any so it depends on what the final dollar amount is um so the supplemental budget my understanding is the supplemental budget was approved with funding for reimbursement to districts for students that are um
temporarily housed at the the shelter the dollar amount of reimbursement hasn't been finalized um if we we are as you know we're about $100,000 over in salaries and costs um to meet the needs of those students plus we have a deficit in special education this year we're
counting on that funding to come into the district to close the deficit that we have in this fiscal year um if it is appropriated at $14 a day we may have some uh additional funds that could also help with a reduction because we can apply additional Revenue to prepay um
collaborative tuitions um we could if we saw additional Revenue decide not to use the stabilization if we are able to offset that so um uh that's that would be information to come that said what happens at the shelter is really we're
not sure I mean the the enrollment it's based on enrollment and the number of days students are uh in session and that's been changing that picture has been changing so if we have fewer students that will also impact the reimbursement rate so it's it's pretty big unknown right now any other
questions we just need a motion to vote to approve the recommended budget a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026 this is going FR Advisory Board May yeah as yes as it is this budget request at 4.59% will go forward to The Advisory
Board we'll be presenting that next Wednesday night um after The Advisory Board uh process they're going to meet with all the town departments um throughout that time the town will be continuing to work with the town um if we are asked to make further reductions um in order to balance the budget the
budget subcommittee will meet after The Advisory board look at that make further reductions to try to balance we would have to come back with additional recommendations to the school committee in April for a final budget number that would go forward to to May town meeting
second any further discussion on that all those in favor all right a lot of the next items should be fairly quick um sry the uh next item I have for you tonight is an early retirement incentive
and what we would like to do in order to effectively utilize any available end-year funds so again this depends on reimbursement from the state for the shelter and itend depends on our application for Extraordinary relief to the state for funding for special
education if we have end ofe funds we would like to offer an early retirement incentive to effectively utilize those funds to generate Savings in next year's budget um an early retirement incentive has to be collectively bargained and negotiated with the noro Teachers
Association uh we have the budget subcommittee worked to put together a proposal we have shared it with the Teachers Association we've reached agreement on terms and are bringing this to the school committee to vote um the terms of the uh incentive plan that we would like
to offer would be uh to be eligible a unit member would have to have completed 10 or more years of service with the norol public schools as of June 30th um they could not have already provided U prior notice of intent to retire in order to be eligible for the incen
um we've got some timelines in here where people would have to provide notice if they're interested in participating um it will depend on what we have available for funds how many we can accept into the program once people are notified they've been accepted they would have to submit papers um
indicating a retirement date no later than June 30th 2025 and there is a financial incentive a one-time payment of $500 per year of service in the north fol public schools with a maximum payout of $10,000 um this is very similar to the early
retirement incentive that KP has recently issued um the school committee needs to vote to officially offer this package if you um agree to that then we would release it tomorrow uh to our staff and give people a couple of weeks to consider whether or not they want to
participate we would not notify people of final acceptance into the program till May 1st where we will have a better uh projection for end ofe balances have take any questions I keep putting that sorry I am slamming
the microphone by accident looking for a motion to approve the early retirement incentive as written so move second any further discussion all those in favor I think this next one is uh
probably pretty quick too um by uh um because of the inter School dist school choice law Mass General law um the committee has the right to withdraw from participating in school choice um you have to have a public discussion and
public vote prior to June 1st school choice would basically you would decide that we are going to make seats available in Norfolk at a tuition basis for um non Community residents if you offer those seats students have the right to remain in the norpo public
schools throughout the end of of sixth grade obviously we have no space we don't have any seats to offer um also as I indicated in the memo the cost of educating students in norfol is often higher than what we would receive in tuition um through the school choice
program so it is my recommendation that the school committee vote not to participate in the school choice program for fiscal 20 uh for 26 25 26 school year looking to a motion to withdraw from the school choice
program um I move that we withdraw and noric not participate in the school choice program for the 2526 any further discussion all those in favor
I next one also a nice easy item so we voted to approve the 2526 school calendar at our last meeting and as we were preparing to post the calendar and send it out we realized we had an extra day in the calendar that nobody caught
so we um uh the student school year is 180 days not 181 we had 181 days in the calendar so we took the extra day out making the last day of school June 15th rather than the uh which is a Friday rather than Monday uh June 12th I'm
sorry rather than Monday the 15th um additionally we just added the um openhouse dates for FK that hadn't been finalized I done the last calendar year so I'm looking to revote the calendar with a one less day and um designated
days for the open house for FK second any further discussion year something I I I great um the next item in your packet as we talked about during the budget
presentation uh we are looking to restructure our business office uh Barbara Boon has been our district assistant business manager for a number of years um and she has recently accepted another position she will be leaving at the end of March um in talking with miam and with our um
