it's February 26 2025 welcome to the North Middle Sex Regional School Committee meeting it is 7:03 i'm going to call the meeting to order attending members are
Randy we just want to say yes whoops go ahead again Randy i didn't hear you here okay jill Twig I'm here june McNeel I'm here i can barely hear you what's
happening is it's connecting to my laptop and not my main system so I'm trying to fix that quickly okay i'm here you're here okay uh Lisa Bloom yes here tom Tom Casey here will Hackler
here patrick McFillips here we also have Nancy Haynes Gary Reese and Superintendent Brad Morgan oh there is Kim Craraven she just raised her hand she's coming in right this call is being recorded our
next scheduled meeting of the North Middle Sex Regional School Committee will be held at 6 PM on Thursday April 10th 2025 do I have a motion on the consent agenda
anything that needs to be pulled out yep uh I'm sorry to interrupt the U minutes are not available they weren't ready for uh review and approval so we can do a consent agenda excluding those minutes okay thank
you is everyone okay with the payroll warrants the accounts payable warrants and the donations excluding the minutes who made the motion will and who
seconded i did okay tom okay randy yes june yes jill yes lisa Bloom
is yes tom Casey yes will Hackler yes patrick McFillips yes um Kim Craraven I'm going to ask you but on the minutes okay and myself
I Yes all right moving on we have public communications um we have a few public communications tonight i just want to remind the public that this is a regular school committee meeting where we conduct the business of the
district the public comment is not a discussion or a dialogue between individuals on the school committee it's an individual's opportunity to express opinion on issues within the school committee's authority i please ask that you keep your comments to 3 minutes and
when you are called upon please state your name and your address when you are joined into the session our first citizen is Patrick Leiden for public comment patrick if you could raise your
hand then I'll you speak please hello hello you're all set all right this is my first time doing a public comment so thanks for your your uh patience there uh my name is Patrick Leiden i am from Ashb i currently have
three kids uh who attend the North Middle Sex School District and I've been listening to meetings over the last few months and um have some concerns obviously I think a lot of parents do and also taxpayers uh and one of the
things that I know to makes a successful school district is having policies to follow and I know our students have policies that they have to follow uh in classrooms i know our teachers have policies uh bus drivers and so forth and I know that the school committee also has their own set of policies and one
policy that I I think is really important and relevant right now is um a policy that I came across called the retirement of facilities policy i'm sure many of you are probably familiar with it uh but for the public who are listening who are not uh it's a policy that basically says that when you decide
that there is a building to be closed that there should be a comprehensive closing study that is done um that would cover a number of different things that would um um help you decide better whether or not this is the right building to close so
in the comprehensive closing study um it's a section uh under the school committee policy manual section uh section F uh retirement of facilities i'm just going to read it real quick so everybody knows about it um when a school building becomes inadequate by
virtue of age condition size of sight lack of need or other overriding limitations and cannot reasonably and economically be brought up to the current educational standards the building should be considered for a comprehensive closing study the
superintendent will recommend to the school comm school committee which facilities appear to justify further analysis the school committee may seek both professional advice and the advice of the community in making its recommendations as to the retirement of
any school facility this will permit the public which originally acquired the property the benefit or to benefit from its recycling or retirement a closing study will include direct involvement by those towns considered in the study and will be concerned uh will be concerned
with all or some of the following factors number one the age and current physical condition of the facilities uh number two the adequacy of the site location access surrounding development traffic patterns and other environmental conditions number three reassignment of
children including all alternative plans according to the committee policies transportation factors uh including the number of children bus time distance and safety uh as well as cost savings um so I guess my question
for the school committee and u administration or my statement to you because you it's one of your policies is that you're not supposed to communicate with me during this public comment um which has been broken in the past by the way um but as a taxpayer uh who's concerned about the fiscal decisions
being made by this school committee and the administration and as a father of three kids in the district uh why has a comprehensive closing study not been completed for either AES Spalding or Squanook uh if it has been completed I have looked high and low for a
comprehensive closing study and I have not been able to find one uh so if it hasn't been completed why hasn't it i think that covered my three minutes thank you very much thank you Patrick the next person is Tara Smith if she
would raise her hand and Tara just state your name and your address please sure hi Tar Smith um I live on Newswitch Road in Ashb and I have two children that will be starting in the school system um my eldest will
start this September so I'm doing my paperwork to have him join the school district and I'm very perplexed by the information that I've seen because I've attended several of your uh meetings and I appreciate the very complicated
situation you're in i think it was well presented that we're at a disadvantage because the state is not funding us and I understand the hard job that you all have however my concern is that while
you I'm assuming every year prior to this you have established a balanced budget and have approved it but have so far over the last five years that I was able to pull a financial statements have fallen short by upwards of nine between
nine and five million every year so my concern is that you are making a very large decision to inconveni or not disen but possibly harm my eldest by
making him bus at 5 years old to another town because you're going to close a well valued and and for what I can tell um cherished school in my town to save
one like 10% of for that you've been short $5 million last year and this is going to save a possible $380,000 to close this school i don't feel like you are doing your fiscal responsibility to
check that this will even make any impact you're just trying to hit a number and I have no confidence in this accomplishing anything going forward except harming the children in my town
so I ask you as a mother and also as a financial professional to look at your numbers again and to reassess and maybe question the leadership that's creating these documents and I appreciate your time
because I know that this is an unpaid job except for those that are actually being paid um but I do appreciate those that are volunteering on this group but I would ask you to do some more thought about this before you make such a huge decision thank you for your time thank
you next we have Shelley Jones good evening can you hear me yep we can hear you just state your name and your address please yep shelley Jones Ashby Mass as a working mother with two middle
school students their time in school learning is extremely important i schedule all of their appointments after the school day or during vacations this year doing this has been an extreme challenge since my kids do not get off the bus from the Hawthorne Brook Middle
School until 3:48 p.m they are released at 2:30 multiple families and children in Ashb spend over an hour on a bus we are left struggling to get our children where they need to be on time whether it be after school sports activities
appointments and even jobs the schools committee is suggesting to close our only school which will result in a plummet to our property values families moving out of our town and families pulling out of the district i did a
Facebook poll on a few of our town pages to see what parents and families intended to do next year if Ashby Elementary School was to be closed and 102 votes for about 86% that responded are thinking about moving out of town or
seeking alternate schooling via homeschool private or school choice to another district only 14% who responded said they would actually stay in district how as a district can you be okay with causing this exodus in our schools i've heard concerns about
dropping enrollment over the last several years and I have to ask why do you think our numbers are dropping i am shocked we still have no numbers and no answers to questions parents and taxpayers have had from day one there
are six options raging drastically where Ashby students will end up going in the fall and as a parent it is not fair we don't have answers our kids are asking our teachers are asking what is the actual plan for
teaching our students next year i hope we have all the answers we've been waiting for on months so that as a parent we can make plans that best fit the needs of our children thank you thank you Shelley um next we have Sharon
Whittier sharon oh sorry just state your name and address please certainly sharon Whittier 194 Mason Road in Townsend good evening school committee chair and members thank you for taking the time to listen to this impact
statement from the staff at Ashby Elementary School as we are all painfully aware the fiscal year 2022 25 and 26 budget is in dire need of funding we appreciate all that the school
committee does to maintain buildings and staff for all three of the towns that make up the North Middle Sex Regional School District we do realize that your jobs are not easy ashb Elementary School was opened in 1952 and was renovated 1989 it currently
houses grades K through4 Ashb students ashb has been a pioneer for the district including housing the steps K through 4 programs and we were the first school in the district to welcome a service dog which the students staff and community
fundraised to help with the process ashby Elementary School works very closely with local colleges including Fitchburg State Framingham State Franklin Pierce and UMass by taking on student teachers from the colleges for
observations into our classrooms or to complete their student teaching practicum in Ashb we were the only school in the district in the top 66 schools in the state to raise MCCAST scores last year that was not due to class size it is
because of our amazing administration teachers and staff not to mention currently three of our grades have the highest class sizes within the district ashby Elementary School students and staff work closely with the community by
donating baskets for holidays Christmas gifts and our student council makes cards throughout the year for shutin students in Ashb ashby Elementary is the heartbeat of this small community no matter the ask the town of Ashb has
always stepped up for AES including fundraising for our new bleachers and the $300,000 needed for upgrades the building serves as a warm and inviting place to learn it is also a place where many school events happen that involve
this small community we have seen and heard so many times that it is only 150 students but our students do matter tonight we are their voices i think we can all agree that each town wants to keep their own school
towns in Imperil each have several schools while closing any one of these schools will impact some town's people and students it will not have the same impact as closing the only school in Ashb negative impacts on closing Ashby
academic disruptions may experience a decline in academic performance transitioning to a new school andor environment social disruptions the loss of familiar building teachers classmates and the AES community feel that the children are
used to will be very challenging for many of our students and families transportation issues the longer commutes the sense of uncertainty students do not understand the reason behind the closure and may feel insecure about their future at NM a school
closure will create elevated stress and anxiety in our students especially those students who are already sensitive to a disruption in routine or change and lastly but most importantly is equity for our students within the district to
have a home elementary school we thank you for taking the time to hear our statement respectfully the ASC staff and thank you thank you
next we have Carla Delma Delma carla just state your name and your address please yes Carla De Lima i'm at 369 Old Northfield Road in Ashby uh this is my first time attending this group um
and I've been following um more recently what's going on with the AES i do have a child that does attend AES and this is his first year attending that school and prior to coming to AES my child um attended a private school in Groten and
when we were deciding on a public school we went to various different towns um and looked at what would be a good fit for our child he is very sensitive and has separation anxiety um so that was really important to me that he fit in to
the environment uh that he was going into so we interviewed various different schools uh in various different districts before making a decision of when where to put him into including Graten we did have that option as well
we decided on actually buying a property here in Ashb based on AES that was our primary um decision maker um it wasn't because of the property the location uh the price um it was basically because of
the school and that was really important to us we went on site with my son we interviewed the school um we met with Mrs see various times throughout the um the last year prior to actually attending school to determine if that
would be a proper fit for him um coming from a very small private school it was really important that he felt welcomed and secure in the environment he was in and with all the different schools that we went into it was the only school that
he walked into and he said "Mom this is where I'm going to school." He just felt welcomed and embraced and he felt like the environment was wonderful the teachers were wonderful Mrs c was wonderful and to me that was a huge
milestone because as a as a parent I also get anxiety knowing where's my kid going is he going to be happy all day is he going to be comfortable is he going to succeed in this environment is he going to thrive now even though we did go to a private school for his
kindergarten um he still was a little bit behind on his reading and that was a challenge for me that I thought you know I don't know what to do he's going into first grade and he's not able to read and at level and right now we are a little bit past 6 months you know we're
past the midterm and he went from not being able to to read at all to now fully reading a book several books sometimes sitting at night reading two three books a night and that is a really giant gap that he filled within a short
time frame and and that's not to say that he didn't have great schooling prior to this in his private school or you know the access to a lot of wonderful teaching but AES has dedicated so much to him that this is a
development that I've I've reached out to the school several times saying how grateful I am because I really thought that he wouldn't be able to achieve what he did today uh or what he's doing today so I think with closing of AES not only has a huge impact on that my son also is
gluten and dairy intolerant so I drive about 7 minutes to the school every day to drop off his warm lunch which is tailored to his diet if he has to move to a different school you know that's a possible 40-minute drive for me every
day just to drop off hot lunch because the school doesn't provide a full dairy and gluten intolerant diet that's a warm lunch for him um so I have that access to that for him every day and that's really important um on top of everything
else that I just mentioned you know when we moved to Ashby we had something that was something we've never had before which is a community and it all is around the school all the different activities when we go into the middle of town all the different kids know each
other and my son just goes off on his own and you know I can see he's gathering with other kids you know something that he's never done before with his separation anxiety so not only does the school you know fulfill all those different you know needs that we
didn't find anywhere else um but it also gives us that sense of community so I know you guys are doing a fantastic job and making a really difficult decision coming up but I think each of these kids including my own son will suffer detrimentally if the school does close
down thank you so much for your time thank you um next we have Patrick McI did you find him Robin i'm scrolling patrick if you could raise your hand
you should be all set all right thank you Patrick just state your name and address please yeah Patrick McY on Hwood Road so um some first of all my kids did go to North Middle Sex and we had to go
through the two-year um change in schools for a shutdown to do the roof and the windows and some of these same questions people were concerned about what but we got over it um the commute and all of that everybody got over because we knew the school was coming
back the problem with the when we did that also was there was a report about the school that was given before they put the um station in and the concern was by the town select board including the one that's still on there was we'll address
that afterwards and it never got addressed so seeing that they put money in this time to address it and then they cut half of it to put it back into um pet projects of buying a new fire truck or new on highway whatever it was um I'm
concerned even with the vote for the override I'm concerned that this board does not respect our decisions and what they make commitments to now I did watch the PEPO school board I mean Pepper Committee um and I was very impressed
with them how detailed they were for their public as to why they needed the override what they could afford for the override what they could not afford very detailed um so that was a concern and that was um something that really kind of kicked me
into gear saying we're not getting the proper information i listened to Townsen's board too i didn't just listen to mine one of the things that I did here is thank god we're not running the um medical as high as Ashby they wouldn't be able to afford anything that