administrative team we are recommending at this time that we restructure the position and instead of hiring a new assistant District uh business manager we convert that position to be a business office specialist which will primarily have payroll functions as well
as accounts payable um uh we think that that will generate a a healthy savings for the district it'll also accomplish our goal of taking payroll out of the HR office which is um not an efficient way to to process the payroll it really belongs in the
business accounting side um so uh school committee by um I don't know by by District policy approves job descriptions so we've included in your packet a revised job description for business office specialist that indicates those new specific duties um
looking for a motion to approve the new job description um we have advertised the position and would like to begin The Surge process and interviewing so would like to have a final job description to be able to share with prospective candidates looking for a motion to approve the job descriptions as written
so move any further discussion all those in favor can I ask a question sorry the HR to me um so given the fact that this is a downgraded position or more Junior role do we feel like anything's going to slip through the cracks that's happening
today that won't be able to happen in the future or we feel like this per individual will be able to handle this is just this is the just the business part we haven't done the job description revision yet for the HR person but we do think that we can cover
the the primary functions of that job the the it will be picking up the payroll piece right now it just supports payroll it would have more ownership for that um but I think also miam does more of the grant work and so that will shift more to the business consultant versus
the assistant business manager I'd turn it to you if there's other things that you yeah the only other thing I can think of is some of the um student data reporting oh which would be in collaboration with the technology department and they would probably have more ownership of that piece okay so
they can lean in on that right okay I just hired so it doesn't it's too fresh in my brain we're gonna have to look at um reallocating some other office time to support the tech team with that state reporting it's pretty significant but I don't think it
needs to land in the visitor's office okay thank you all those in favor I all right the next one you're about to have a very lengthy vote but as everybody is aware um um the school expansion building project did not pass
at the ballot um in February on February 2nd um I think as Lisa summarized earlier in her email to the um State reps the primary feedback we've heard is that the project is is critically needed people recognize the um challenges as we
looked at the budget presentation almost 200 students that's that's a pretty significant amount of growth that we've absorbed in a short period of time um I think people recognize the issue the biggest challenge is the impact on taxpayers of a new large scale project
following the fire station and the Tri County um we recently met as a school building committee to debrief from the election and talk about what would be the best next steps um we've also met with the um had some prelim preliminary conversations with the town and the um
uh select board to to think about where we should go uh from here what the recommendation of the building committee was is that we should move forward with applying again to mass uh the mass School building authority Lisa talked about the um estate reps being willing to write letters of support we also have
a full feasibility study we did since the last uh round of applications that we can add to our packet applying to msba if norfol were selected to participate with msba they would cost share the funding um and uh the Freeman canity school and the H all of day are
both projects that we did with the partnership of msba and they were funded at about a percent at about 55% State funding it would reduce the cost of any expansion almost in half um applying to msba does not commit us to moving forward with the program so there's no
risk in applying um but it could be a strong benefit if um msba chose norfol to participate in going forward so because there's no risk to applying and the primary uh concern we've heard from the public was the the high cost of the project um the building committee
recommended moving forward with submitting an app appliation to msba in order to apply to msba we need a vote of both the school committee and the select board it is scheduled for vote on the slack board meeting uh next Tuesday night I think that's March 18th and we are bringing it to the school committee
for consideration tonight um madora Grace I don't know if you guys have anything to add from the building committee perspective I think you summed it up pretty well um I you know I mean obviously the discussions we're having tonight even if we had the money to hire
a teacher at hod there is nowhere to put a teacher at H right um something will need to be done in the coming years to address the issue fully understand the response from the town um a lot of capital projects have clustered together
simultaneously at a time when cost of living is going up for everybody so um get it but I think that you know this is one step that might be able to mitigate the major concerns that we heard from folks who who had major concerns about
the project so I think that it would be totally beneficial to submit the application um we'll be cautiously optimistic that we might get a different response um and and you know kind of take whatever feedback we get and see what happens and I think one other thing uh with msba if
we were invited to participate they would assign a new architectural firm a new designer we would have to repeat the feasibility study um so during that process adjustments can be made if we're seeing different patterns in enrollment um or other thoughts come forward as
we're in that design phase it does I mean just for the sake of clarity it does create a protracted time frame as a result of that so I I think no matter what something does need to be done I think this is the best first step but I think this committee and other committees in town will need
to continue having conversations not just about a permanent solution but what will need to happen in the intervening time frame when some other type of solution will need to be um discussed and addressed I'll save that for the next thing I'm not going to go there so I
think transparency so msba has fairly lengthy required vote language so we uh Lisa you have to read the the full vote language for the msba but it's on the second side of your packet um if we have a motion to
move forward with that oh I move to um move forward with submitting an application to msba subject to the par of all of this I'll second so I'm going to read this as written and then it requires or call vote so you just St your name and how
you're voting and just go all right here we go resolved having convene in an open meeting on March 11th 2025 prior to the SOI submission closing date the school committee of Norfork massachusett in accordance with its Charter bylaws and
ordinances has voted to authorize the superintendent to submit to the Massachusetts school building authority the statement of Interest form dated April 2025 for the Freeman Kennedy School located at 70 bardman Street Northfork Massachusetts which describes
and explains the following deficiencies and the priority categories for which an application may be submitted to the Massachusetts school building authority in the future elimination of existing overcrowding and prevention of severe overcrowding expected to result from increased enrollments which must be
substantiated the district is currently out of space at the HL of day school and will have to raise the maximum class size next year to accommodate enrollment the computer lab and Music Room have already been converted to general education classrooms the district has
also relocated our district Special Education offices in order to create additional classroom space subdivided the library and converted both the server room and the teacher copy room into instructional spaces increased enrollment due to significant building
and construction has resulted in severe overcrowding at the hall of day school and is expected to result in similar conditions at the Freeman Kennedy School in the next few years and hereby further specifically acknowledges that by submitting the statement of Interest form the
Massachusetts school building authority in no way guarantees the acceptance or the approval of an application the awarding of a grant or any other funding commitment from the Massachusetts school building authority or commits the town of Norfork to f fing an application for funding with the Massachusetts school
building authority so we can go do the roll call V we can start I or yes I think it's I and a i Grace lockhead I madora champagne I
Lisa Sheldon I okay I will present that to the select board next um Tuesday night and if they similarly vote to approve submitting that we'll move forward with that application process um the beginning of April next I have a brief update on the Bas State shelter um so as we talked
about at our last school committee meeting we had been seeing some increasing enrollment um we currently have 52 students enrolled in the norfol public schools from the Bay State shelter uh we had two students exit this week and no new students enroll this week uh we only have one student
expected to enroll next week um and we have five that we are waiting on departure dates um I think that uh as we shared I think it's important to note and as I I had shared with you um in an email update prior to February vacation
we are now exceeding the maximum class size in three of our kindergarten classes so we have 22 students in three kindergarten classrooms we do have two students in kindergarten expected to depart um and we are waiting as I said on the confirmation of move dates for
those students in the interim we have uh worked to try to find ways to support those larger class sizes we have reallocated our building sub at the HL of day to support the kindergarten classrooms um that have class sizes over 21 when that person is available as I
shared we have a sub shortage so there's some days that they have to cover a classroom We additionally have hired a par professional um a substitute last week as well as this week so that we have an additional Pair of Hands um to support classroom teachers and will'll
continue to do that we have advertised for a long-term subar professional position um we we posted that a week ago we are continuing to gather um applications for that position but as you know we are in a significant budget deficit and we don't I don't feel we can
appoint or hire someone until we have confirmation on what we're expecting in reimbursement funding hopefully that's going to come in this week and we can make some decisions um but we can't overspend our budget so if we were to hire somebody and we don't get that funding we're going to be in a position
where we're having to layoff staff or or um deal with um more significant end of year strategies in order to try to balance the budget before the end of the fiscal year um so that is where we are right now um we continue to work with
the uh Department of Ed we generally have update meetings every Thursday tomorrow's meeting was postponed um but Lisa and I um Justin uh Cova Davis administrator um chair of the select board um fire chief um police chief are
all on those calls with the governor's office the state um and uh the department of aded we have routinely asked um I would say every meeting whether the it is still anticipated that the shelter will close in June and we
have been advised every time we ask that there are no plans to extend the uh shelter beyond that at this time there have been no conversations um and they are in still still anticipating an end of June closing date um I don't know if there's anything else from the meetings
that that I missed oral what's our total 52 yeah 20 at Freeman and 32 at each all dayall around January where we were at so when we closed in December um before
the break we were at about 20 students so the enrollment when we came back I think I sent you guys an email because when we came back we had 12 students cued um to enroll that entered the shelter over the winter break and since then it was you know eight students a
week for for a series of weeks um the shelter went from having about 170 people to 370 over that winter break um so they were now at full capacity um so I think that's what drove that that big enrollment shift uh the last as I said the last two weeks it's really dwindled
we we had no new students this week and we only have one for next week so I don't know if that's stabilizing now um we do continue to see that it's taking longer when students and families have leases and funding approved um in the past within a week they've moved we're