that's being put in front of them um the last thing on this whole thing is I'm concerned with the town is going to get hit with another $273,000 on the closure because we do own the building so the calculated
estimate for the recapturing the amount for the windows and the roof is going to fall on the town i know it's not going to fall on North Middle Sex so it's not going to be a cost of their closing but it's going to fall on the town's people also and we're going to have to now do
another override on that i have suggested and have been agreeing to this all the way along put a new school or put the $5 million into the school i don't have a problem paying the $500 or the $1,000 extra to keep the kids here but people aren't moving forward with
that request i know if we had done it before we wouldn't be footing this much money we wouldn't be footing what what they put into a fire station they would have put it into the school we were told they were going to and they didn't do it and that was something that the select board
said to people the kids are in town more than they're out of town so let's put it into the fire station in the police station and the select board reaging on all these decisions i'm nervous about the override that they're going to reag on giving it to you and they're going to put it to
another highway department truck and that's where my concern is because they keep doing this to us they don't hold their commitments i would like to see a proposal by somebody in the school committee how much it's $5 million to bring that school up to complete
compliance shut us down for a year shut us down for two years i went through it before and then say you bring the school up we'll add back you we'll add you back into the community um that would be the best thing for the school um and I don't have a problem
paying like I said the extra funds i don't like it because we had to pay for a station that's you know is not more important than the kids but I'll do both okay um thank you for your time thank you Patrick um we also have two
statements that Robin is going to read from people that submitted statements to be read when you're ready Robin go ahead yep can you hear me okay Lisa can you hear me okay yes yes sorry I was shaking sorry I didn't have
you let's see okay so this is a statement that receive we received from Andrew D rosier uh I'm an Ashby resident with a first grader currently going through Ashby Elementary School this past
weekend my daughter was excited to experience something their first grade class had discussed in their classroom as we were away for a competition in Philadelphia um she wanted to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall the importance of visiting these landmarks were bestowed
upon her through the education she has received at Ashby Elementary School this past year while visiting Independence Hall we took a tour and were fragility of our unique system of governance and was read part of the Constitution by the
park ranger it began "We the people of the United States and reminded me of our school district's motto we are North Sex." The document and the idea behind this experiment was to collectively pull together feuding states during instability after the revolution north
Middle Sex currently is experiencing feuding amongst our three communities because of major instability in our own school district we are currently experiencing disenfranchisement of communities with limited representation in the district with two towns pitted amongst the
limited population of one in recent years there have been countless nonsensical debates amongst committee members seemingly using their own personal biases and made up facts to support their ideals of a school district these inventions of facts have
been nonetheless allowed to perpetuate because of lack of information from the district's administration this also can be attributed to lack of direction leadership and decorum amongst this school committee ashb school has many reasons to be kept open from its
importance to the local community keeping um Ashb kids local utilizing a building with existing investments in the infrastructure boiler solar and cosmetic features and ex existing grants provided to the district which could be
limiting to the district there's only one reason to close Ashb is to save money although alternative building closures would result in more budget to be saved this school is more than a building but a representation of 100% of Ashb education infrastructure closing
the school would result in the disenfranchisement of the Ashb students by stripping a community of their culture meeting place and eliminating the great staff at the school the closure of a town and school would result in the reduction of 25% of the available buildings with greater cost
savings limited liability regarding grant repayment continued use of infrastructure improvements that offset energy costs which I believe is the one thing we all can agree on is too expensive and allows for community to feel part of the we the district tries
to instill upon its staff students and community as of right now based on the decorum of those in this committee and lack of leadership I no longer have faith in the school board it is maddening that year after year we enter these conversations that come to stalemate neighbor pitted on neighbor
and no clear message from this school board uh in conclusion my only statement to this school board is to do better do better for our kids do better for our communities and do better for the district although we know the state funding formula is a problem this has been the constant the variables in all
of this is you you have the power to unite to speak up and advocate for a community with little representation and you still and you can still do the right thing do you want me to read that the next one yeah by
Chelsea this is our last public comment there's no one else signing i'm going to apologize now if it's this the font is incredibly small on this spreadsheet though um as a parent I am deeply disheartened by the example set by our elected officials
while I do not believe that all of you are incapable of showing kindness compassion and reason making difficult decisions for our children I am truly troubled by how polarized our district has become the current climate in our country is filled with so much hate and raising children to be kind has become
more challenging than ever especially when those in positions of power set such unkind examples i fully understand how difficult these decisions are and I recognize that one town may be larger than another however I cannot help but feel that we are now making one town
feel discriminated against because of its geographic and population makeup i urge you to consider how you would want your own children as well as future generations to view your actions my children are watching and they are witnessing the division and discord that is happening in a district that is
supposed to be unified after all we are NM right i will continue to fight for my hometown just as others have fought for their schools and communities all right thank you all right that will end the public comments um on to the
chairman's person's report i'm going to welcome Kim Craraven she has been appointed by the town of Townsen to fill in the rest of Bill Bird's term as he resigned two weeks
ago welcome Kim and that's all I have for chairman's report we are on to Brad or Superintendent Morgan's superintendent report if you have anything i just have the budget presentation later on in the meeting all right thank you on to new business
we have is it CPAC is that how you say it ce yeah if if Relle could raise her hand you should be all set michelle all right welcome Michelle can you hear me yes we can hear you thank you okay um thank you
for this opportunity to give you guys a quick update on what we've been working on this year in CPAC um we are always trying to bring awareness to parents for those who are listening and don't know who we are CPAC stands for Special Education Parents Advisory Council and
we are always trying to let you know that we are here and a resource to help um any children that may have an IEP or 504 by answering questions and providing you with um the right resources to seek out in that effort we continue to have
um a table at the open houses in the various schools in the district so that we can meet with parents and have that discussion in October we were excited to host a meet and greet with Aaron Upton who is our new special education director where she also presented a
review of the IEP document that's going into implementation this year in the district that was very well attended and we were excited to have that opportunity in November we had the Federation for Children with Special Needs pre present
basic rights evaluation and eligibility for IEPs for parents and community members and we also had our annual fundraiser with Sophia's Pizza which we are very grateful for their continued support of our organization in December we had our
second annual sensory Santa event this is an event near and dear to my heart is a great and much needed event for kids in our district who are unable to visit with Santa in a typical location like a mall due to sensory issues so we offer them an opportunity to meet with Santa
in a quiet and calm environment we also provide some snacks and games it's a really fun event and all those who have volunteered thoroughly enjoy the event we continue to sponsor tree at the towns and library festival trees this
year our book featured anxiety awareness we thought this was a fitting topic considering the mood of our district and nation at the current moment we decorated the tree by pulling teachers adults and children within the district and asked "What makes you anxious and
how do you handle your anxiety?" So it was a unique learning opportunity for anyone who stopped by our tree to get a variety of different information um as we move forward we are looking forward to child mental health awareness month in May we work with the
schools in the district to recognize this week in May by planning activities that are age appropriate for the students we also have an upcoming fundraiser with Bailey's cpac will receive proceeds from sales of burger of the month in May and we kindly ask all
of our community members for their continued support we have upcoming elections in May we are in desperate need of volunteers and co-chair positions this is not a huge time commitment but we do need parents committed to helping we
have a number of great ideas that due to lack of help could not be pursued this year one of those ideas was a Hawthorne Brook natistic game night where the kids would get an opportunity to meet each other at the high school and have some
fun before transitioning but because we didn't have parent volunteers we can't make this a reality um so it just goes to say that we really really need your help um to make all these ideas um a success so no matter if you have a few
minutes or more to to volunteer please consider helping us out and we do ask that in light of everything going on in the district this year if schools are going to be shut down that the schools will consider hosting their own meet and
greet to ease in the transition for any children who are going to be moving to a new location to help with anxiety and make them feel welcome into the new environment in which they are going to be learning and finally I have one request
for the school committee members um I would like to request that the district provide additional screening of new hires for anyone in the district i suggest we change the policy on background checks to include a mandatory check of the DCF central registry this
check returns any instances in which a supported finding of abuse or neglect was recorded and the situation was turned over to the district attorney for possible charges if the charges were not substantiated no record is returned
unfortunately in many cases of abuse and especially sexual abuse criminal charges are never brought this is not for lack of evidence it is because many parents make the decision that putting their child through a criminal trial would revictimize them and so they do not
decide to pursue charges so often the most serious misconduct someone could have engaged in as an educator does not show up on their record with a current background check or when and local district policies ashurnham Westminster
School District is the very first school district in the state to adopt this new policy and they are happy to assist with any questions we may have if we would like to adopt this as well there is no additional monetary charge involved in
this process but it does require an extra step in the hiring process so I would kindly ask the school committee to make this part of NM new screening process to help us close the loophole and keep our children safe thank you
very much for your time thank you Michelle and thank you for your commitment to the CPAC organization and the parents out there that stay committed to this as well um we will take into consideration the last thing
that you said about getting the extra screening um Randy would you be able to take that on or work with Brad and since it is would be a policy change okay i didn't or you're on mute
sorry yes I can take that on okay thank you all right and was it Okay we'll move on to the outofstate overnight field trip request superintendent Morgan
instate field trip overnight oh instate sorry yes um and and I do apologize this was submitted rather late um it is a trip that our students have not had the opportunity to go on for a number of years um and it's kind of a a different
situation where the adviser is not attending and another faculty member at the high school is attending um in theirstead so um I ended up submitting the paperwork i actually thought that it had been submitted but that is on me um so I am asking the school committee to
approve the trip of 12 of our um student council members to go down to the cape for the state student council conference and it's been several years um in talking with the students since this trip has been done thank you Brad um
Randy um I have no problems with this trip um I encourage it i think it's wonderful and I hope uh the students uh learn a lot from it um the one technicality I would like to bring up and um and have
is that Brad you are bringing on the sheet for the approval is you're requesting it and you're approving it as an administrator um I think there's a little bit of a conflict there uh the requester should you know the approver should not be the requester as well um
I'd like to put this forth to be approved tonight with the caveat that uh the chair can verify that it gets an an additional um administrator approval on this page just for um for you know just to make sure that
we're doing it properly that there's no conflicts uh on that end any more questions or anything you're good with that Brad just getting your or So I will move to Yeah I will move to uh approve the instate um trip
for the student council to the MASC uh in was uh uh um March 3rd 5th to the 7th correct i'm trying to find it on my screen sorry um with uh the addition of an
administrator uh signature at the bottom to be verified uh by the chair second okay that is Randy motion patrick seconded all right and we will vote
Randy whoops sorry Randy that's okay yes june yes tom yes will yes kim yes patrick yes
lisa yes jill yes and myself is yes all right moving on to old business we do not have any we are moving on to the subcommittee
reports ashby Elementary accelerated any nothing from Ashb correct you shook your head yeah no okay and then accelerated repair at our
next meeting I will have an update on the accelerated repair projects and we are on to finance mr hackler I think Brad is going to give his presentation first if that's
okay and then take it from there all right Miss Haynes would you be willing to put the presentation up please [Music] thank you so we just have a a brief PowerPoint to go through some of the
options that we'll be looking at tonight the budget narrative that you do have in your packet is a 3.16 increase over FY25 just to be clear I want to make sure that we're not um confusing the numbers because there are
some different numbers outlined in this presentation and and just going back the level services budget that we originally were looking to propose was a 5.48% increase so we've reduced that to 3.16 a little bit more than $1.5 million
lesson level services um this includes um the reduction of 12 uh full-time positions in the district um as well as a building closure with consolidation savings
um additional budget actually before I get into that I I do want to explain um with regard to the building closure i I'm sure mo most of you have seen the response from the MSBA um on potential
clawback or um repayment um amounts that the district um that they will be looking for the district to repay i did have a conversation with Michael McGurl at the MSBA today and we did discuss um the how and when of any type of payment
that would um have to go back to MSBA and quite honestly um it's really not clear um what MSBA does ask is that we make a decision and notify them in writing um and then they will make further
determinations about um how the district will um pay back um the MSBA for the the money that they quoted us which was just over $270,000 i asked him if there was a possibility due to our budget situation
that the money um that the amount be lessened um and he came back to me and said "We'll discuss the how and when later um I need something in writing from the district first um he was not willing to answer um or could not answer whether or not um that was the actual
amount that the district would have to pay back um for for the building project so again as far as the 270 it may not be 270 um they may look at um other ways of collecting that money it's just not
clear and um discussions will be had once a decision is made um and that came directly from Mike McGurl who the letter was addressed to in a conversation that I had with him this morning another potential option that we could look at would be additional
reductions to the budget increase that would bring it down to a 2.55% increase and another $400,000 in reduction which would be six FTEEs at the middle school and $40,000 of other reductions in tech or
facilities again potentially cutting curriculum or technology lines further uh there's also an additional slide at the end of this presentation that could potentially garner some extra funds as well that I will go over so again the two that we're really looking at uh this
evening um in my hopes would be either a 3.16 or the 255 we can move on to the next slide so the 3.16% increase would include the closure of Ashby Elementary squan Cookook would
become uh districtwide prek grades K and one for Ashb Townsend spalding would be grades 2 to four Ashb Townsend varnbrook would be K to4 PEPL as well as our special education programs districtwide hawthorne and Brook would be 5 to8 Ashb
Townson nissatis would be 5 to8 PEL special education programs districtwide and then the high school would remain the same with central office there as well i do want to point out and I know we've discussed this previously uh maintaining the programs in PEPL um has
shown to save significant money with special education transportation as well as saving money on some of our service providers by eliminating a good deal of travel that they would have to do if we had our programs located in multiple
locations or multiple towns as opposed to one we can move on to the next slide something that I do want to point out would be um the potential for a 0% increase what would actually happen if we had to cut $3.6 million less than the
level services budget that we are recommending um and that really does get the towns down to a 3% assessment that is something that they have requested again it's extremely difficult uh for us to do and you will see why in the next
couple of slides but a budget increase of zero um this is what it would essentially look like we can move to the next slide it would entail an additional building closure as I've said before um closing two buildings I think would
really put us in an extremely difficult situation it would leave little to no room for growth um we would have to reduce an additional 15 FTE 10 at the elementary level four at the middle school level one at the high school um
and then we'd be looking at savings again if it happened to be Spalding we we did use Spalding in this particular model uh because it's really going back to option four which is what the school committee had looked at previously that's a savings of
$535,000 um in change but I I do want to point out that when we when we are talking about closing a school whether it be Ashb or whether or not or whether it be Spalding uh Ashb if it's $380,000 in building and tech there's also a
significant chunk that is added on to that in staffing consolidation um same thing with the potential closure of Spalding um when you close a building you consolidate staff you disperse students and you
create class size balance uh again possibly in the wrong direction but it does help with um it does entail some staffing um consolidation as well which is not on this um which is not part of this model right now because the
building is there um other expense cuts would be in the $250,000 range again looking at potentially um you know um paying off some of our some of our debt in the district and
also again I have a final slide which will help with looking at how could we potentially make additional cuts or savings if we needed to to get to this u but I do want to point out that um that's an additional 15 staff if we
don't close a second building that is that means we would have to eliminate or reduce another $535,000 of staff okay and you will see by the class size models what that will do um if we
actually had to move in that direction we can go to the next one so this is going back to if we have to close two buildings this is that option four that we discussed um again it having the opportunity to look at
this option it is not an option that any of us feel great about um again it leaves us very little room for growth it will increase bus rides exponentially for our students um I I I can't even
really guess what the bus ride would be from Ashb to the Nissotissit um to the Nissotissit school not going to happen i'm sure that all of you have seen um some of the emails that we've gotten this week especially in the winter when the roads are difficult to navigate um
our normal bus runs are taking much much longer because of bus speeds of 20 m an hour that they have to basically abide to to to maintain safety so we would be looking at very very long bus rides in this particular model and again leaving little to no room for growth but the
alternative is if we don't close that second building and we end up with a zero would be having to cut an additional $535,000 if in staff because we we have reached a point where there's very few
places to reduce to to reach a number like that we would also have to re-evaluate the location of our special education programs as well at that point because they would no longer fit at Varnenbrook and quite honestly they may not fit at Nissa either we would likely
have to spread them out which would um be reason for additional costs as well go to the next slide please um some administrative reductions that we've talked about um in the budget and and I have here for you really as
all of you know this year's a little bit of an anomaly um I I'm at the high school we are going without in some other areas so I did want to just put up what our FY24 administrative structure looked like and compare it to what we're
proposing in FY 2026 um in FY2024 we had two full-time APS at the high school one full-time AD uh Spalding had one full-time um and still maintains one full-time FTE this year as an AP the director of humanities and then the
director of STEM both 1.0 FTEES for a total of six FTEES what we're proposing for the coming year would be to um bring would be to essentially hire a new assistant principal at the high school
so 1.0 FTE there maintain the 1.0 ADA AP shared role and then take what was formerly our our directors our STEM director and humanities directors which were also changed a little bit this year again they've maintained some of those roles but we've been trying we've been
adding things to those roles is DESIE has also increased the responsibilities on school districts in the areas of title one but also around accountability in the area primarily of chronic absenteeism uh to basically look at those two roles and basically move them
towards a director of title one family engagement and an instructional coach uh due to the numbers that we have in the district of title one we are mandated to have an administrator overseeing that program uh again because of the numbers um this person would also be um
assisting in other ways which I'll discuss in upcoming slides and then the administrator of academics and accountability um which would be primarily a high school position which I'll talk about in a later slide as well um both of those positions the director
of title one is is fully um grant funded where the second position the administrator of academics and accountability is about uh 14% grant funded so we can move on to the next slide and the rationale for the administrator of academics
accountability and student activity accounts person would also be helping with that is to provide necessary support to North Middle Sex Regional High School and the district the person would still have some district roles um but quite honestly the reduction of a
full-time assistant principal at the high school the elimination of a full-time guidance counselor at the high school as well as um the elimination of of just some u the director of data accountability and the director of STEM has led to this position again it would
be 14% grant funded through title 2A 86% through the operational budget but what has happened again with the with the reduction of the assistant principal and the reduction of the guidance counselor is that we do need some additional help with overseeing all academics at the
high school we need help with educator evaluation making sure that our that our educators at the high school are being properly evaluated and that our timelines are being followed as outlined in the contract to assist with NEASK to assist with credit recovery for the students that are struggling to graduate
um and looking for alternative ways for students to obtain the necessary credit to graduate on time to assist with transition planning after hospitalizations and extended absences to serve as the district attendance offer officer again chronic absenteeism is something that we have to track we
have to monitor something that we have to pay very close attention to and do everything we possibly can to um to put steps in to improve our attendance um that person is already doing that this year but again this would be a part of the district work this person would be
doing help with um high school student activity account management data and accountability and then chronic absenteeism across the district so that would be the administrator of academics and it would be primarily housed at the high school i would say about 90% of the
job would be high school work 10% would be um districtwide next slide the second position would be the director of title one family engagement and elementary instructional coach this is 100% grant funded through title one
as I mentioned it is required that there be an administrator for the title one program the level of supervision and coaching required is due to the change in title one classification from schoolwide classification to targeted assistance also with the loss of the assistant principal at Spalding Memorial
School and increased population at Squanakook this role will assist with educator evaluation at the elementary level and be housed at Spalding Memorial so again we'd have some district-wide work but also some targeted work with educator evaluation at Spalding and at
Swanakook where both of those buildings would be without assistant principles we can go to the next slide some other things that we're looking at um as far as helping with the budget and again some of these are very
difficult to even consider increasing our extracurricular fees our user fees for athletics our user fees for bands for band and things like that not contributing to OPED which is which is not um something that is recommended um and does have an impact on the bond
rating do we want to consider offering a health insurance opt out uh the amount to be determined uh to our staff to potentially save money there uh the district has sent out a survey to see if there would be any interest We're still gathering input on that but
again that may be an option for the district to look at and potentially save some money which would hopefully in turn save some jobs an early retirement incentive um do we want to look at offering an early retirement incentive i know that um a district that I that I
that I cannot name because it has not been finalized has recently offered their staff a $25,000 one-time payment um if they've been in the district for 20 continuous years uh they've they're only offering it to professionally licensed educators
um as an early retirement um opportunity and this district is looking at the strong possibility of saving upwards of $500,000 um next fiscal year by offering this do we want to consider as we did
last year having a full day kindergarten fee last year we we had mentioned $3,000 would make approximately $100,000 for the district uh the elimination of middle school athletics at a savings of $32,000 do we want to look at paying off
some of our leases um you know whether it be the the truck the tractor um taking money out of revolving which would have a positive impact on the budget and save some interest as well the other thing that that we have looked at again kind of on the periphery is
over the past couple of years at the urging of town leadership um really coming from um two of our three towns is looking at further trying to regionalize our central office administration um last year we had reached out to Graten
Dunstable with the possibility of talking about do we want to share some central office positions um it did not end up going anywhere this year um there was some interest uh from Lunenburgg reached out to Lunberg and had a conversation with their superintendent
i'm not really sure if that's going to go anywhere either uh but we are trying to be as creative as possible um and something like regionalizing central office would would benefit both districts um if it were something um that both sides wanted to consider so I
do feel like we're trying to do everything that we possibly can to save money um and to positively impact the budget um but as as we've mentioned many times we absolutely have reached a point where the state does need to step in uh
because going back to that 5.48% budget increase that was level services that's to provide our students with what we're offering them right now um we're not adding anything um it's just to offer them what they're getting in
FY25 and we're proposing this evening um either a 3.16 or a 2.55 i would I would advise against going with a zero just because it will have a significant negative impact on the district um and again when in some of the areas when
we're saying TBD potential savings these are some of the things that we're looking at to potentially garner some additional funds we can go to the next slide so we have some class size um
pieces for you at 316 or 255 as you see our class sizes are starting to climb grade two at Varnum is getting quite high grade um two with spalding would be quite high um we are certainly starting
to climb into the mid to higher 20s at the elementary level but still maintaining relatively decent class sizes with the 3.16 or the 255 and go to the next slide Nancy thank you hawthorne Brook as you see there's
there's kind of a flip because of decisions that were made at the two schools um where grade five six are low at Hawthorne Brook but they're high in seven and eight and it's almost the opposite in grade 56 at mississet and seven and eight again those were
decisions that were made at the building level the problem that we face with um reductions at the middle school level is that especially in grades seven and eight is that they are teams and they're licensed in most cases in a single
subject area so that in in grade seven for instance there is one seventh grade team at Hawthorne Brook Middle School um of four teachers you really can't make a reduction there because it's a team of four and someone we would lose a content
area essentially and grade seven and eight are too large are way too large to go with split teams so it is difficult elementary in grades five and six um are when it comes to making reductions you're generally reducing a teacher um
but in grade five six again it becomes a little more complex because they're two and three person teams and in some cases they specialize in a content area so it does become challenging once you get to the middle school level to start making reductions and as you see here with a
3.16 again there are some certainly pockets of high class sizes um but going to that zero um or going to the 255 will absolutely impact the middle school um numbers we can go to the next slide
high school enrollment continues um to to decline but again uh being at the high school this year we there have been reductions at the high school in the past um we do have several sections that are at 30 um several sections that are actually over 30 um a lot of it tends to
be based on electives based on tracks that the students are in um you know if you have a student that's taking AP Calc in French for instance it may actually dictate their schedule for them and where they fall um so making reductions again at the high school level um can
also be challenging um and although the enrollment looks like it has it has dropped quite significantly um the class sizes are still high in most areas we can go to the next
slide with the 255 as you see um again I I had talked about that our middle school class sizes go up hawthorne and Brooks still is relatively manageable in grade five grade six it's it's becoming a little bit more difficult with three more students in each section and then
grades seven and eight are at 28 which is which is very high for those two grade levels same thing with grades five and six again mid20s in grades five and six and now we're over 30 in grades seven and eight which again is very challenging at that grade
level go to the next slide and then the projected enrollment at our elementary schools with a zero and I I do just want to point out just keep in mind that this is with an additional building closure if we don't
close an additional building that means that we have to cut almost another $550,000 in staff so if you look at class sizes those class sizes are going to go up um an example would be is if you if you go down to
um grade 2 ashbans it should actually say um I'm sorry that's right 32 there's four sections there 32 32 33 33 if you eliminate a section there and add 33
across those other three sections we're going to be in the very we're going to be well into the 40s in that section so that's essentially what would happen we would essentially have to go almost by grade level by building and make reductions that will easily put our
sections into the 30s um and in some cases they would probably come close to 40 um that may not be a good example to use because they're already in the 30s but it may be an area that we have to make a reduction when you're cutting that many more staff and again it would
be slightly over a half a million dollars if that makes sense so this is what our class sizes would be at a zero with the closure of an additional building which um I I do not feel again just in full disclosure that the administration is comfortable doing uh
just because of class sizes and having to um make sure that that we have an adequate amount of space never mind um again as I mentioned earlier the lengthy bus rides next slide
projected enrollment with additional cuts to zero again looking at Nissatis which would be six seven and eight again very large class sizes that's without the additional building cut excuse me that is with the additional building cut so if we don't cut the additional
building those numbers will climb um making it very challenging in those three grade levels you can go to the next slide and then it's just questions do you have any questions again so we presented we had the initial
5.48 this evening um I'm hoping that the committee will consider either the 3.16 or 2.55 um but we have the zero there as well um I am hopeful that we that we do leave this meeting tonight with a budget
because we do have a lot of staff on edge um and questioning what their future's going to be and again I I I know there's a lot of anxiety out in the district we are doing the very best we can uh with the options that we have
that we continue to outreach to the state we continue to meet um at central office we continue to work with building leadership to try to come up um with the best possible option in a really bad list of options uh which is really what
this budget process has turned out to be thank you Superintendent Morgan thank you oops will do you want to take it you go ahead yeah um you know just a quick commentary here you know is that you