seeing that timeline stretch a little bit uh I know they were under staff for a while because of um illness uh among staff members and there was some restructuring done so I don't know if that was causing the delays we were planning to ask about that tomorrow but the meeting was postponed um but the
exit process seems to be taking a little bit longer than it has in the pastal of our kindgarten classrooms being over policy Li what are the repercussions for that or do we need to prioritize you know vot to look at those class sizes well I think I I think it's
probably premature from for that because I mean under the federal law if students are living in town we have to bring them in we can't add another kindergarten class at this time of the school year because you can't add class just for new students you would have to reshuffle the entire deck in in at and we don't have a classroom to put them in so there really
is no option um as I said there's two students scheduled to move out we don't know that that's going to be a long-term situation um we have hired additional Staffing the one time prior where we've had more than 21 students in kindergarten classes the way the committee addressed it was to approve
lifting the cap and we hired a par professional to share their time between the two classrooms that had 202 22 students students so what we've done temporarily is to follow that same protocol so we put the same support in place um I don't expect those classes are going to remain at 22 um if they do
then and when we get confirmation of that um the funding we may come to the committee and and request that we hire another full-time person to support those additional classrooms um but I think given that there there isn't another option we legally have to bring students in we would if they were
students from Norfolk we had one first grade La last year that hit 22 um because students enroll late in the school year and they have to go into an existing class so I don't think we want to raise the policy limit because we are continuing to um Advocate to desie that we are at capacity they need to come up
with other Solutions um but I do think proactively we should put the supports in place that we did when we were in this situation prior just with Norfolk students position our school obviously we have to yeah I've reached out to to desie to make them aware we are at our maximum
class size so that they can um you know uh consider how they're bringing families in in age of students um I wouldn't re recommend lifting the cap um I think we are I think it's important that we know that we're over the the class size limit that we put proactively Staffing and supports in place um but I
don't want to create a situation where we're growing capacity that we don't really have okay okay any other questions on Bas St uh the last thing in your packet the schools have been talking with the PTO and are interested in running a
different kind of um fundraising type event it's a back to school supply drive as we talked about in the budget we're reducing a lot of our supply and account and supply lines um additionally in the past over the summer we send out a classroom wish list of a lot of items
and people gather materials and send them in um what they were thinking is if they did the supply Drive earlier then we would know what we have and maybe teachers could reduce those um wish lists to just specific unique items they might need for the classroom um other
districts have done this successfully you can see the Flyers that they'd like to share out this is totally voluntary um but they thought it was a nice way to maybe bring in some of those donations that families are looking to make and be able to reallocate and maybe make the fact of school shopping a little bit
lighter uh in the fall so we're looking because it's a fundraiser for school committee vote to approve moving forward with the supply drive I'll second any further discussion just thank you to the PTO yeah I think this is a great
idea all those in favor that's it for me that me okay um so moving on to committee and liais on reports to the policy sub commmittee um so we have two items uh for your consideration this evening uh the first
is an incidental change to policy um kha which relates to public solicitation in schools um you can see there was some strikethrough language um as you may recall this and then the subsequent policy that we're looking at uh relating to public solicitation and
fundraising in the schools the goal of the subcommittee was to tighten up our existing policies and and make them work well with one another to the best of their ability so uh for exhibit 9 which is the incidental change um we would be
looking for a vote and then for exhibit 10 um which is policy JJ the student fundraising activities um that's just a second reading and we're just taking out redundant language in kha it was um it referred to the PTO and the Teachers
Association as school groups uh to be governed by the policy on staff solit solicitations uh we don't have a policy on staff solicitation so that language that was in the msba recommended language but we don't have that we we
consider public solicitations are um uh General fundraisers and then fundraisers JJ is things that involve students so it covers both and they can approach it like any other group for a motion to approve the changes to policy
K any further discussion I'm ready to be done discussing all those in favor I and then as I said JJ is um no action required tonight just a second reading is this the one that the questionnaire
is going to be attached to or are those two completely different this is the one the questionnaire would be associated with um the most recent changes um as we were kind of discussing how best to encapsulate
some of the concerns we've heard um I think the language was a little overly broad um that was initially being discussed by the subcommittee um that it might striking out this language in the at the bottom right um prevents the
policy from being interpreted as prohibiting something like the book fair um where a student is technically engaging in a monetary transaction um the goal is to have students not be required to fund raise so they should
not be selling products selling products they should not be you know required in any way to procure money and bring you know I mean like it's the the fundraiser the book fair is done I me it's done digitally so I guess they're not technically handling money anymore but it's um the goal was to allow for events