know tonight our our job is to stay focused we need to give these towns a budget um you know they've worked with us to help out for this where all three of them are going to do meetings on March 10th it's our job tonight to make
sure we're giving them a number so that they have numbers so they can bring to the towns you know on March 10th so with that said you know open it up Jim
um I just have two quick questions to start well one one is quick um as far as the class sizes physically logistically how many students can actually fit in the classrooms that we have because I know
it's long been said the the largest classes in the district were at Ashby Elementary so if they're smaller than that I'm just wondering can we fit 38 students into a room brad you're on mute got it um the largest classes in the district right
now are several sections of the high school um they are again over 30 in in several sections um I don't we don't have I don't believe unless I've unless I've missed something anything K to 8 um that is approaching numbers that high um
but again the high school is slightly different because of the um course selection process and just the way the schedule works out um and it varies building by building as far as a a classroom size again if you're looking at a school like
Varnenbrook um you know their classrooms are oddly shaped they're they're not very much very similar to Hawthornebrook um they're not traditional classrooms in many ways they have uh you know temporary walls in some cases it would
really vary from room to room i I think anytime you go up over 30 um you're creating a a problem in your classrooms u I don't think 30 students fit safely or adequately in in any space again the
high school's able to make it work because they're older students certainly certainly mature um they've chosen the class that they're in uh that's usually in that situation where again when you're looking at elementary middle school students it's a different
situation that there's less choice um and it would vary from building to building but above and beyond whether or not students would fit it would be being able to manage the number of students that are in the classroom which would be in which would be a significant stressor
on the teacher um you know as we all know uh there's a wide range of learners in classrooms in our classes today and to have you know 25 is a lot um you know I would love to say we could have
classrooms class sizes of 21 um can't do that um 25 is a lot and going up over 30 is is going to be a real challenge so um I think fitting the students would be a problem i also think managing the students being able to manage the
different learning styles and deliver effective instruction I think would be a real challenge i I I definitely agree that it's that would be a terrible situation with that many students i was just wondering if it
was actually even like feasible i I know I know the numbers are on your slide but if that's what it came down to and that's you know where we ended up is it even possible or is that too many like as far as like capacity and fire codes
and stuff like that or is that not even something that could actually happen again I think it can happen in some locations it can't happen in every location it's going to be specific to the room um and the type of furniture
that is in that room you know there are desks that are large there are desks that that are much much smaller and take up less space it is going to be dependent on the furniture furniture that's in place and the design of the room in the school um we have not gone
um and and actually put desks of that because we literally have to do it in multiple rooms in every single school uh because because of the shape of the classrooms in most cases again looking at Varnen Brook and Hawthorne Brookbrook alone um the design of those rooms is
very very different uh than traditional classrooms so that that's something that again I think we're looking at square footage and giving our best guess i I do think that we if we get up over 30 and into the mid to high30s I don't think we're looking at a situation where we
can fit students in classrooms okay all right thank you um my second question which I I this opening up a whole new can of worms and I kind of can't believe I'm saying it but has there been any thought um and I'm saying
this because looking at slide 12 the differences between the size classrooms for middle school has a been any thought to a middle school consolidation where say fifth and sixth
districtwide would go to Hawthon Brook and seven and eighth district wide would go to PEL and again not ideal but thinking about um the say 500,000 or so saved by an elementary
consolidation has anybody talked about that and I know the you know we hear a lot about the great science classes and pole and um so to open that up for the older students i didn't know if if that's something that's been explored by the admin team
um it has not been explored this year i um I it is something that was explored I believe in my first year um and it was not wellreceived um in talking about that that very that very thing of of having five six be districtwide at Hawthorne Brook seven
and 8 be districtwide in nicotis um I I do think that again and option four although I think it's I don't think it's a great model of having six seven and eight would would somewhat accomplish that um you'd have three grade levels
there instead of instead of two um but just having five six and seven and eight no that is not something that has been looked at this year um well I can just say I was somebody it was prior to my committee time the few months before I joined the school
committee actually and I was very vocally against that um which is why it kind of hurt to bring it up tonight but um we were not in the same situation six years ago that we are right now and it could potentially save um you know retain a
building in the district and um you know again just trying to think outside the box as to what's best for the students and if we're seeing lower class sizes in you know two grades and higher in the other grades and it flip-flops I'm just thinking about the
elementary consolidation that it might make sense um perhaps not permanently but maybe for a year or two while we get through this this budget crisis um I'll have more comments but I I just wanted to bring those two things up right away
but I'll let somebody else go thank you Randy all right um I I was hoping to find a time uh to make some general comments uh before we really kind of got into the presentation um I apologize there just
didn't seem to be um a better place um to do this so my first comments here are just going to be um some personal comments um about the whole process of the budget season um
this year um this entire budget season has really been hard on me um I as people know I've been on the school committee for quite a long time been through some difficult years
before um and it just seems there are so many things this year that are just not going well um it was extremely disheartening to me
um at our public hearing to hear what people were saying um not from their opinions on fighting for their students
um but it was very very hard for me to hear so many people say not my child others can do it others can to can bear the burdens um the lack of empathy
of the people who chose to come forward um was really disturbing um you don't have to um want to make any sacrifices but we we teach empathy and empathy is at least acknowledging that
you're putting a burden or acknowledging that somebody else is going through something and um I didn't hear any of that from the people who chose or most of the people that chose to speak um so I really want to reach out um and speak
to the communities i know there's so many more people out in the communities that um are empathetic they do understand what's going on and they feel for the people that Ashby students that may have
to be um bust out of their um town from kindergarten on they're already doing that from fifth grade and at least acknowledge that that is something that they are burdening that community on that that community has to uh endure that they do not
um and I'd really like people to think about that when they're looking at this district we are NM uh we have spent a lot of energy the administration here has put so much work into creating a culture
within our our district the district is three towns of we are NM and I have seen this budget season tear it all down it was something that actually was
good to see i people were taking pride in it and now all I'm seeing is people pointing fingers saying they want to dreionalize because uh they have to you know pay for other students which
um and again that sense of community really feels like it's lost um I also feel that in these difficult times uh the district the school committee um we have done
a really bad job of modeling good behavior on what to do in a crisis we have been talking about a budget crisis and all I see is the administration separating itself from the school committee the school committee all
divided amongst ourselves and not talking to each other not expressing why we feel different things to talk things through to try and get to compromise um it's just been a lot of round and round on the same
things not listening to each other um and I think it is is horrendous behavior that we are modeling for the district for the students and for the community um we can go move forward from
this and I hope that we do um but it has been extremely difficult for me to watch this and be part of this um so I just want to say that it is not okay and I am not okay with things that
have been said i am not okay with the behavior i am not okay um with what we are doing or how we are going about what we are doing and this has nothing to do with the actual decisions that are being made this all has to do with the process and how we're treating each other i hope
we can move forward and do better um I will leave my comments on the budget while I collect myself for a minute and let somebody else speak thank you okay I'd like to go around you know the whole group first here June before we
come back to you anyone else next jill you're next on my list me i'm next i I I don't have anything further to say everything has already been said here today um I empathize with Randy being upset
um I'm sorry that you're upset Randy um yeah I I don't really It's just a a really bad situation that we're all in every single you know family that's here in the district and um I wish I wish we weren't here
thank you Jill tom yeah so budget wise um obviously we have a couple different proposals doing this years past understanding is that we can always come back with a lower number right
yep okay okay patrick am I at this time allowed to discuss my opinions on which option we should consider or is that because Go ahead meeting
um just in in what Brad said and and since we've been speaking about it at all these meetings I think we should start with the discussions on the 3.16 is what we lean towards um I think it's a very fair budget we're putting forward we we've clearly made a
lot of cuts deep cuts and um if the towns can't support that I honestly don't even recommend another cut doing the dollar go to a 12th budget and then let the the town come in and arbitrate it because I don't see how we we
can make more cuts without greatly impacting the entire district's education okay just a second thought while I have the floor i've received a lot of emails on buses um and I just want to let the people know that I am digging into that
and looking into that i understand snow and winter have been a cause for some of it but kids on a bus that long is is is a concern so I am I am looking into that i've spoke with Nancy and Brad and and I'm going to reach out to the bus company eventually just trying to get
through this budget and that will be looked into thanks lisa Bloom you seem to be moving around can do you want to speak um yes um I'd just like to say I 100% agree with what Randy said um after the
last meeting and William Berg resigned um due to the activities and conduct of what happened in the meeting um I was pretty close myself but I wouldn't do that to our community and to our students
um I don't agree with um Ashby being closed especially due to um the letter that we received from the Massachusetts School Building Authority and I do believe that we should
resend the Ashby Elementary School vote from closing and discuss more and closing that we're not going to save much between
um what we're going to have to pre-lock um from the grants we're going to end up the project cost recovery we're going to end up having to pay $27300 or $273,000 back on top of paying the solar
panels on top of paying um the windows and the roof and it's not going to save us much money compared to the $380,000 that's you know proposed for closing one
school and what it's going to do to our community ashby Elementary or Ashby needs a school in their town as a regional district that's it yeah lisa Martin
this has not been an easy budget season and I realize that for everyone um and it's not to say that like there's been several tears shed by all of us because we do take this
job at its core and we do care about our students and our communities um these are not easy decisions i know like they're not easy for any of us they're not easy on
our administration they're not easy on our students and they're not easy on our teachers and for years we've talked about this happening to some extent we were the ESSER funds
disappeared if we it just put our problem down five years um today I conducted messages with Margaret Scarsdale and Edward Kennedy Senator
Kennedy trying to figure out better solutions and advocating i know that the MTA had a big meeting of centralizing all of their efforts for advocating for the school budgets and what I ask of the public is
that you too have to step up and advocate we need help to do this if it's impacting our students get the word out there and talk to these people there was only a handful of people last
night with Senator Kennedy and we did spend most of the time talking about Chapter 70 money and fixing it but more people need to show up because otherwise they're not hearing us so I know that um
Kelly Kelly and Gen 4s have a big advocacy group that's working join them that's what my plea is to the parents join them because that's how we're going to solve some of our issues that we're facing thank you
thank you Lisa um Kim we give you obviously a chance here again welcome to stepping into this i appreciate it um and uh certainly respect uh as you go through this being
that it's only like you know 27 hours since you were appointed here um you know that you don't feel comfortable voting tonight so um I want to make sure that everyone understands you know that she has stepped in brand new if she
chooses to abstain tonight i hope no one holds that against her um you know in this process so thanks Will um so I think I'll I'll talk on on two levels um I can hear the pain
in everybody's voice um not just in this meeting but in others um that this is a hard time for the school committee the administration and the the parents um but it is a reality so I think that trying to look forward and find a
solution um is in everybody's best interest for certain um one of the struggles that I have um and I had this last year with the budget is um that it's not always crystal clear and so
even while I appreciate the effort with everything tonight when I look at the options it's really hard when it's not side by side um to be able to uh work with everybody to see what options um
could change and so having them on static presentation panel slide deck instead of in an interactive table um where we could see the implications a little more um dynamically I think would
be beneficial for everybody um it really helps when budgets or data is laid out in that that way um I do have some experience through my professional work at looking at a lot of numbers and data
and building issues and so one of the things as well um and I know I asked for this in in the you know past day that I've been appointed is to really be able to look at the schools themselves classroom by classroom what is the use
now what is the intended use and as the superintendent said some of our schools are not neatly laid out um as a traditional school would be so it's just not um plug-andplay the other struggle that I that I have
um is once a building is shuttered it shuttered um and there's folks on this call that know me um I do um talk that if there is shuttering we do need to have a reuse plan um I'm pretty active in our community trying to think through
some economic development solutions and to just not think through the long-term viability of the district i think we're shortch changing ourselves and in the short time that I had today I
did talk to the state and ask them you know what does it mean to have a school building in operation does it have to have kids in it um can we have something going on to see what might happen in the next budget year do we have to make a
definitive decision now you know I've heard this date thrown about i've looked at the document that was drafted but I can't find it anywhere that it was ever codified the the 2007 document that was uh referenced by one of the the community members
so for for me um I' I'd like to be able to participate in in vote i think it would come with some caveats um and I know you've been down this and I don't want to rip off a band-aid but I will i think to be
effective for years to come I think the school committee and now that's me um has to be thinking very broadly and if there's an ability to keep a school open and pause and breathe and I'm not saying
that it would be filled with students for the upcoming year but to preserve the use to see what pressure we can put on our state legislators and uh take take heart to what Lisa said that everybody has to participate in our
communities all three communities um need to be helping with that advocacy effort that I would want to preserve that um and give Ashb some time to think about um the structure itself what needs to be done all those reports which I
will admit I have not had the chance to absorb them all um but to really take a look at it I think we would be remiss and I know I wouldn't u feel right if I didn't speak my piece about preserving that for for the long haul um and then
when it comes to the numbers um you know I don't I don't want folks to lose their jobs um I don't want kids to be in classrooms that not you know aren't effective for their learning but I also am pretty realistic that I don't
think the community that I represent um is going to pass the override that it would take for a $3 million budget um could could you roll the dice and put
that forward you could um I've always thought and I I said this last year you know you get us down to that 500 or 700,000 maybe we could get it done and I actually said to someone on the call
that if you got it to there I'd be right behind you trying to advocate for it um I did not um support the the override for last year um very transparent about that so I I think there's a few things that need to be worked on and I know
it's crunch time because there has to be some number that has to go to the town i will say though um and and this don't take this as an affront to anyone that's prepared any of these but when I sit at
town meeting um and I hear that we could make the number lower but a number was presented it makes me less likely to vote for it i think going with the most solid numbers and the most information
and having it be rock solid information backwards and forwards that if if transportation comes out that someone has the figure um put it on the bus company they can get you the figure whether it's a 90,000 delta or a 40,000
del delta whatever it is we need to know that number um and then when there's when there's just sort of overall like we could cut here or you know things are just pulled together I think it's really harder for people to get behind it so um
so thanks for letting me join I guess um thanks for letting me say a little bit of my piece um and I will say we can survive this um for those of you that I haven't told I'll tell everybody i went to school in
double sessions it was not ideal but we did survive because we had our eye i didn't know i was little i just went to the school but my parents and the other parents understood that it was a short-term solution for long-term viability for the district so this is
not ideal but I do think that we can get through it if we can really think of what the plan would look like thank you Kim appreciate it um you know just quickly from from my point of view here you know and
appreciate all the time that the administration has done uh putting these together um you know coming into our last finance meeting um and this is you know obviously the finance committee the recommendation from the
finance committee you know was the 3.16 at the last meeting um we didn't uh meet and discuss any of those other things we we sort of discuss some of the other items that can be done um so just give you my piece before we go to the next
stage of this is you know I'm willing to support and I think we should uh strongly consider the 2.55 budget because even though you know I would rather us get 5.48 48 um I think we have
a better shot of that getting passed through the towns at 2.55 and when I look at the 3.16 I do think that there are a couple of things that are possible that we can get um down a little further and though I don't
want to hamstring us and take you know definitely do not want to take teachers out of you know out of classrooms with it i do think we can uh you know work on this a little bit more get down a little further um so you know I am in support
of the 2.55 i do think we can get there so uh June um yes on the last uh slide of the presentation I think it was the last one there were other
um potential cuts that would need to be looked at um y should the override not pass however some of them kind of seem like a no-brainer to me the retirement account piece you could save
$500,000 that has no impact on students june I'm going to stop you for a second some of um we want to be careful because some of this has to be entered into negotiations with the negotiations
contracts is that correct Brad so it's an option june we we don't know what the numbers would be he Brad was speaking about the what another district did so we can work on doing something on that window but we don't have any of
those details yet at this moment i just want to be safe i just want to be safe june just to clarify both the um health insurance opt out and early retirement would have to be negotiated okay i mean that's all well and good but
I feel like that should have been done already because everything that is a cut is something that negatively impacts the students so far i mean it's really been all we've been hearing is teachers or
buildings teachers or buildings and there's so many other things out there why are we just taking from the students that's my question there's these things already should have been looked at these negotiations should have been done up to this point we should
know if there's a health insurance opt out we should know if there's early retirement um and if you don't know that yet we should probably find out very soon because that amount of money is a lot of staff or another building if
that's where we're coming to so I still I feel like there's so many other areas we're still sitting on 2 million in revolving funds i mean I would never walk away from my house and say I can't pay the mortgage while I had six months
of mortgage payments in my account like it doesn't make sense to me that we're not looking at these other things still um and again the closure of Ashb I understand a grade consolidation and consolidating Ashb and Townsen and I
don't think that's a bad idea i I realize there's a savings there which is why I brought up the middle school savings as well although I I truly don't want Ashb kids to go to Peell but it's you know at this point we're trying to pick the least of the very worst options
um but again closing Ashb that aside from the consolidation that 380,000 plus the negative 450,000 that is owed we're in the whole 70,000 more
there so I I just don't I don't if this is about numbers again why did we pick the option with the absolute least saving because it doesn't make sense to me
and as Kim kindly pointed out there we're we can't get back from that like I I really think we need to explore a way that we can keep Ashby open at at least through the next year or so i mean you we keep talking about the state
coming in to save us at some point but it might be a year or two out let's do what we need to do to get through this year or two without hurting the students more and I'll tell you right now that there is absolutely no way that I am
supporting a budget that includes discriminating against a chunk of students because they live in the smallest town bottom line I absolutely will not support any of these options that include that brad did you want to answer a couple of
those um yes just just a couple of things um as far as um you know talking about health insurance opt out that is something the district looked at a couple years ago it it it really did not turn out to be beneficial at all um it
is something that was put on the table um I believe a few weeks ago um and the the other option of early retirement was just recently discussed i I just being honest I would not enter or begin conversations with the union without
school committee approval um on either one of those uh because I would want school committee approval in order to begin or to reopen the contract which is essentially what I'd be doing um or at least having a side letter uh be established and I did just want to
clarify again it I I'm not in favor of closing any building um whether it's Ashb whether it's Squan Cookook um whether it's Spalding but I I do want to say that it's not um and if if I mean I'll use Squan Cookook as an example if
it's $350,000 that's being saved it's not $350,000 that's being saved because we're saving approximately an additional $720,000 in staffing consolidation to balance class sizes so a building
closure is really if you're looking at it around a $1.1 million savings because you're not just closing the building you're also consolidating in bal consolidating staff by balancing class sizes um so so that's I I I do just want
to clarify that the the 380 is just the operational cost the maintenance the heat um other utilities things like that it does not include um the staffing consolidation as well which is a part of part of what's in this budget um same
thing with um you know option four that has two buildings closing um that's about a million dollars in building savings but then almost $2 million in staffing savings because there is a $3.6 million problem that we're looking at
right now thank you Brad mhm randy so a number of different things um one actually addresses uh something that Tom had said and something that Kim had said actually let me start off first kim
thank you um welcome aboard um and I really think that your um involvement in so many other municipal and boards outside of this school committee I think that experience
is going to be very beneficial to uh to this school committee so thank you for joining us and I look forward to working with you um a comment that got made as far as um voting in a number now and lowering
it later um Kim to your concern the reason why we usually do this is because around this time we have to certify a budget to send to the towns usually for their May town meetings we have 45 days beforehand that we have to give them a
budget um at this time um you may or may not know um but as far as things like the state money that we're going to get all that's out is the governor's budget and so we don't have definitive
numbers and we never have had definitive numbers at this time of year from the state um and so we usually have that caveat is we get our best guess going now and then if we get more revenue from the state if we get something else
coming in if there's another big change that we didn't know at this time we do have the option to lower the budget before the town meetings and then lower the assessments for the towns at that point in time um that that is the reason why we always sit here and say we can
always lower it up until town meeting not because we want to go in high um and just be like ah we're not going to put the work in now no it's a matter of there's so many moving parts that we just don't have the information for um as far as Tom you are absolutely right
that is what we typically have done the difference this year is it's not a May meeting that we're looking at trying to get them a number for we're trying to get the towns a number for March 10th because whatever they vote on March 10th
goes onto the ballot on April for them to um go ahead and vote on i'm not sure if maybe somebody else has the answer i'm not sure if once that's voted on at town meeting can they lower that on the ballot or is what they vote for the
ballot done and that's it anybody know the answer to that i'm going to assume that they cannot lower it once it's voted at town meeting for the ballot and if that's the case then we really don't have the time that we normally have to dig in for more
savings and wait for numbers from the state um so what we vote now really does have much larger consequences um than what we typically do at this time of the year simply because um the
number we give the towns now will determine you know uh whether we get extra money from them or not if we have a number that this the towns will not if we want to put in $3 million to the towns and the towns are like absolutely not then we don't have $3 million we can
go through the process again at at the May meetings but um I don't think that's something that we're in a position to do um if we decide now that you know $2.1 million is the right number to send to them is it you know $1.5 million to send
to them is it $1 million to send to the towns for an override for our budget um it is definitely much more consequential because obviously the lower the number the higher the chance that we have that we can get the support from the communities to give us that extra money
to keep so much of this valuable stuff in the budget um I do like Kim's idea as if we can not completely shut down any building this year um I did want to uh
thank Patrick Leiden for bringing the policy up uh the FCB i do apologize to everybody on this board uh that I did not pick up on that and bring it to you uh but that is a policy that is in our books um and it does call for a
comprehensive study um I know in the past when they were going to when the district uh had voted to close down um the Fitz and Squanakook at that time it was delayed we had ended up putting in central office and I think the gateway
program i'm not sure if there was another sped program or not at the time into the fifths temporarily for two or three years until we could close it down and give it back to the towns um so we had done the consolidation uh that was the money saver and uh didn't fully
close down the building um so if that is an option here I would definitely want to try to explore doing something like that um because I don't think we have all of the financial information on Ashb i do support the consolidation that's
being uh considered as far as bringing towns in an Ashby together in kindergarten or earlier i think it has a lot of educational benefits um that I would definitely be in favor of how that structure works best for both towns I think is yet to be discovered um and
decided and um but I am definitely in favor of the educational benefits which we are not talking near enough about um so if it is an option at this point in time that we can you know keep Ashby
open and maybe try do a trial consolidation and see how things are going and get more information on Ashb I think that might be well worth it um especially for the trust not to put you know decisions off some more but there's a lot of information that we just don't have um the additional ideas I agree
with um with June that we need to explore these um if you need a vote from us tonight Brad to start talking to the unions for some of these uh options that um could possibly benefit us financially
not harm uh the education of the students and be something voluntary that the um teachers are willing to do so it's not something that we're forcing a change for them i would be all for that and going for that and using those savings in our budget uh to try and save
more positions in this district um during COVID we had an awful lot of slide in um in education we're still recovering from some of that we know that supports for the general education
students um when they are removed or they are weak because of COVID and being at home and not not to the district's fault for that but we know when they are weak we have more children who wind up with IEPs and 504s and needing extra supports
which costs the district more um if we are going this route it's going to be an awful spiral if we all we do is look at taking teachers away i think administration is extremely important i know there's a lot of people out there
who talk about administration as being topheavy and we don't need and just put everything down to the teachers i don't believe that i believe there is a relationship between a very important relationship between administration and the teachers and it needs to be a
balanced relationship right now in the district we have made a lot of gains we have a lot of um things that we're looking at in administration whether it be through someone's partial job someone's full job things like uh data
analysis that kind of stuff is wonderful and it's helping us to refine our curriculum and refine the education process for our students if we are taking a step back and making the these teachers jobs more difficult by putting more students in their classes that
refinement is not doing anything right now i I have a problem with this budget only looking at the general education teachers and supports because when those go there's counterparts in
the um administration that needs to be taken look at and pulled back because they're just not going to be effective when we're trying to have um a greater need in the basics of teaching we don't need the refinement of curriculum at
that point in time bring them back when we get settled back again with the teachers and the students um I really would like to see a more balanced um budget from the standpoint of uh re-evaluating some of those positions
we're putting more positions in um at the high school we have less students going there we pulled back an um half of a um assistant principal at the high school because the enrollment went down it's going down even further but we're putting in another
position why is that needed if there's less students we need to take a look at not adding more administration but adding in more supports for those students um and I would like to see this uh really kind
of look um a little bit more balanced in how we're uh adjusting our education model from that standpoint um all right can we give a couple other people some time here yeah I just going to take I
think that was it for right now um okay unfortunately we don't have a lot of time to make any of these changes yep um I'm gonna go Patrick next and then Kim and then back to Lisa Bloom from here uh I just there's so many things to say
now i'm sorry um just just going back to June I I feel like the first time we've heard about the healthc care um and the early retirement was just a couple weeks ago so I think we are pressing forward with that and just as
as part of the why I feel like most of these meetings have been taken up on arguing for five hours about Ashb so I think that's part of the why on why we haven't had time to discuss other cuts or other options um just to go back what Kim said about the possibility of
closing Ash for the year for like construction so that the kids move out for a year and give us time i actually called Randy two weeks ago with that idea i think that's a possible idea so I I don't
know if anyone's done any further research or if that's an option cuz if the state comes in and gives us the money I I acknowledge that it would be easier to close as Ashby for a year get it off of our books allow them to do whatever minimum
amount of construction they have to do to keep it closed for the year and then we can reassess it it It buys time it it takes those costs off the books it It's the closest I think we can get to a win-win i acknowledge we're running out
of time to figure that out but but that is something that gets the money off the books for the year consolidates like we've discussed and then from there Ashb can decide if if if the money is still not there it gives them time to figure out
if they want to deregionalize or if we do that route it it it gives them time to either see the new system and and yeah it works it stinks but it it works and it also gives us the option of the state kicked in more funding we don't have to close the school i I don't hate that
just my thought on that okay Kim yes just real quickly to the superintendent's point when he said that um we don't see everything when we just see the closing of the school um if there's a way that we could work together effectively with you and the
the business office to create some of those dynamic tables I think that it would help um not just us as members but the community too to really just see and understand these figures um a little bit better so um anything I can do to help support in that endeavor I'm happy to do