such as that which are you know meaningful fundraisers um for the school but to eliminate situations where um there might be some discomfort around other transactions involving students so this and the form that you're talking to so the third paragraph down it says
other fundraising activities that would involve students in the fundraising process shall be submitted to the superintendent school committee for approval we could reference the form there if it's helpful um but that was the intent that's why it would be attached to this so we could reference
um um I think it's jj- one or something like that we can reference the form there if that's helpful for the third reading and then my next question was the students not be directly involved in the sale of products would that prohibit like students helping at a big
sale at an open house I mean I think the intent was that they're not going door too yeah but if a student was with their parent at a PTO bake sale table right I I think that would be an extraordinarily overly broad application of this policy
but that's my interpretation so if they were if they were doing it alone it would be um we could I mean we could add the sale of commercial products um if you think that clarifies that so that we don't often have um I think students UNS supervis I mean they'd be with their
parents so I would think parents are handling the transaction yeah I think if it just says during scho hours specific schools well it would be I mean an openhouse here point would be a school event yeah um so that's you know it's not an event sponsored by the PTO or something like that but I think it's
generally speaking not the school or the student like any instance where Stu I'm just trying to think of how I could be wrong when I say this but any instance of a student selling something in that environment would be explicitly
involving an adult of some type because it would be at the PTO bake sale table so it would be me telling my daughter you're sitting here stop complaining sell some brownies right and at that point it's it's not it's it's me directed right I was wondering because it says students should not be directly
involved in the sale products like just do that open up to anything during school hours well some of those are evening events that still be prohibited but we could say um I think the word commercial is probably fine s commercial what we're trying to prohibit is what some
fundraisers used to be like students would go door to door and sell magazine subscriptions or um get pledges for participating in different events so we don't want that for safety reasons um we could say um the policy subcommittee
could look at this again and recommend an edit that would clarify student should not be independently direct I was going to say independently involved or direct you know independent yeah directly or independently involved in the sale of products and I'm wondering too just is it the sale of products or not if or is
it should be sale of I don't know if service is the right word but if it's you know if you're running a fund run and you're selling the laps we can say products or Services that's not like a product but you're selling you're raising money for how many laps you're going to run so that's
kind of like a sale of a service could they do that for the fund run yeah it was do they you could pay by how many long laps you run why don't we take another look at that at the policy subcommittee and and come back with recommendations for
clarifying language for that piece I think you could also probably work that into the approval of the event itself um or the specific consent of the superintendent referred to in the last that's the the catch all that was the it does allow for some degree of
flexibility should there be some some unusual circumstances not contemplated where the superintendent can consent to some deviation from policy but we can certainly yeah we could look at it because we could say something like students should not be involved directly involved in the sale of products without prior approval through the fundraising
approval process or something we can we can look at it and come back with something budget sub probably doesn't have anything since we monopolized the meeting today anything from the building
committee no I think just the vote wait and see what happens uh King philli we met last week uh we also voted to approve applications to the msba for both the middle school and the high school but it was a very
short meeting that's all we voted on any liaison update can I ask a question about that sure is that based upon condition of the buildings for EXP expansion for enrollment for repair okay roof repair right right
yeah so just a reminder of nor Lions the talent show coming up Thursday April 10th 2025 young performers no no it's a king Phil po yeah registration by April 3rd
um I spoke with um the new leader of npl and um she mentioned that the Easter Bunny breakfast is going to be April 12 um which is a super fun event especially for those with um younger children tickets are being released tomorrow so go pretty
quick um nothing really from CPC other than the Casino Royale um fundraiser looking like it's GNA be really fun so and that's PTO as well so I have not heard from rank so okay um for the PTO they funded a number of
Grants at their March meeting including the aperture assessment tools Technology based math courses headphones uh occupational therapy tools seating a social skills program and playground equipment and they hosted two trivia
events this month and they have another trivia and movie night coming up and the Casino Royale fundraiser April 5th and then I it wasn't mentioned here in CPAC as well but I got the registration for the active kids program um at King
Phillip and not King philli sorry at Freeman and H it's that morning program the morning we call it morning gym in my house but it's a oh it used it's a really fun program my kids like it a lot for anyone who's interested it's the registration is in
your email BS not box they're not box yeah good before school activity all right moving on to new items you should have your minutes from the February 25th meeting we just need to vote on that looking for a motion to approve the as
written so moved second discussion all those in favor and our next meeting is set for April 8th work for everyone and I will let you all know
when I hear from Marcus hopefully you can make that that is all I have have under new items if anyone has anything else I'd be looking for a motion to adjourn so moved second any further
discussion all those in favor I I