so thank you Lisa um yes this is just to um Randy and Patrick Leiden um we did have um a 5-year policy meeting
scheduled for the 4th but we ended up having to cancel it the day after the last meeting we had and the policy FCB retirement of facilities was on that agenda so the next 5-year review meeting that we have the agenda is already made
and that's there okay thank you um you know just again you know we're at the 2hour mark here on the meeting i think you know we do have to make progress for moving forward giving these towns a number so
um you know I certainly understand you know we have different details and things like that that we'd like to discuss but I think when it comes down to it you know we've got to give this over overall number to the towns um you know so we got to make
consideration for that here brad would there be a situation where the committee would consider a 2.55 budget the closure of Ashby Elementary for the 202526 year um with the model that was
um with the model that is was presented this evening and in the budget narrative um be something that the committee would entertain we'd obviously have to look at making some additional reductions to get to the 2.55 um but um maybe that's a
starting point so that the towns get the number randy um Patrick yes you um thank you i I do appreciate that um when you call me with
that idea um we cannot as far as I know I don't have a definitive answer on it um I'm still trying to get the definitive uh but we cannot close give the town the school if we give the town the school it's considered closed and
then we can't open it what was being discussed um that uh Kim Craraven had uh brought up was we put central office or we put one program there like we did at the fits without handing the building
back it's a much lower cost because the building is not being used fully and it's not fully operational we don't have all of the electricity and heating um potentially we can consolidate it into a smaller area um but it does not come off our books if it comes off our books it
is considered closed and given back to the town and no longer a school um so um I I as well as closing it for one year right now there is no way that the town could even
uh start any kind of construction project a construction project requires it's a multipleyear process just to get the engineering in there to figure out what they're going to do how they're going to do it get an OPM um you know project manager um and all of that it
there it's it's impossible for them to do any kind of u repairs in this year in this short of notice it's it's just not feasible for anybody to do um but again I I I'm not opposed to talking about how to try and give them
the opportunity because they have really not been given the opportunity to fix their buildings um and they have not been given the opportunity of even trying for MSBA money um which is not fair because every other building in this district has MAS MA uh
MSBA money um that we try to get for any kind of projects that aside looking at a number for today um I am not completely happy with the presentation today like I said I think there still needs to be
changes to what is being cut changes to um uh what you know um you know how we're approaching some of these um I'd really like to see um at least have some kind of assurance that um if we look
into any of the other um negotiations with the unions on things like an uh insurance opt out and they go for it and we're going to get some savings from it that that gets incorporated into the budget um and
saves some of the support staff and some of the teachers um in place of what is here um I worry with the way that we have been operating that just giving a bottom line number for a override number to the
towns tonight um I that we're not going to come back to this and what's presented tonight is going to be taken as what is going to happen and there'll be no more conversations um so I'm not sure what can be offered
up to assure me that there will be more conversations and there will be more adjustments to this because like we usually do is a bottom line number doesn't mean what we presented right now that we can't change some of it given new information um but I am not satisfied
with the budget you want to answer a couple of those i just um it would it be possible Randy to put something um along with the budget approval permission for me to uh begin um conversations with the
teachers association around opt out and early retirement and then it's it's part of the motion um and then that would basically enable me to go forward and have conversations with the association to see if it's something that they want
to entertain and and what about um the possibility that was brought up about you know a small program in Ashb to keep it open uh so that we actually have the time to do a full study and and take a look at the
long-term ramifications for the district um and have all that information at the school committee's fingertips when we go to make this kind of a decision i've been saying from the beginning this is a permanent change and we don't and we have not been discussing and we don't
have the information in front of us for the long-term ramifications of this i can certainly reach out to to Mike McGurl of uh the MSBA tomorrow and find out what exactly it would take um to keep Ashby Elementary operational um
from a minimum standpoint to see so that it's still it's still part of the district um you know whether it be a special education program some offices located there um I can reach out to him tomorrow and and ask him that question for sure and can you have um probably
Dave Amari take a look at uh how the building can be kind of consolidated to save on energy save on uh heating and things like that i don't know how that building is set up as far as zones or
anything like that on what can be done uh to minimize the operational costs if we're only going to have a small program there yes I can do that and I think if we just make this all part of the motion put these points
as part of the motion then that will that will guarantee follow through i'm going to do it anyway but it would certainly at least give the committee assurances that that it will be followed through on uh let me go to Jill first then June and Patrick
hi so would it be easy enough to put say buildings and grounds out at Ashby Elementary and not a program while we do some renovations on that building over the next couple years that would maintain uh something in the building that would keep it ours and we don't
have to maintain so so much like I don't agree you know putting just one small program out there but if we put buildings and grounds instead of like a central office wouldn't that make the most sense we could certainly um I can again in
talking to Dave about the entire situation he's the person to talk to um so if you know the potential of building and grounds moving there I mean I would certainly say um you know that that there may be benefits to that and I can
talk to Dave about that um as well certainly and I'll talk to him about what can be done about um maintaining the building so that we're only paying for utilities for the section that we're using within reason obviously you need to keep the temperature within a
reasonable amount for the on the entire property but can do that for sure june um I I think we should take the negotiations motion separate um because
it is kind of a a separate topic per se um I like the idea of trying to retain Ashb um as a school of course um I would prefer students there but if there is
something that we can do temporarily to ensure students can be there in the future um I am all for that that being said I I think we also need to take into account town leadership um position on
this i'm confident that they would feel the same way as far as retaining it but um but I do think it's something that needs to be brought up to them because it was leased as a school previously um uh I don't know i'm
having just flat out have mixed feelings about this like I said I I still feel that Ashby is being dis disproportionately affected on this um they're the only students being asked to
be on a bus 3 and 1 half hours a day um I don't think we have a good solution for that yet um I and I I feel like as far as an override if there's not a guarantee that Ashb will stay open there there's not a
likelihood an override would pass in Ashb um so having that that included into the budget that's being presented um closure of Ashb would have to completely come out um of that budget as
part of as part of this for for me to think about supporting it um but again what what's the guarantee in the future i mean I I feel that the town is willing to put money into that building but we've addressed the major safety issues
so what is it about Ashby Elementary that is so different from all of the other schools that need 5 to10 million worth of work that I I'm just you know when we talk about so Ashby can do the projects like like what are the projects
the abatement making a final decision on the wing like what I I mean it's a great school we've done addressed the safety concerns um there's no reason students couldn't I mean students are in there now there's
no reason reason students shouldn't be in there again I understand the consolidation the savings there and I would support that on a temporary basis but I'm just wondering exactly what is being proposed here Um it it's it's
really unclear but I think we do need to kind of separate out some of these votes because it's the more things that we're putting into it the the messier it's it's getting and it's it's hard to you know if some of us support some things and not the others in this
okay Patrick so so just so we're clear we we should never ever promise that any school will stay open for any amount of time that that's irresponsible to future boards like what is happening to me we don't know what the future of the
district is you went on mute Patrick patrick you went on mute all right uh Lisa Martin you had had your hand up let's go to you while he figures out his technology i was going to echo what June had said i do think we need to
separate out the votes um because this would be a budget vote and the other vote would be to give Brad the ability to enter into negotiations or different things in the budget so I do agree that we need to separate the two
out thank you i'm back sorry yep it would be irresponsible to at any point promise to keep a school open for any amount of time i I can't I'm not even guaranteeing that if if we find a way to buy a year for Ashb that it stays a school in the future it just buys us a
year to see if the state funding changes if Ashb is willing to do the work needed i mean if if you disagree with with the studies that have been done for a study should be done i I if there's that much dispute between the studies that
I've read we need a study then because it's a third-party study there's no bias there's no that's not how third party studies work their numbers are their numbers if if their numbers are wrong they could be held liable for those numbers like they could be at
fault if if they miss things so if if you disagree with their reports we we need we another one i I don't know what else to do outside of like every other school Ashby needs work but I I think Ashb needs the most work with the
least amount of students in it it there there's a lot of logical reasons why we selected Ashb and that and it's not it's not because I hate Ashb there are a lot of reasons that make a lot of sense do I want to close a school
no i hope this works um my thought process behind getting it off the books for a year was to save the money we need do I support it if it means cutting more teachers i'm not sure i I need to know the numbers but it was
just an idea at something there i know we're getting close to budget time but it's a possibility and and if the numbers work and and I keep hearing Ashby never had a chance ashby never had a chance this would buy you a year this would get you that chance find the money
figure out what the building needs if you still disagree and we think it's closing it's in the best interest of the district deregionalize like there's options this will buy you that time so at no point is a promise to keep the school open forever it's just it buys a year to figure out if the state
fixes the issues or if Ashby wants to step up and and do the study and save their school like it's options go to Tom next then Kim yeah I just wanted to say as we're talking about like different options and like placeholders and things like that for
next year um just also might want to consider um consulting with like the insurance companies i know I think there was some stuff when it switched to in Peter Fitz as well about like occupying a minimum percentage just because I think there's obviously liability with
kind of having a minimally occupied building so just something else that should be considered as we're kind of discussing different options thank you Tom Kim um so just to reiterate um it's
imperative that each motion be on its own and not to be co-mingled um there's too much room for error terminal commas misplaced um that can change sentences so glad we're in agreement there and I just think that um it's leaving it a an
open door and very general is the most important thing on the buildings and I know prior to me coming on you've had multiple votes that we don't need to um retrace but to just have that opportunity so I don't know the right structure of a current vote um and how
that would you know bear on to your previous votes and I don't I don't know if you have um legal counsel or who would weigh in on that um for the correct procedure to have that motion
made or or we just wing it i do know that you know in our discussions in the finance uh meeting on the health insurance opt out you know it would be something that we would offer potentially for the next fiscal year
obviously starting July 1st teachers again if this was an option they would make an election around June 1st which you know doesn't really help us through this budget cycle unless we're just going to make you know a
guess on what people would do which I'm not sure is responsible for us to do on the health insurance piece of it so at this point I mean yes maybe it's a good thing could certainly help us you know could help us in the budget cycle I
don't think we can properly budget for that at this point even if we you know give the superintendent direction on that side of it which I I think is prudent for us to do you know to certainly to look at these options I
just don't know that it's um prudent for us to include any potential you know savings in this budget cycle lisa um I wanted to add something about the opt out i know that Nancy does budget
for certain people to opt in we do have to consider that we could have people opting into our um our health insurance due to the econ economic shifts that are happening currently so I just wanted to take that
into consideration as well randy if we had a survey that went out and we have an absolute conservative minimum that we can take 40% of the people who said that they'd be
interested i don't see why we can't put in some amount in this otherwise why are we doing this is just going to go into our END which we're using all up for this budget
makes it available for next year we need to solve the END problem because we keep putting in END and we get to the point where we we're over the 5% that we can keep and then we have to give some back and then it's it's a never- ending cycle agreed i mean that's part of the reason
we have this big delta from last year is our END was much bigger last year than it is this year it was $800,000 you know right on the END side of it had we done you know just just by the END
change it's part of that $3.5 million difference yeah I'm just disappointed that some of these things weren't thought of ahead of time so we can actually figure out a number to put in I mean Brad extracurricular uh fundraiser how
did that go this year we never heard anything about that we were going to be we voted on doing um fees to try and reduce the cost for the budget we put in um you know reductions in the budget based on that and then we went and didn't do the fees and we did a
fundraiser how did we do on the fundraiser money is still coming in but it's going very very poorly very poorly sounds like we might as we we should have stayed with the fees yes but that was put in before we knew what
we run get right exactly so now all of a sudden we can't put any savings in because we're unsure correct so we need to talk numbers nobody everyone keeps kind of dancing around what numbers do we think the
towns are going to pass or have the best chance of passing i for one don't think that they will pass 2.1 million i am unsure about 1.6 million or whatever the 2.55 uh
sends over to them nancy do you have the breakdown for what the towns would be at 2.55 be around 1.7 district wide how much was our override last year that we tried for i think it was around that
believe I think it was 1.5 but there was a couple votes so more than one budget was passed i will say that um if you're voting the top number right now or or or what you think can pass in an override that the
actual line item detail can change it's not required that it say exactly in fact when we have the final settled teachers for next year we move we have to move things around anyway but we do need to know bigger things like we have to have
the utilities for a building in there and with a 255 budget there's not a lot of room to then pick up all that what we might need for keeping that open um so it's just it puts it in a challenging situation to back down plus um I guess
if there's any changes in where the students will be obviously that affects what we've estimated for um staffing so I think a little bit of wiggle room is fine you know if we have an opt out and we have a savings great
we can save position um two positions whatever it turns out to be after negotiations um but not not planning for a building to be open or closed is kind of a big I I I probably would almost want to
rather rerun those numbers depending on what the committee wants to do just to make sure we can fit into 255 as we're presenting it i mean we would have a pretty good idea on the opt out because open enrollment will
begin in the next not if you're negotiating that well I mean it depends on how quickly the negotiations go I guess true june um how far in advance of the town meetings do we have to have this number
by i I realize it's like 10 days away or 12 days away or whatever from now but can we have another meeting next week and have some more information by then i don't believe so
does anybody know when the towns need the number by i believe that can can change them on the T on the floor we've done that before they have to put a number in they had to put a number in but they can be changed uh right up until is voted on
the floor and I believe the Yeah it could be amended down um I believe what's I mean it's not not ideal to have it be amended up on town meeting floor um I believe what was uh pro what they're going on is the the public hearing numbers which are the 316 so I
believe Pepper may have already closed their warrant uh they may have the option of being able to change the number at some point but I'm a lot of these they're they've got to go to print fairly soon here for the 10th i did so in PPO the article can be changed
because I asked the question um but it has been approved by the selectman it have to be changed at the town floor and I did see the Ashb one posted with a number already so they're not necessarily dependent on us voting right now they just need a number before the
meeting essentially to have something accurate to vote on right i I didn't hear all that can you say that again um I I I did see Ashby already posted the meeting there's a number in there as well so the towns
already have a number that they used as a baseline to get these posted um and if it's amended on the the floor we essentially have up until that meeting date to finalize this but they're using
the 316 number um right so we just want to make sure we get them a number before the meeting yes okay thanks but it would be I think it'd be wise to give them our ceiling to where we want to start it at if it's a
316 number that would be the ceiling for the budget we don't necessarily know how far down we're going and like Nancy pointed out even with the FTEES that we believe are there and doing some of the options that Brad put on the last slide
we can capture maybe some of those FTEEs back so I think that's important or with different fees that we increase we can capture some of the FTEEs back if we have to so is it in our best interest to come in
tonight at the 3.16 because we're acknowledging we're not going to get more than that and that we could get lower than that so wouldn't it be better to go with them at the 3.16 and down the road say great news it's lower as opposed to bad news it's more
only if we're going to have another meeting before March 10th okay that's a good point which I think it's been kind of hard to get meetings together for the entire group anyways so I think it would be wise if we gave
the uh motions that give the superintendent the authorization to do some of the negotiations um taken care of so that we can then focus on the budget tim do you want to make the motion sure
um I move that we authorize the superintendent to enter into discussions negotiations explorations on the um I guess we'll do it separate the the
first one will be for the insurance policies that govern the district second so that was Kim and Patrick making the motion and this is for the insurance
this is the health insurance opt out option yes so we're discuss we're talking about Are there any questions or any concerns anybody have anything before we move all right randy yes june
yes kim yes lisa Bloom yes tom Casey yes will Hackling yes patrick McFillips yes twig yes and myself yes so that one
unanimously passes do you want to make the next motion Kim sure i move that we authorize the superintendent to enter into discussions negotiations of research that he needs
for anything related to retirement packages for personnel a second that was Kim making the motion and Lisa second any
discussion all right randy yes june yes kim yes lisa yes tom yes will yes
jill Twig yes patrick yes and myself is yes that unanimously passes all right those are out of the way um there's there's one final operational one um Madam Chair and and
that's on the the buildings that I would move to authorize the superintendent to conduct any research and calls that are needed to determine what constitutes use by the school district for any of
the facilities to keep them operational second all right so that was Kim and Lisa seconding uh Randy yes june yes kim yes
lisa yes casey yes will Hackler yes jill yes patrick yes and myself yes
all right anything further with that all right let's move to the budget is there a motion i'm not making that one lisa I'm trying to find it hold on i got it you want me to do it well sure
all right i move that the school committee adopt the following budgets for fiscal year 2026 one operational budget 59,526,446 two transportation budget 5,29,162 three debt service
3,615,892 furthermore I propose that these budgets be utilized to calculate the fiscal year 2026 school assessments for member towns in accordance with statutory requirements additionally I recommend the authorization of the use of $1,872,000 two
266 from the excess and deficiency account to offset the fiscal year 2026 operational budget this motion is made with the understanding that these budget allocations are in the best interest of our schools and the communities we serve aiming to provide quality education
while being fiscally responsible i seek a second motion so I seek a second to this motion for further discussion in a subsequent vote second second okay that was Tom Casey and Will Hackler um Nancy I want to
confirm that he got the numbers correct in there just And this is a 3.16 correct yes it was i'm not a math guy but I think I did them right okay okay there is a there is a typo on the END
266 versus 226 on the on the motion that's in the packet if we could just amend the END is uh 1 million 872,226 $40 difference yeah
I think I got the 40 bucks in my pocket there you go right um does somebody want to make the amendment i second the amendment you want to read it all over again you
just messing with me well I can go again i don't think you have to you don't have to it's really It's really a typo in that yeah everything else the same
all right discussion randy i I I don't think this um has a very high potential to pass in the towns uh being that it's uh putting
$2.1 million of an override on them and I think this is going to be a very high potential that we need to do extreme cuts um by not getting any um uh help from the towns i am not in favor of
this right will um I I also agree with Randy in this scenario i I think we should um take this step and go a little further the other uh $400,000 difference i believe the number
is I am a math guy but I'm not looking at both of them at the same time Tom um so I I'm more in favor of the 255 budget than this one all right Patrick
i'm also not comfortable with two out of three towns um biting on this number so maybe if we do drop lower we will get something over nothing all right Randy no
oh sorry no did you have any more i didn't lower my hand i apologize i thought I hit the button and I didn't that's okay no you had your Anyone else all right we're going to take our first budget vote here we go um everybody's done with
their discussion no other discussion ready all right randy no june no kim no
what no okay lisa no tom Casey no will Hackler no patrick no jill Twig no
and myself is a no all right budget round one has failed chair I move the school committee adopt the following budget for fiscal year 2026 operational budget 59,126,446 transportation budget
5,29,162 debt service at 3,615,9892 furthermore I propose these budgets be utilized to calculate the fiscal year 2026 school assessments for member towns in accordance with statutory requirements additionally I recommend the authorization and use of
1,872,226 from the excess and deficiency account to offset the fiscal year 2026 operational budget this motion is made with the understanding these budget allocations are in the best interest of our schools and the communities we serve aiming to provide quality education while being fiscally responsible i seek
a second for this motion a second okay that was Will Hackler and Patrick Mc Phillips seconding all right any discussion just if I could speak quick if Sorry I don't see any hands up yet
just based on what we just said I I don't think that this is in the best interest of the schools or but it's it's our only option i think we're in such dire financial straits and at a state level we have been failed that's all I had sorry all right
anyone else i'm not seeing any oh Randy Miss Nancy if I remember correctly from earlier you said this is a $1.7 million override to the towns correct it's
1.718 402 over a 3% if the towns put a 3% assessment in i'm not sure all of them are doing that um but if they did that would be the difference i do you want the town by town what I've
purchased by town okay i mean I'm fine just knowing the number i know the general amounts that are going to the town um I still don't think that we have a chance uh to pass this in two of the three towns um I'm not sure if we're
going to be able to get to a number that Ashby would be available would would vote for this um and if we're looking at towns and and Peral Pil um passed a um override last year um and then we lowered our budget and uh I'm not sure
they're willing to put this much more in to um onto their taxes um you're you're talking in the range of $800,000 or more for PEPL um and while I don't want to see more
cuts I'd rather see a few more cuts than the entire 1.7 million anyone else that that is at the town's at their 3% i I I do think that they have wiggle room there prior to the override to come
up and meet us at a healthier number i don't think their 3% was ever a possibility for us and I think they're aware of that so I'm I'm not sure about Towns International but I I do think Pep
Rule was willing to work with the 3.16% so I'm not sure if there's more wiggle room and I I do think Pep Roll could show up and vote yes for this i could be wrong
do we have confirmation from the administrations in any of the towns that they can do more than the 3% and Nancy you're you're muted i don't I haven't spoken to anyone directly about that so last we heard from the town administrators it's 3% and that's what
we have to uh we have to vote on here assuming it's 3% if they can do more they need to tell us i I don't think I don't I'm I'm not sure there's anything for us i mean if it truly is 3% then that's that that would
be a zero for us right but if I understood if I understood what Patrick was trying to say is he thinks that um at least PPL can put in more than the 3% which would lower the amount that they need for the
override and I says if we don't have confirmation um that they can do more than the 3% then I'm going to base my assumptions on the for the override based on them only putting 3% in then that goes to zero right mhm
no so if the towns are going to put 3% in and we vote uh this 2.55 budget in then we're sending a $1.7 million override to the towns let's just round numbers let's say $800,000 is peril
share above the 3% that they can put in if they decide to put 4% in then they can take that 800,000 override and only ask for 700,000 so yes because how how theirs is written is they're asking the school district
for North Middle Sex about 832,000 is how their article is written today and so by giving them the 2.55 they're going to lower that some right nancy could probably answer what they would lower it to
because I think Pepil did throw in a little more than the 3% yeah I would have to see their what they're planning and they may need to vote that i mean that's the that's one of the reasons we need this voted tonight so I can send those assessment letters to them so the actual the final
numbers um there were a few other little changes that affected the assessment numbers so um they need the final numbers to know and and they may have a really good sense of what's in their war what's in their warrant article at this point but yeah it's it's really the
town's decision as to what they put into the override although we know from the conversations this year that that's in general where they will fall is in that range a 3% patrick
so I I feel like as a school committee we're going to hit a certain point with the towns where we just go to one 12th budget and if I understand correctly after roughly 6 months of that the state will step in and moderate and determine the number
um I I don't know how they can't at least look at the cuts we've made look at look at what we've come in at and and and side with the towns i say I I don't know of um the state coming in and necessarily doing anything
that's good for uh anybody um and I wouldn't count that it's going to be in our favor i again I have not been able to look up and find a district uh that went into that position and what the decisions were brad do you know of any
time that the state came in um and where they typically side because it's a big gamble whether they're going to give us what we need i I do not I do from what I understand and having my conversations with with the state the one thing that
they that they can consider and may consider is any contractual increases um to collective bargaining agreements and things of that sort which just a regular zero budget for us would would not do um but they don't have to do that
either um you know I think there's there would be some hope and that our CBAs um when compared to other CBAs are are pretty responsible I think um when you compare us to other districts and what other districts are settling for so
there may be hope but the only real hope would be that they would help with the coverage of of the colas and that's not a guarantee i mean I I I I guess the question is I mean from from our perspective and I know that this is this is obviously
extremely difficult is that we really do need to get the numbers to the towns so that they have you know a week to prepare um is there any recommendation from the committee as to what percentage increase um and obviously would entail
some work on our end that we you know we we would share at at the next school committee meeting but we would at least be able to give the towns a number i mean are we looking at um the potential of a 2% increase and maybe that is something that is
palatable for the towns and an override and and what do those numbers look like i don't know Nancy how quickly you could you could maybe punch those numbers in and see what see what the increases would be um I I I do agree i think a 255
is going to be a challenge um with the towns um I think a 316 was obviously going to be a challenge as well um the towns have said 3% from the get-go and that really is for us um it amounts to
really no increase as we know um and that no increase does not cover those other contractual obligations next year will sorry Nancy go ahead to get to a 2% would be another around another 400,000
for our budget for North Middle Sex budget and it would put the um the amount sort of the % at 1,ion328 may I think we've been working with the towns for months we we've got to give
them the number they've been accommodating you know to all schedule this March 10th for us you know I think coming down this step at 255 you know gives us the opportunity to let the voters decide here
i do have to agree with you Will that I think we have to allow the voters to decide and the more cutting we do we're taking more from our kids and and obvious and obviously I mean I I
can't speak for um how negotiations will go but I I've had several conversations with union leadership and they're very much invested in in working with us on this on this budget crisis they're well aware of it they're doing things on
their end as well so hopefully um you know if you know they're willing to sit have a sit down and and begin some negotiations around those two items we may be able to come to resolution fairly quickly kim Superintendent Morgan um you is there is
there somewhere in the middle of the 255 and the zero um you know there's lots of slides that you are showing um is there something that you didn't offer up to us that might be a little bit more of a middle ground that
gets us closer to what you've been hearing from the communities um and that is a little bit more palatable from from your end from a management perspective i honestly I I do think that going down to a two is probably is as low as we
could go um because then we're getting into really difficult um we would get into really difficult class size situations if we dropped below that um and again right now as as as the slides kind of showed most of the or really all
with the exception of one of the reductions when it comes to staffing are at the K to8 level because you have to be very cautious at high school um because of the lure piece and people's specialties and you only have some people that are able to teach AP classes
in certain electives so it would have a a definite impact on students um options upon graduation and potentially getting into a a college of their choice if they're collegebound students um so I think we have to be very cautious at the high school level and as I said we
already have um several sections that are already north of 30 um which make it um which would make it challenging to make any additional cuts even though there are some smaller classes as well so I think going below a two would be very very difficult to do okay um and I
hate to put put pressure on Nancy um live but is there a way to get what that um would look for the community side um for us to evaluate what does that assessment look like for each community while Nancy is doing that does anyone
else have any questions uh Jill I just wanted to make a statement um Nancy if nobody tells you you are absolutely phenomenal i have never seen anybody who could come up with numbers that quick so you are very much appreciated
anyone else oops Nancy you're on mute sorry um wait my computer is just acting very strange i think I got disconnected from my my connection to the district anyway um I'm I can share my screen that's probably the
easiest is that okay that work yep that works thank you are you able to see it okay yes okay we're just about at a 2% here with this number um it ends up being an average of
6.78% for the towns 5.9 for Ashb 6.66 for Torell 7.26 for Towns End um an increase of 1 million 317 over FY25 let me just check this the vote
numbers okay so the vote would be um right here nope are we um needing more information on this well we need to we need to vote
okay first and then I'll stop we would come back to this that's okay nope we would come back to this but Okay okay i think people just um Kim just wanted to see the numbers before i wrote it down if we need it okay you got it yep
thank you Nancy yep all right uh Randy I just want to clarify that uh 1.317 is that the overall change or is that what's above the 3% the towns say
that they can afford that that's the overall change okay the other numbers we were talking about the 1.7 Yeah for the 255 is that the overall or is that o over the 3% the
towns can I've been I I've been under the impression that the numbers we're talking about the 2.1 1.7 has been above the 3% that the towns say that they can afford correct and this is this 2% budget if
our district budget goes up 2% is still over the 3% than they can afford if we want to be at three the 3% number we'd have to come in at a pretty much at a zero no no no i understand that i'm just trying to figure out if the towns can afford
3% and we give them a 2% budget how much is their override going to be 1,ion348-ish so the 1.348 is over the 3% threshold correct
okay sorry the way the where how it was in the uh when I read it there and what was saying I was getting confused whether that Yeah and if you think of it logically if our we have almost no re no new revenue um any change that we make to the budget
is affecting the is so our budget's increasing 1.3 the district's increasing that okay but we have a we have another vote right at the moment before this yeah the two 255 all right
any Randy your hands up yet but no more questions that's okay all right are people ready to go any more discussion any more
questions all right randy on the 2.55 no june no lisa Bloom no tom Casey yes jill Twig
yes will Hackle yes patrick McFillips yeah patrick McFillips sorry yeah yes uh Kim Craraven no
and myself is yes we that is not a twothirds vote so we'll have to propose another budget we do have to end the call by 11:59 um Madam Chair can we make
the motion that was made before but substituting the new numbers that Nancy gave us we can What that's the 2% do we want to try 2.25 first oh sure i I I I could live
with that if Brad can live with that better than his bottom line this started over 5% so I mean 2.5 would have been halfway i Yeah thank Thank you Patrick for that suggestion it's No worries it's roughly like $200,000 so y
Okay so Nancy that puts you on the spot again well can we talk to the Oh comments from the ones who said no
like it how much further do we have to go all the way down to two or is there a spot in between uh June I'm not comfortable voting on a budget tonight again I'm not going to vote on a budget that includes closing Ashby
Elementary and I'm not going to vote on a budget with the information we have there's there's still a lot of work to be done and we're just not there i think we should have another meeting and not have 10:00 11:00 midnight meetings that
um we should schedule something and talk about this further after we have more information patrick McFillips so we started at 7 i feel like there's there's a ask for more information at every
meeting and by voting no you did vote just so we're clear sorry um anyone else um you're on Lisa okay raise my hand um I think we need to
resend um the vote for closing Aspie Elementary before we vote make a decision anyone else uh Randy um I will say I am extremely conflicted and I have been conflicted um
for days trying to figure this one out because I don't necessarily think that the budget as presented fully supports our strategic plan um and I understand the
urgency to get the the towns a number so that the community can have an opportunity to uh to support the schools with an override um but we have not had a good process to
go through that i have a lot of confidence that we're ever going to get to making changes if we vote a number tonight i just I I I'm having a very hard time seeing a path forward to fixing some of the uh some of the issues
with the budget and the only power that the school committee has to h make those changes is to not vote the budget um so I I I'm having a very very difficult time with this with this
decision tonight um it's just it's not a typical year and um if it was a typical year I' I I'd have much more confidence that we were going to talk and and things were going
to come through i'm glad we're going to be looking at some of the other savings but I'm hearing that any savings that we get from the you know from the unions um and they have been very very good to us over the years um and they have been worked with
us tremendously over the years um but I'm hearing that those are not going to be be put into the budget if those aren't going to be put into the budget um then we're kind of I'm kind of in the same place here that I really don't agree with some of the um decisions that
were made uh because they just don't support the strategic plan um and what our goals going forward are i'm I'm open to people talking to me and trying to convince me of this um Patrick
I'm going to abstain from what I was going to say it's It's not polite i just I changed my mind i'm sorry that's okay anyone else well yeah i mean I I'm going to just go back
to it that the towns we've been talking to them they've been accommodating we've held public meetings we've had this discussions over these things we've killed a lot of this stuff over and over again it would be unfair of us to not
give the towns a number at this point when they've set up these meetings to do this you know I I understand there's still work to do there always is but by doing it here at this time frame like we're giving the voters a chance to to
speak to us as opposed to in prior years doing this down in April you know doing it for main town meetings and then having issues at that time frame and going back you know and forth to this
later i you know it's not a good situation i get it i but I you know this train's been coming down the tracks for a while i know some people haven't been here for this but like we've seen this stuff coming and we you
know I think it's very important that we give these towns the numbers and I think you know working down to 255 you know we've done a lot of work to that point and it certainly shows effort
um I'm gonna take a comment from Brad well oops you're on mute Brad yeah I got Thank you um just wanted to to just say I mean again ju just want to be clear because it seems like a couple times um that comments are being made with regard
to the um to the work on some level that um has been put into the budget this year and I can say that the to say tirelessly that doesn't even really fit what we've done this year with regard to the budget um we have been working on this budget since August um and I simply
want to remind the committee that in reviewing last year's budget documents we were still creating budget documents in May of last year um because of the override votes um so this is very similar to last year i think the cuts
are certainly more substantial um and everyone knew this i mean we've been talking we talked about the fiscal cliff and it it's here and it's it's come and we are hoping that at some point the state will step in and I actually do think there's hope for that right now um
but I can assure the entire committee that um I I I mean I just don't agree that the information is not there um we've done everything except name names which is something I've been very public about it's not just not something I'm going to do um
so we have worked extremely hard it has been the focus of everything that we do and quite honestly um other aspects of our job I can say with confidence are slipping because of it that's all I had to say thank you
thank you Brad Kim thanks um you know in in saying what I did earlier that I didn't support the override um last year um you know I've been paying much more attention to what you all have been doing i'm not as up to
speed um I don't know all the numbers as intimately as you i've been um studying the spreadsheet that was sent over but I'm going to you know take stock in what the superintendent has said um you know with with two being his you know
ultimate bottom line but I think it's reasonable to go in at the 2.25 um and put it on our communities i mean we do need to give them a number for the 10th um because I'd say if if you don't I would be one on the other side speaking very loudly um is there more
work to do um I I agree that there is but I think it's more external work to make sure that the budgets at the state level get passed next year so while I was not sure where I would be standing coming into the meeting with a day on
your committee um I I would get behind um the the numbers at the the 2.25% thank you Kim Patrick i just wanted to follow up on what Superintendent Morgan said and thank him and Nancy and the team for the work whenever I reach out with a question a suggestion a comment
asking for numbers I get them same day so just thank you for everything you guys are doing and I know you're putting blood and tears into this budget i get it thank you anyone else all right we don't have a motion on the
floor did somebody want to make a motion on the floor do I need to give the numbers i don't know if we got the 2.25 numbers yet nancy do you want to share your screen again and just show us quickly or show us the amount of time it
takes so the highlighted ones Nancy or them yeah hold on one second just make sure that's what So that's the 225 yep it's an average of 7.25% for towns okay those those them yeah let me
just write them down real quick i feel uh I move that the school committee adopt the following budget for fiscal year 2026 operational budget 58,926,446 uh transportation budget 5 million so those are coming in at
255 29162 those are coming in at 2.55 those match it's already on the 2.55 budget hold on correct they all do it's it's going the change is just in the operating Patrick this is another
200,000 okay i'm sorry you see that the 675 haha okay i propose okay patrick Patrick before you go on why don't you start all the way over cool so that we can do it
correctly sorry this is the first This is the first thing I've ever put forward so uh I move that the school committee adopt the following budget for fiscal year 2026 operational budget 58,926,446 transportation budget 5,29,62 debt services
3,615,892 uh furthermore I propose that these budgets be utilized to calculate the fiscal year 2026 school assessment for member towns in accordance with statutory requirements additionally I recommend the authorization uh of the use of 1,872,226 from the excess and deficiency
account to offset the fiscal year 2026 operational budget this motion is made with the understanding that these budget allocations are in the best interest of the schools and the communities we serve aiming to provide quality education while being fiscally responsible i seek a second to this motion for further
discussion in a subsequent vote i second that is Patrick making the motion and Jill seconding all right any discussion oh Randy um I I I do want to say that um
there's been a few people that have been um thanking the administration and I I definitely want to say that as well um my opposition my objections my
questions never question the dedication and the work that the administration puts in my questions um come from just a difference of opinion and trying to find out information so I hope nobody ever feels
that I'm saying that the work is not being done and that um and that you're not putting effort in that is never what I am trying to say um that said I still have my reservations uh about some of the stuff
in the budget and hopefully we'll be able to work through some of that thank you Randy um Patrick you you I lowered it good thank you all right so we have a motion on the
floor any more discussion and I am going to say that um there is more work to be done on the budget and I will be sending out a spreadsheet for people to put in their availability of dates and times um I will send it out um this evening
hopefully and people can fill it out so that if we have to have another meeting we can get it done all right any more discussion on this before I take a vote everyone's good all right Randy
I'm going to say no june no kim yes lisa Bloom no tom Casey yes
jill Twig yes will Hackler yes patrick McFillips yes and myself is yes it does pass by 2/3 this is our ceiling
budget and it will be passed to the towns all right can I make a motion to resend the vote to close Ashby Elementary is that a second i'll second if I can i'm not sure the legistics on
that um I don't know um I would defer to Randy on this i think it's I think we don't know yet um so does the vote allowing the
superintendent to investigate what keeping a school open looks like kind of override that at this point puts that stop gap in place i I also would unfortunately say um it's
a little bit more specific on the agenda this evening that it says um discussion and budget adoption and it only talks about budget adoption um that I'm not sure that uh it's a complicated thing here because
I think like what Kim said that uh we're looking into it um I do think that we'd probably have to have legal involved i I'm fine with waiting on this i would still like um
you know discussions to be had i I understand I don't want to you know break any open meeting laws or any laws or anything so no I don't either yeah i think I think it just I think it' just be better right
now even without the open meeting laws um just because we we gave direction to take a look into that um so I I think I think that should be good for information because we have no new information this evening
um on the buildings uh to base a recent vote on um as far as anything that was presented okay just a different situation okay and that so there is no second on the motion so
um Brad whoops you're on mute i was just forgot to do that again um I I I guess I really don't have to say it where it's been rescended but um in the neighborhood of $1.1 million is baked into this 2.25 25 budget that
includes the closure of a building um or at least the investigation of keeping a building operational and a staff consolidation um without a building closure of some point of of some sort I should say we we wouldn't be able to get
to this to this number we'd almost have to go down to zero um because again you're taking out the consolidation piece which is about 700,000 in staff and at least a piece of the operational
costs of a building so I guess all I'm trying to say is whether it's Ashb Swanok or Spalding a building closure would would really or keeping a building at least operational but having the the school configuration
change is baked into the 225 that that's a part of the 225 so anything if we were to come back and say we're going to keep all the schools open next year um that 225 is going to look very very different um
because we would have to we'd end up with a problem i guess that's all I'm saying but the possibility of closing Squanook versus Ashb the thing that you have to know about Squan Cookook is there was a huge
project from MSBA done in Squanook and so their clawback money is is going to be substantial we still owe money on the project there's a debt service on it yes
Spalding was as you saw is a different situation but again regardless whether it's Spalding or Aspri I'm just saying that that a building a consolidation of some sort is baked into the 225 without that that 225 is going to
look much much different because how how we get there is going to involve um it's it's it's just going to create more issues for the district and and to be clear my my goal with
trying to explore this more is for the long haul um that without a miracle for this year I don't think that it's possible um to keep all the schools open and what that looks like might be different um but I
do think it's important to try to keep that door open for all schools to be viable for the future and so whatever information is found out um I think will be useful so that there's no paying back of any of the funds um for any of the
properties and and seeing what can be done because I do think with some creativity um there there could be uses for any of the schools um and just leave it at that that it doesn't have to be one in particular but that if there's um
the will I think that there's the opportunity to have things for the future so hopefully there'll be good news that um comes back from the discussions thank you Kim um next is everyone good next on the
agenda is the town of Pepper article that's just put in your packet for information that's how Townsen wrote their artic or not Townsen um Pepil wrote their article all right Randy on to policy
yes there are four policies um Kim uh you would have had chance to read this um another time but these are up for adoption they've already been out to uh for a first reading our policies um from the school committee get recommended to the full committee for a first reading
they go out for a minimum of three weeks um uh usually it's one full meeting between for the public to comment or for uh school committee members to comment if there's any changes that they want and then it comes back uh for a full adoption for any of the changes that
that got made these three that are up for adoption this evening for your benefit um these were all just uh except for actually we're going to skip the AC and just do the IMG I J O
A and I K um and these were just that came up in our 5-year review that we were changing um and doing some minor updates to so I'm going to make a motion to approve IMG animals in school JA field trips and
IK student progress reports to parents and guardians for adoption i second that is Randy making the motion and Lisa seconding um any discussion
all right Randy yes june yes Kim i will abstain from this tom yes jill yes will yes patrick yes and Lisa Bloom
you're on mute Lisa still on mute sorry I'm on my own yes all right and myself is Yes before we go any further um Kim if there are any committees that you would like to be on we will make a
motion on the next committee meeting um to make your appointment to those to any of the subcommittees if you'd like to be on them you can look at them and discuss i mean we can't do quorum but you can be on a few so
currently right now I think um the finance subcommittee is the only one that has quorum or has four the maximum that's the only one that does not have an available slot all right going on to warrants or warrant
committee patrick nothing um nothing they keep coming and I keep reviewing them and signing them nothing negotiation negotiations for teachers no but we'll have
upcoming uh Brandy anything with non teachers um communication communic community outreach and liaison um with the town meetings coming aboard or on March
10th um Brad did send out an email who would be doing what presentations and where Gary and myself are in Pil will Brandy and Brad will be in Townsen
and Nancy and June will be in Ashb um is that okay with everyone yes okay and I was going to say I just want to make sure that anybody who lives in any particular town you can go to your
town this is more of the presentation part of it i mean if anyone in PPE would like to do it I'll give you my slot but all right so that's just an update on
that um any other business i make a motion to adjourn okay before we do that we do have executive session but I'm going to skip executive session um it's just to approve minutes and I think everyone has had enough time
tonight and they need time back all right so I will take that motion so will made the motion tom seconded all right randy yes june yes kim yes tom yes
i think you said Jill it would cut out but yes um Will yes patrick yes lisa yes and myself is yes thank you everyone have a good night